As a business, it is important to update yourself, to succeed. We can learn this from looking at successful businesses around us. Apple regularly updates its products. Toyota updates its models yearly, even your internet provider, like Spectrum Internet offers regular updates. Why shouldn’t we?
Success in business is never guaranteed. You can do everything right, but still fail; while someone else can make major mistakes and still succeed. That said, it is also important to realize that there are still things you can do, to better your chances of achieving success. Zig Ziglar’s iconic quote “Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude” should be your motto.
Here are 5 secrets you can use, along with your new attitude to succeed in business:
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5 Ways to Improve Your Chances of Success in Business
People like Steve Jobs were successful, why? They understood something that we overlook. The fundamentals of business are simple. Find a need, cater to that need, cash out. The reason why businesses fail is that they forget to follow fundamentals, and they forget to adapt to their changing environment. Why did Nokia lose its market stronghold? It couldn’t adapt to changing market trends.
Here are 5 fundamentals of business. Following them can better your chances of success in business:
- Create Something of Value
- Try to Improve Lives
- Be Authentic. Be Transparent
- Be Positive
- Understand the 80-20 Rule
#1. Create Something of Value
If sales are the core of success, creating something of value is the cornerstone. It is equally important for a business to offer something valuable. You could be the best at selling; you could hire the best sales team for your business, yet fail in the long run if there is nothing of value in your product or service. Take a look at some of the most successful businesses today. They all have one thing in common. Their product or service has value.
Facebook brought the world together. It allowed us to connect with friends we lost contact with years ago. Google provided the most accurate search results. Microsoft gave the world a means to be efficient. Uber gave people a way to earn some extra money while providing others with a necessary service. The list of examples is endless.
#2. Try to Improve Lives
Do not focus on simply adding value to a product. Try to find a way to improve the lives of your consumer. You don’t even have to create a new product, updating an existing product works just as good. Uber didn’t create a taxi service. It just found a way to improve it and the lives of its consumers.
The same is true to Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg didn’t invent social media or the need for us to stay connected. He took an existing idea and improved upon it. Packaged it differently and sold it to the world. We ate it up like candy, why? Because it improved our lives.
#3. Be Authentic. Be Transparent
We have all encountered sleazy salespersons. It is rarely a pleasant experience to deal with one. Don’t bring that culture into your business. You can never succeed with it. Being transparent and true to your nature goes a long way in building customer relations. No one will judge you for wanting to make a sale. No one will judge you for wanting your business to succeed. So why hide your true intentions?
Do not make unrealistic claims. Not every product is the best product in the world. Don’t claim it to be. If your product is good, highlight the features. Where it is better than competitor products, tell your customers. But don’t make false claims. You might be able to make the sale by making false claims, but then you should forget about customer retention. No successful brand was built by making false claims.
#4. Be Positive
Being positive is not just something you should do for your own peace of mind. Remember, positivity is infectious. It can spread across your entire business. If what you are doing in your business is not working, don’t start being negative. Because like positivity, negativity is also infectious; and unlike positivity, having a negative atmosphere is bad for business.
Before success comes failure. Ask any successful person you know, they will be able to tell you more about failure than they would about success. Learning from failure is the best thing you can do to achieve success.
#5. Understand the 80-20 Rule
The 80-20 rule, if you don’t already know, states that 80 percent of results come from 20 percent of the efforts. This doesn’t mean that you can put in 20 percent effort and expect 80 percent results. No, it does not work like that. If it did, we would all be successful business owners. What it means is that out of all your efforts, only 20 percent would prove successful. So successful, in fact, that they would account for 80 percent of your bottom line.
Final Words
Lastly, and this is no ‘secret’ customer support is your backbone. Why is it that big businesses focus a lot of their resources on providing customer support? You don’t even have to look far away from your device to realize this. Spectrum Internet and Phone, or any other service provider, allocate hundreds of resources and millions of dollars in providing customer support. They do this because it is good for the business. If the customer feels valued and taken care of, they are likely to return as customers. More importantly, a satisfied customer is likely to refer your product or service to a friend.
