What’s Missing From Your Business Right Now?

How do you think your business is doing right now? You’ve got a big business goal you’re looking to achieve, and you’re sure you’ve got the beginnings of a large customer base, and you’re doing well building it up. You’ve got the website design down, and you’re sure you’re working in a very positive and encouraging working environment, so what could be missing right now? 

Well, there could be a few things missing from the business plan in the first place, and you might have lost your way a little in recent times, and now’s your chance to get back on the right track. So in the interest of ensuring you’re working with everything you need to make a big success out of your business, let’s go through a few of the missing elements below. Keep them in mind if you’re experiencing a slow period, or are just looking to get back to the drawing board. 

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A Clear Gap in the Market

What are you selling right now? Have you identified a clear gap in the market for it? Do you offer something your competitors do not? Asking these is key because it’s questions like these that set you apart from the rest of the businesses in your niche. And if you’re missing out on asking them right now, it’s time to change that habit. 

Ask yourself how you can be different in all manner of things. Determine if you can get away with selling different products or services, or even posting different content. The key here is to have something visibly alternative about you, compared to the companies that are selling something similar to you, in order to set you apart and really conquer the niche you’re trying to move into. 

So maybe your product needs a different look? Maybe it needs a new feature? Or perhaps it needs to be called something different or come packaged with a different description? Maybe you, as a company, need to hold some different values that are very attractive to the modern customer’s eye – think local business trying to beat it out in a corporate world. All in all, no matter what you do here, as long as it’s a viable change that’ll really help you to stand out, you won’t be missing out on the market differentiation you’re in need of. 

Someone To Sell To

Now we come to the crux of the modern business’ problems: the customer base. Are you missing out on anything here? Because without the right people to sell to, and without knowing who you’re selling to and what makes them tick, you’re not going to be capitalizing on your profit making chances in the way you wish you were. 

Sure, people want to buy from you, and you’re starting to put together a mailing list, but this is just the beginning of your efforts in this area. You need to go on – identify some key features about your customer base; their age, their gender, where they live, what kind of money they make, where else they shop, and what someone with all of these factors needs in their life, etc. 

With all of that data in mind, you’re in a good spot business-wise if you can say with confidence who your customer is and why they would buy from you. In the marketing world, this is called a buyer persona and establishing several of those is a key strategy to establishing a business and expanding it.

There are several resources online. To start there are marketing templates you can consider. Or for a deeper dive into formulating one, I’d look at this blog post from Threecolts.

The Right Kind of Physical Space

Your business might seem a bit small right now, and for good reason. You’ve just started out, or you’re still finding your feet, and you’re willing to play things by ear and only work with what you need to. But in the long run, how is thinking this small and this safe going to help you? You need to have goals for the future, and in one of those goals lies some dreams of expansion! 

And if you’re going to expand, both literally and metaphorically, you’re going to need to start with the physical working space you own. It’s going to need expanding itself, or refining into usable ground, and that’s something you should be thinking about right now. It won’t hurt you to build up some great working relationships with local industrial builders that know the land and could seal your expansion deal for a great price. 

Maybe you could do with a warehouse for product storage in the future, or even a place to set up more viable working space for the team you’re planning to build. No matter what kind of working premises you need in the future, what you’re missing right now is taking the chance to secure them. 

The Right Kind of Online Space

Then we come to your branding efforts online, and just how much further you need to go. In the midst of setting up social media pages, and redesigning the website, are you sure you’ve got enough visibility to your brand? Are you sure your efforts go far enough? Don’t be afraid to ask these questions, because they’ll save you in the long run. 

Maybe you need to employ some more online marketing efforts here, such as an SEO strategy or a content schedule or even multimedia marketing, to really corner your online audience and supply them with what they’re looking for. Don’t worry, there are plenty of digital marketing tools you can make use of, and a lot of them are free to download too. As a small business, you can’t afford to miss out! 

The Real Takeaway Here:

Think about what’s really missing from your business right now. Maybe it’s the way you look to the customer, maybe it’s the customer itself, maybe it’s the space you’re working with, or maybe it’s how you brand yourself online. Because no matter what needs to change here, you’ve got the chance to identify what’s going awry, and then grab the bull by the horns and really sell yourself for the future ahead. 

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