Business Hacks: A Guide for Start-ups and Entrepreneurs

265 Pages·2015·1.06 MB·English

by  Leong

Business Hacks
A Guide for Start-ups and Entrepreneurs

Jamie Rice
and
Andrew Leong
Copyright© 2015 Jamie Rice and Andrew Leong The right of Jamie Rice and
Andrew Leong to be identified as the Authors has been asserted in accordance
with the Copyright, Design and patents Act 1988.
All rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
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that in which it is published, without prior written consent of the Publisher.
NOTE: The authors and publisher of this book and the accompanying materials
have used their best efforts in preparing this book. The authors and publisher
make no representation or warranties with respect to the accuracy, applicability,
fitness, or completeness of the contents of this book. The information contained
in this book is strictly for educational purposes. Therefore, if you wish to apply
ideas contained in this book, you are taking full responsibility for your actions.
No liability can be accepted for loss or expense incurred as a result of
implementing the ideas and statements within this book.
All links are for information purposes only and are not warranted for content,
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Edited by: Zoe Markham from markhamcorrect.com Book cover by:
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Table of Contents
DETAILED TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Part I: SET UP
BUSINESS IDEA GENERATION
PROTOTYPING
LOCATION, UTILITIES AND EQUIPMENT
RAISING CAPITAL
BRANDING
WEBSITE CREATION
SETTING UP COMPANY EMAIL ADDRESSES
Part II: OPERATIONS
SUPPLY CHAIN
DROPSHIPPING
FINANCE
CUSTOMER SERVICE
Part III: SELLING
SALES
TELEPHONE SALES
FINDING CLIENTS
SALES VISTS AND MEETINGS
NEGOTIATING
WRITTEN SALES
DOOR-TO-DOOR SELLING
Part IV: Marketing
ADVERTISING
NETWORKING
VOUCHERS
EMAIL MARKETING
Part V: Online Marketing
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION
BLOGGING FOR BUSINESS
PAY PER CLICK ADVERTISING
WEBSITE ANALYTICS
AFFILIATION MARKETING
ONLINE MARKETPLACES
SUMMARY
REFERENCES & BIBLIOGRAPHY
INTRODUCTION
Are you looking to start your own business? Does the whole concept overwhelm
you? Are you unsure where to start or how to get your business up and running?
Maybe you’re involved with a start-up, but you’re feeling a bit lost? Are you
confused as to how you would actually take your customers’ payments? Does
selling and marketing your business seem terrifying? Have you read several
business-related books, but still feel none the wiser? If your answer to any of
these questions is “yes” then we want you to know you’re not alone. Everyone
feels like this when they start.
This book was written for you and for anyone who’s found that many of the
business books available tell you what you need to do, but don’t tell you how to
actually do it. How do you sell your product or services? What do you say to
persuade people to buy from you? How do you set up a website and do it without
spending lots of money? How do you set up your business bank accounts? How
do you come up with creative ideas? How do you do marketing? Where do you
go to get a logo created?
We decided to write a business book that breaks the mould in giving readers
step-by-step instructions on how to create a business. We’ve done this by
breaking down and explaining the functions of a business with easy to follow
instructions and examples.
We’ve also created a library of online resources that you can download for free.
At times the book will refer to these resources, because some things are best
experienced first-hand rather than read about. Whilst we’ll demonstrate many
topics in detail, we’ll touch on others, such as technology, only lightly, simply
because detailed instructions will quickly become out-of-date as technology
advances.
Whilst this book tells you step-by-step what to do, it won’t work unless you
actually follow these steps. It’s a bit like reading about climbing a mountain:
you’ve still got to get up and climb the mountain to reach the top. We’ll tell you
where to put your hands and feet for the climb, but be prepared, it’ll still be hard
physical work and you’ll occasionally slip.
You’ll notice that there’s some repetition within the book. This is not only
because certain subjects crossover naturally, but also to reinforce and help you
embed the learning. You can read this book from cover-to-cover, but it’s also
designed in such a way that you can dip into any chapter to help you tackle the
problem you’re facing.
In fact, while you can read this book from start to finish, it’ll be difficult to
absorb and retain the rich information within. Some of the content you won’t be
able to relate to until you’re at that particular stage of your business and faced
with that specific problem. Therefore, we recommend that you keep this book
with you as a guide, so that when you face specific problems, whether it’s
website development or sales, you can simply refer back to the book.
DON’T TRY TO BOIL THE OCEAN
When many people think of becoming entrepreneurs they think of starting large
billion pound companies. This is fantastic, and we want you to keep this dream.
However, companies like this are at the mature stage of their business life. They
didn’t start like this. Their business founders learnt to crawl before they could
run. That’s what we recommend to you. Therefore, rather than trying to build a
billion pound business overnight, at first build a company that generates £500 a
month.
By building a business that generates £500 a month you’ll learn how to create a
product, how to sell and market it, how to distribute it, and how to get
customers. You’ll learn how to build a business.
This will have some very powerful psychological effects. Trying to build a
billion pound business will seem so unattainable that most people will give up
before they even start. However, building a £500 a month business is realistic
and achievable. It takes the pressure off and the fear of failure out of the
equation. Once you hit £500 a month your confidence will start to grow and
you’ll start to feel self-sufficient. You can then aim for £1000 a month. At this
point your brain will start looking for ways to cut costs, operate better and
increase sales in order to reach your £1000 target. You’ll be thinking and acting
like an entrepreneur.
Part I
SET UP
BUSINESS IDEA GENERATION
In this chapter we’ll look at creative ways to come up with new businesses,
products and services. You may already know or have an idea of what product or
service your business is going to be providing. In this case you can use this
chapter to question your idea, or improve it. You might want to start a business,
but you haven’t got an idea for a product or service yet. In this particular case
you can use the techniques and tools in this chapter to help you create a product
or service. For simplicity, for the rest of this chapter we’ll use the term “product”
to mean either a product or a service.
Firstly, we want to stress the importance of only opening a business in
something you’re passionate about. If you’re new to business you’re going to
make a lot of mistakes, you’re going to be working late nights and you’re going
to be learning an extraordinary amount. If you’re not passionate about your
business you just won’t have the energy or motivation to make it a success.
For example, if you’re passionate about fashion you might decide to open up a
business in:
• clothing, shoes, bags or jewellery
• physical or online fashion magazine
• freelance fashion designing
• fashion events
• modelling agency
• fashion advice
• fashion retail store
• Tailors or alterations
As you can see the range of businesses for one industry is vast and this is just a
sample, but whatever you do you should be passionate about it.
Before we delve into product development it’s important to know that there are
two central ways of being competitive:
1. Selling products at a lower price than your competition. Good examples of
this include: Poundland, Aldi, Home Bargains and Primark.
2. Offering your customers a different product from your competitors.
Therefore, enabling you to sell at a higher price. A good example of this is
Apple in the technology industry.
If you produce a product that can’t be competitive in price or offer something
different then you’ll have difficulty selling your product. This is especially true
as a new company that customers or clients won’t immediately trust or
recognise. Don’t let this obstacle put you off, instead let it motivate you to
innovate and create ideas that disrupt the market place.
“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me. Going to bed at
night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.” -
Steve Jobs.
New product development is simply the process of creating a new product that
offers benefits to the customer. It can be a completely new product or it can be
the modification of an existing product that enhances and improves it. The
customer will benefit from lower costs or better functionality.
Your natural tendency will be to ask customers what they want and then provide
them with this service. While this offers some benefit, top business people and
inventors know that customers don’t always know what they want. You have to
show them what they want. Henry Ford, who developed and manufactured the
first automobile, once famously said:
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
Steve Jobs also famously said:
“People don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”
You may notice we refer to Steve Jobs and Apple several times in this chapter.
From a business perspective you can’t talk about product development and
innovation without referring to one of the most innovative individuals of our
time.
Now at this stage you might be panicking and thinking that you’re not creative.
You might be worried that you don’t have the engineering or computer
programming skills to create new products. This isn’t true, you are creative, and
this section of the book will help you tap into your creative ability. Firstly, many
people confuse art with creativity. Artists are creative, but not all creative people
are artists. Creativity can be as simple as connecting things and making
something simpler. For example, people used do their food shopping by going to
the bakery for bread, the butchers for meat and the greengrocer for fruit. Then
someone had the idea of a supermarket, which combined all these individual
shops under one roof. This creative idea was ingenious and didn’t necessitate
any technical skills. You too can create such innovate ideas.
You might have come up with a product that requires technical skills that you
don’t have. This isn’t a problem and many entrepreneurs come up with