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These are a few of my observations after my wife started a brick and mortar store appealing to a wide audience and transitioned to a web only store with a more specific focus.
#1 – Have a business plan. Stuff it full of real financial information; define who you are, and who you aren’t. As a manager for a similar store to what she started, my wife had some real information. It was not enough for the wife’s store to ultimately be successful, but she lasted long enough as a brick and mortar to survive and then thrive on the web.
#2 – Be able to survive if you do far worse than you reasonable expect to do.
#3 – Particularly if you are brick and mortar, have a plan for getting out if the business does not work out. This is very important if you lease space – have a way out of the lease at years 1, 2 & 3 if you sign a 5 year lease.
#4 – Follow the money. Some aspects of your operation will do better than others. Do more of what makes money and less of what does not. Sounds easy but many business startups I have seen stick with what they love to do, and not what makes money.
#5 – Stick your toe in the water, at least twice, before jumping into a new product/market. You can sell anything – once, and sometimes twice. The biggest way we have lost money is to overestimate the market for something and get caught with too much inventory.
#6 – Start small. Odds are if you think you need $10k to get into a market, you can get into the same market for half or far less. If the market you want to enter is as good as you think it will be, you can afford to come back later and buy better stuff/more equipment. If it is not, you are almost always simply out the money. I have seen many people fall in the trap of “having” to spend big bucks to “do it right” or they think their name/reputation will irreparably harmed. Time and time again I have seen this is not true. People buy what they think is the best value for the money – right now – not what you were a year ago. Plus many things you think will increase your value proposition – won’t.
#7 – Make big, bold moves when the data demands action but your mind is scared to death to spend money. I have had to drag my wife kicking and screaming into spending money when the data demanded it, and she has had to drag me kicking and screaming into spending money when increased business caused the current equipment/technology to burn us out mentally and make mistakes. In hindsight she was totally right and I should have acted sooner.
#8 – Many sure fire business increasers aren’t. To shocking degrees at times. Pay for must haves and be sure paying for what are really nice-to-haves won’t affect business viability if they don’t increase profits.
#9 – For most people, Google Adwords is like buying crack. You feel good right now but you need a new fix next month. The traffic from Google Adwords will cost as much or more than the revenue from it. And the revenue from Adwords will stop the moment you stop paying for it.
#10 – Almost everyone who pays for a full fledged retail website is unhappy about it at the end. The difference between winners and losers here is if you end up scrapping what they did and starting over, or having something that at least works or can be fixed by someone else.
#11 – The people doing your retail website don’t know how to sell retail over the web. If you rely on them for how your site functions and flows, your odds of having something that works in the end are very low.
#12 – Don’t buy any website that requires someone else to maintain it. You can’t afford it and the updates will be too slow.
#13 – Everyone is a ‘SEO’ expert. SEO IS A CORE FUNCTION OF YOUR WEBSITE, just like ringing up the actual sales, and you can’t outsource the responsibility for SEO. You can outsource the grunt work, but not the responsibility.
#14 – Give it time. Some of our best products didn’t sell at all for a year. After some point in time, however, get rid of things people don’t want. They distract from the things that people do want.
#1 – Have a business plan. Stuff it full of real financial information; define who you are, and who you aren’t. As a manager for a similar store to what she started, my wife had some real information. It was not enough for the wife’s store to ultimately be successful, but she lasted long enough as a brick and mortar to survive and then thrive on the web.
#2 – Be able to survive if you do far worse than you reasonable expect to do.
#3 – Particularly if you are brick and mortar, have a plan for getting out if the business does not work out. This is very important if you lease space – have a way out of the lease at years 1, 2 & 3 if you sign a 5 year lease.
#4 – Follow the money. Some aspects of your operation will do better than others. Do more of what makes money and less of what does not. Sounds easy but many business startups I have seen stick with what they love to do, and not what makes money.
#5 – Stick your toe in the water, at least twice, before jumping into a new product/market. You can sell anything – once, and sometimes twice. The biggest way we have lost money is to overestimate the market for something and get caught with too much inventory.
#6 – Start small. Odds are if you think you need $10k to get into a market, you can get into the same market for half or far less. If the market you want to enter is as good as you think it will be, you can afford to come back later and buy better stuff/more equipment. If it is not, you are almost always simply out the money. I have seen many people fall in the trap of “having” to spend big bucks to “do it right” or they think their name/reputation will irreparably harmed. Time and time again I have seen this is not true. People buy what they think is the best value for the money – right now – not what you were a year ago. Plus many things you think will increase your value proposition – won’t.
#7 – Make big, bold moves when the data demands action but your mind is scared to death to spend money. I have had to drag my wife kicking and screaming into spending money when the data demanded it, and she has had to drag me kicking and screaming into spending money when increased business caused the current equipment/technology to burn us out mentally and make mistakes. In hindsight she was totally right and I should have acted sooner.
#8 – Many sure fire business increasers aren’t. To shocking degrees at times. Pay for must haves and be sure paying for what are really nice-to-haves won’t affect business viability if they don’t increase profits.
#9 – For most people, Google Adwords is like buying crack. You feel good right now but you need a new fix next month. The traffic from Google Adwords will cost as much or more than the revenue from it. And the revenue from Adwords will stop the moment you stop paying for it.
#10 – Almost everyone who pays for a full fledged retail website is unhappy about it at the end. The difference between winners and losers here is if you end up scrapping what they did and starting over, or having something that at least works or can be fixed by someone else.
#11 – The people doing your retail website don’t know how to sell retail over the web. If you rely on them for how your site functions and flows, your odds of having something that works in the end are very low.
#12 – Don’t buy any website that requires someone else to maintain it. You can’t afford it and the updates will be too slow.
#13 – Everyone is a ‘SEO’ expert. SEO IS A CORE FUNCTION OF YOUR WEBSITE, just like ringing up the actual sales, and you can’t outsource the responsibility for SEO. You can outsource the grunt work, but not the responsibility.
#14 – Give it time. Some of our best products didn’t sell at all for a year. After some point in time, however, get rid of things people don’t want. They distract from the things that people do want.
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