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9 Tips For Entrepreneurs For A Successful Business

Entrepreneurs are the driving force behind any country’s economy and development. They generate business, bring wealth, create jobs, and enhance the GDP of a nation.

Yet, being an entrepreneur means wearing many hats and taking on several duties. In this rapidly changing market, businesses need constant reinvention to adapt and grow. According to a survey, 92% of the ventures had to pitch new strategies to survive in the Post Covid-19 market.

Starting a venture is difficult, but scaling it is twice as hard. So, how can you be a successful entrepreneur?

Worry not! These insights from successful entrepreneurs will help you navigate the path to a successful business.

Make a Solid Business Plan

A business plan is when you brainstorm new ideas and materialize them on paper. Whether you are a startup or an established company, you always need a business plan to grow. If you are a young aspiring entrepreneur, start with finding your passion. Know your skills to pick something that motivates and energizes you. Be prepared to face criticism and failure, whatever may come.

There is no holy grail for a successful business, but a significant digital presence can do wonders. For instance, many entrepreneurs recommend a functional and user-friendly business app. You can hire an expert AngularJS App Development Company for business growth.

Be a Visionary

Only a visionary can be a successful entrepreneur. Thus, projecting the future goals for your venture is crucial.

● Make a board vision for where you want to see your company in the next ten years.

● Refine your ideas and lay the framework to achieve the set goals.

● Determine new market prospects for future investments.

● Distinguish your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT).

● Analyze your customer activities and trends to your advantage.

Build a Strong Team

As it is rightly said, you are as strong as your team. Behind every successful venture, there is a team of competent and reliable people. Build a winning team by hiring the right talent — as it can make or break the team. Recruit people with different skill sets but align with your vision. It is always beneficial to have people who can multitask.

Leverage Marketing Tools

According to a survey, only 2 out of 3 businesses survive over three years. However, a study shows how three small businesses sustained beyond five years by implementing brilliant strategies — efficient marketing being one of them. They used cost-effective and creative digital marketing approaches for advertising, marketing, recruiting, and increasing brand awareness.

● Take advantage of all the marketing tools available — whether it is print media or digital.

● As we all know, sales are the lifeblood of any business. So, increasing sales will keep the business up and running.

● Focus on expanding your reach to target potential customers, thereby generating more revenue. Take advantage of free marketing tools like Google My Business, etc.

Manage Finances!

Setting up a new business always costs more than what you expected. In every business model, all decisions involve some risk. Hence, managing funds and reducing risk factors are a part of an entrepreneur’s life.

Allocate your funds wisely, set aside a fund for financial emergencies. Nobody knows what will happen tomorrow! So, get insurance and protect your venture from any accidents.

Be Voracious

Learning is an ongoing process. Be creative and seek new ideas — never standstill.

● Actively take part in seminars and attend business expos.

● Read biographies of successful business people of any field.

● Observe the success and failures of great achievers in your field and learn from their mistakes.

● Stay hungry for knowledge — learn about new technologies and how they can benefit you in expansion.

Evolve and Adapt with Time!

One thing about time — if you do not learn to adapt and evolve with changing time, you will be left behind. Every successful entrepreneur has business agility and the ability to adapt to new technology and methods to build an empire. The market needs are ever-changing — what works now may not work after a few years or even months.

Find your Guru

Having a mentor can be a great asset. It can be someone you trust — a family member, former college, or an entrepreneur itself. A little guidance and motivation when you are down can push you beyond your fears. In addition, a guru/mentor can shorten your learning curve by giving you valuable inputs that can positively impact your business.

Trust Your Instincts

Always have a go-getter attitude! Being a young entrepreneur, sometimes you get too comfortable with the data sheets and fear taking risks. But, remember that every decision you take will involve some risk; you should evaluate which ones to take, and more importantly, when. Sometimes, calling meetings, analyzing the pros and cons can delay action. So, learn to act fast and make decisions — if not, you can miss an excellent opportunity.

Final Thoughts

There is no perfect recipe for a thriving business. Success doesn’t come overnight — it requires a lot of nitty-gritty planning and hard work. You must have a unique idea, dedication, planning, and grit to achieve your goals. However, the above tips can propel you in the right direction and prepare you for challenges.

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About The Author

Lisa Dinh is a thorough and meticulous Content Analyst. She commits herself to continuous learning and focuses on sharing ideas and techniques learned from her experiences. And she is a passionate writer who loves writing about health and wellness. She writes in a concise manner so that the information is helpful for everyone.

Do You Need a Business Intelligence Dashboard?

The advent of artificial intelligence and machine learning has advanced the capabilities of contemporary business intelligence (BI) tools considerably. With that said, the insights returned are inly as useful as the user’s ability to interpret them.

BI dashboard software has made this easier to accomplish by providing operational insight with data visualization, reporting, analysis, and more.

So, in that regard, the answer to the central question here — do you need a business intelligence dashboard — is yes, with a caveat.

Read on.

What is a BI Dashboard?

This tool puts the results of even the most in-depth analytics in the hands of those who need the information most. Moreover, the dashboard does so in a manner that makes it easy to both understand and apply to the situation at hand. Embeddable dashboard tools enable automated data visualization, which can deliver key takeaways in a way that can be readily digested.

Even better, this makes it easy for anyone on your team, who is authorized to do so, to make requests, access the results and use them to effect decision-making. Moreover, flexibility is a core aspect of the best business intelligence dashboards, as they can be tailored specifically to the individual needs of a multitude of end users.

The Caveat

Sudheesh Nair, CEO of ThoughtSpot, one of the industry’s leading data analytics firms, says the dashboard has an inherent limitation users need to keep in mind. The issue drawing his concern is predicated upon the way data has traditionally been used to enable companies to serve customers in an informed manner.

To understand his perspective, one must look back at 2020 and all of the disruptions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Businesses were suddenly forced to cope with conditions they’d never seen before, let alone anticipated. Nair says relying upon historical aggregated data going forward, given the past year’s disruptions have rendered it less relevant, is problematic. Therefore, a business intelligence dashboard relying upon the traditional analytics model is likely to be inaccurate.

The Solution

Meanwhile, ThoughtSpot has positioned itself as something of a “Google” for data. Its platform works in a similar fashion to that of the venerable search engine, in that users can ask specific questions based upon the data provided and get answers to the question they asked. However, with ThoughtSpot, they also get alternative questions and answers that have some bearing on the query.

As an example, Nair cites a scenario in which a financial institution is looking to get existing customers to use more of its products. In this case, the lender is trying to get holders of its car loans to take advantage of its mortgages too. So it runs a query to see which car loan customers might be considering buying a home.

The results come back and customers identified by the algorithm get a mailer touting the benefits of the home loan. However, there is a group of car loan customers out there holding a bit of ill will against the lender for late charges imposed on payments that arrived one day after the due date. Irritated with the creditor, these borrowers ignore the offer altogether.

Had the company used a platform that leveraged AI the way ThoughtSpot does, those customers would have been flagged, giving the lender the option of not sending them the offer, or better still — sending the offer with an apology and a refund of the late fee.

Looking Forward as Well as Backward

Having this capability gives ThoughtSpot the ability to take a use case driven approach. This is going to be key in coming years because the COVID-19 disruption is going to skew results based upon the traditional aggregation models. While companies will still need the ability to ask “what”, they also need to be able to ask “what if” and “what’s next”.

So, do you need a business intelligence dashboard? It is still useful, however, you really need to rethink the way it’s informed if you want the best actionable results going forward.

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Is Entrepreneurship for You? 5 Ways to Launch Your Own Business

Almost everyone stuck in a cube-farm daydreams of launching their own business. In today’s world of self branding and social media networks, it is totally possible to start your own company. You’ll probably need a small business loan to get started, in which case you should learn about the factors that lenders take into consideration.

Today, there are more than 20 million non-employer businesses out there, with more popping up every day. The valuations of start-ups have also hit an all time high, with 40 valued at $1 billion or more, according to a recent NY Times article.

If you think you’re ready to become your own boss, here are five tips on launching your own business.

1. Get Ready to Side Hustle When starting a business, most people will lose money during their first year than make it. This is because you have to dish out cash for marketing materials, work space, an accountant and building up clientele. If you’re not lucky enough to be a trust-fund baby or have a group of investors pounding down your door, you’re probably going to use your own money to start your company.

Side hustling is a great method for starting a business by using the salary from your full time gig as funding. After the regular 9 to 5, side hustlers will then spend their free time working on building up their own business. Put a portion of your paycheck aside each week and dedicate it to launching your dreams. The key is to use your salary to invest in your startup before completely jumping ship.

2. Test and Test Again Many female entrepreneurs fail because they invest tons of time and money in their products before evaluating whether or not there’s a market for them. Before you launch your business, make sure that you will have customers. Whether you’re planning to start an online marketing firm or sell cupcakes, ensure that there is a need and want for your services or products before pursuing your dream.

3. Build a Brand Sophia Amoruso transformed her one-woman vintage clothing operation into a multi-billion dollar e-commerce empire. One of the things that set Amoruso’s company, NastyGal, apart from others was that she constantly interacted with customers via social media, building a friendly and reputable brand for herself. When launching a business, it’s critical to create a professional and trustworthy online presence that customers want to come back to time and time again. Use social media networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, to your advantage. It’s easy to create a free online marketing campaign using these tools. Interacting with customers can help create a wider network for your brand.

4. Form a Mission Statement Your mission statement is about what your business does for the consumer, employee and owner. Having a mantra tied to your brand will allow customers to know what your company does and what services or products you provide. It also narrows the big picture into a vision statement that can help you create a successful game plan for your fledgling company.

5. Consider Co-working Co-working spaces are becoming more popular everyday as more folks decide to follow their dreams. Not only does renting a co-working space allow you to have a dedicated space for your company that’s not in your house, but it also enables you to network with creative, like minded entrepreneurs. Many co-working spaces also offer classes and networking parties for their members, helping you to promote your startup.

Entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone. It takes a lot of hard work, time and dedication. But if you truly want something and you put in the elbow grease, anything is possible.