Startup Stepping Stones - 5 Tips on Making Your New Venture More Competitive

Starting a new business? You’re not alone. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), there are 2.17 actively trading businesses in Australia, with an increase of 2.4% from June 2015. As it stands, you need to be doing plenty to make sure you’re standing out - both online and in the marketplace you’re working in.

 

It’s difficult, but certainly not impossible, to make an impact as a new business, and we’ve got a few key tips here to make sure you can make your new venture that much more competitive. Let’s take a look.


Provide maximum value

 

One of the biggest reasons why a customer will come back again (and will tell their friends about you) is because your business provides more value than the next one. You need to find what it is about your product that offers value and then capitalise on this with a strong message to your customers.

 

Say you are a real estate search engine who offer a daily list of the best listings for a certain area, customised based on a customer search. You need to be leveraging data scraping to firstly provide this up-to-date information, and you then need to be delivering the information in an easy-to-read and digest format.

 

Whether it’s an email, a customer portal or a link to your site - figure out what your customers want and then give exactly that to them.

 

Offer exceptional customer service

 

Every single customer needs to be treated with time, respect and care. People have a lot of options these days; they can pick and choose from a huge range of providers and can quite easily walk away if the service isn’t up to scratch.

 

Don’t give people a reason to walk away from you - give them a reason to stay. Whether it’s follow-up feedback, a free gift for shopping with you or something else special, make sure you offer exceptional customer service every time.

 

Admit it when you make a mistake

 

So, we’ll start by stating the obvious: no one is perfect! However, if you take the time to admit any mistakes that you make you’ll find that people are pretty quick to forgive, especially if you offer some kind of incentive for the experience.

 

If people have left some negative feedback about you online, then own it. Get in touch with the person, talk to them - and most importantly, learn from the experience. If you handle the experience well, the takeaway can actually be that your customers think more highly of you.

Be honest about what you offer

 

If you are a new business offering a drop-shipping product then you need to let your customers know that there is going to be a pretty hefty wait for the first roll out of your products. If you are clean about what you provide from the get-go then people aren’t going to get mad when things take a little longer. They’ll expect the wait and won’t get mad.

 

Plus, if your customers catch you lying about something that you offer you can bet they’ll tell others about it - and it usually won’t be pretty.

 

Offer a guarantee

 

People love to know that what they’re paying for is watertight.

If you have the kind of products where you can offer some kind of guarantee you should. Especially as a new business. It’s important that you take the time to build a reputation as a trusted business, because that’s one of the key reasons why people will keep coming back to you time and time again: trust.

 

It’s not easy to stand out, but with the right commitment and dedication to your customers and an ongoing focus on doing the right thing in business you’ll get to where you want to be.