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How will I set a sustainable business?

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Report Kabua's answer

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No doubt, sustaining a business is very challenging. Here are five things that I think can help:

(1) Have Conversations with Customers – Your customer defines your business more than you do. Without customers, you have no business. It is critically important to reach out and talk to your customers or potential customers if you have an idea. Find out how you can improve your products and services. Does this idea make sense – will this solve the customers problem the way they want it to? Customers often have silent expectations – they will not tell you what they are thinking. You have to reach out to them directly and find out what is wrong. Pulling in feedback from customers (or potential customers) helps sustain the business.

(2) Monitor the Competition – Go visit the competition. See what products, prices, promotions and other practices they are using to service customers. You want to match or beat them where possible. You do not want to lose customers to the competition. Once you lose a customer, it is very difficult to get them back. Pay attention to what your competition is doing so you can be pro-active before losing customers to the competition. You should also monitor trends in your respective industry and country – things like new innovations, social change, and political unrest. Pay attention to what is going on the outside of your business so you don’t get blind-sided.

(3) Subscription Based Where Practical – One way to build in more sustainability into a business is to lock-in recurring revenue streams. This is not easy to do; but it helps when you can get customers under some kind of subscription service as opposed to a one-off transaction. EXAMPLE: You sell cookies in a bakery and a customer comes in and buys six (6) cookies and never returns. This is a one-off transaction event. On the other hand, you offer to deliver cookies once every month to the customer under a subscription service. This way you lock-in the customer under a recurring revenue arrangement. This makes the business much more sustainable going forward. You want customers to come back somehow. If customers never return, then you will be challenged with having a sustainable business.

(4) Embrace Technology – In my opinion, every company to a certain extent is a technology company. We operate in a very digital, connected world with mobile phones, software and social media. Therefore, I think you need to leverage technology in several ways that helps sustain the business. This can include using software for managing critical processes such as order taking and financial reporting. If you end up doing everything manually, sustaining the business becomes more challenging; especially if your competition is aggressively embracing technology.

(5) Annual Strategic Plan – At least once every year, you should do an assessment of where the business stands and what changes are needed to keep the business moving forward. This usually requires that you get together with an Advisory Board or key people who help you run the business. The analytical model that most business owners use for strategic planning is SWOT – Assess the business in terms of its Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Your plan should have goals and objectives to close gaps so you remain competitive and have a sustainable business going forward.

Report Matt's answer

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Setting a sustainable business can be tactical but when you first know your interest, (what do you want to do) Have a goal(as regards your chosen field, Learn skills, then you can start thinking about your audience and growing your community.

You start bombarding them with contents that will help your community. You see it’s not about you here but about them you need to be genuine enough for them to trust you. Once you have gained that, it will be a turning point of more sales in your business.

Report Deborah's answer

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