Tips on Starting and Running a Successful Business

1. Offer what people want to buy, not just what you want to sell Often, people jump into a business, built around a product or service that they think will be successful, rather than one that is already proven to have a market.

2. Make cash flow a priority One thing is for certain, cash flow is the lifeblood of a business, and it is absolutely essential to consistently feed bottom-line profits. The key to any successful business is finding ways of getting cash flowing immediately.

3.Continually look for ways to keep costs low All the cash flow in the world is worthless if it’s not positive cash flow, which means you have to bring in more cash than you pay out.

4. When planning, always overestimate expenses and underestimate revenues Business owners and entrepreneurs all agree that they have generally underestimated start up and running costs and overestimated profits in those key first years of business.

5. Make sales and marketing a focus In business, nothing happens until a sale is made. From the get go, you’ll need to find a good way to get leads, convert leads into sales, and make sure you keep getting repeat sales from your customers. Marketing and sales is key to this process. 6. Find ways to increase profits Most agree that there are five basic drivers that will lead to in - creased profits and it’s as simple as getting more leads, convert - ing more leads into customers, increasing the number of times those customers buy from you, increasing the average price point of your sales and increasing your profit margins.

7. Test and measure everything If you are not measuring, then you don’t know what’s working.

8. Embrace the fact that learning more equals earning more If you really want to succeed, you’ll need to be committed to learning as much as you can about sales, marketing and operations.