Marketing Strategies For Small Business - The 7 Steps to Business Success

Hello, and welcome to "The 7 Steps to Business Success” My name is Peter Fehon, and I have been helping people in Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s) for more than 30 years now.

In the early years I was a partner in a medium sized CPA firm in a large regional city just outside Sydney, Australia. I have now taken those skills and experience into the largest business community in Australia to help businesses of any size to survive and prosper, regardless of the economic climate.

I have seen, and survived, the 1973 Recession, the 1987 Stock Market Crash, the 1990 Property Crash, Interest Rates as high as 21% p.a. during “the Recession we had to have” in the early nineties, as well as “the good times” in between all these events. I have been coaching people in business even before “business coaching” was recognised as a profession. My wife, Trish, and I have also operated a number of businesses in various industries over this period.

I would like to share some of the ideas and practices that I have developed during my business life to help you make the most of any situation. By mastering these 7 easy steps you are guaranteed to finish this current year in a better position than when you started it.

1. KNOW YOUR ABILITIES.

The first thing you need to do is to know what your abilities are. By a bit of self examination you can find out what you are good at, and not so good at. Remember, you must be HONEST with yourself. Now is not the time to be “talking it up” or, worse still, “selling yourself short”. You need to rate yourself in all the skills that are required to effectively run your business, including: - Planning & Goal Setting, Sales, Marketing, Cashflow Management, Leadership, Management & Administration.

2. BACK YOURSELF.

Once you have identified your strengths and weaknesses you have started the process of continual improvement. You will have identified a number of skills that you have and, in fact, you are probably even better at these than you have given yourself credit for. Don’t be afraid to back yourself in these areas, after all, these strengths are what have got you to this point already. You will have identified a few weaknesses, and you should look to fill these gaps with other peoples’ strengths.

3. UNDERSTAND “WHY” YOU ARE IN BUSINESS.

I used to tell myself I was building my business to provide for my family, but I eventually realised that I was doing it to satisfy my need to feel “important”. There is nothing wrong with either of these motives, provided you understand what it is that drives you.

4. HAVE A PLAN – AND KEEP REVIEWING IT.

One of the most rewarding things that I do when I am on a coaching assignment is sharing the excitement when my student achieves one of their goals. I always like to have Business Goals and Personal Goals running alongside each other. In small business it is hard to separate some of these anyway. Imagine you want to visit the Great Wall of China, you are going to need a “Plan” to get there. The “Plan” needs to address so many things in order to give you a chance of realising your goal. You will need to consider such things as:- How much will it cost?; When do I want to go?; Who do I want to take with me?; What do I have to do in order to take that much time off work?; Which route will I take?; What injections should I get from my Doctor before I go?; What level of fitness will I need to enjoy the destination?; etc. Each of these Topics can be broken down into a series of smaller questions, each of which can be answered without stopping you in your tracks. The same principle applies to building a Business Plan. Don’t be daunted by the thought of having to write a Business Plan. Chunk it down and it’s a breeze. Your Business Plan might include:-
• Executive Overview
• Financial Resources
• Human Resources
• Marketing Initiatives
• Revenue Budgets and Cash flow Projections

There are only the first four steps here. If you are interested in the report, you can visit my landing page: http://www.marketingstrategiesforsmallbusiness.com/ to subscribe your contact detail and get the full report.

PETER FEHON B.BUS, CA, CPA
Founder – Fehon Consulting Pty Limited, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
www.businesswithpeter.com

Contact Information

Peter Fehon

B.BUS, CA, CPA

Fehon Consulting Pty Limited

Contact via E-mail