Sales, marketing, financial management, accounting, and analytics are just a few examples of hard skills that are necessary to run a business. While these are essential, they are not the only skills you’ll need to run a successful small business.
Soft skills are just as important as hard skills when running your own business, regardless of the industry. Soft skills will help you build relationships with employees and customers and excel as a leader. Here are four soft skills that matter when running a business.
1. Ability to embrace failure.
Ask an entrepreneur you know about failure, and they will likely have a story to share.
Failure is an inevitable part of the entrepreneurial journey. Even if you come prepared, there will be minor and major setbacks along the way. You may miss an important deadline, lose an opportunity, hire the wrong person, or miss your financial projections. You may even get one bad customer review that goes viral and affects your brand’s reputation. All these problems may lead you to give up.
But to run a successful business, consider every problem an opportunity for learning and growth. Learn from every mistake you make, and try to avoid them the next time around. By doing that, you’re succeeding.
2. Resilience.
Running a successful business doesn’t just require hard work. Setbacks are inevitable and some could be severe enough that they disrupt your operations. When crisis strikes, resilience will help you out. Resilience refers to the ability to recover from setbacks, maintain composure in the face of adversity, and persevere through difficult times.
Psychologist, author, and professor Angela Duckwork refers to resilience as “grit.” According to her, it’s the hallmark of high achievers and is a much better predictor of success than luck or raw talent.
Aside from learning how to succeed in business, you must also learn how to bounce back from obstacles and failures. You can build resilience by learning to adapt to challenging life experiences. There will be many ways to do so, and everything does not often work for everyone. You need to experiment and find the strategies that help you bounce back when things don’t go as planned.
3. Critical thinking.
You’ll deal with many problems and make crucial decisions as you learn how to run a business. Each of your choices will significantly impact your business — for better or worse. That’s why it’s important to acquire critical thinking skills.
By practicing critical thinking, you can objectively assess situations, consider various perspectives, and identify potential risks and opportunities. It helps you to navigate complex problems, develop innovative solutions, and adapt to changing market conditions.
4. Creativity.
The world of business is constantly changing and evolving. Today’s market is dependent on innovations and technology, which seem to be changing every day. Following the same patterns in marketing and even your products and services means you’ll eventually get left behind.
As an entrepreneur, you must be creative in coming up with improvements to products and services, marketing strategies, and customer service processes. Doing so ensures that you can stay ahead of the changing times.
10 Tips to Run & Grow Your Business Successfully
If you’re seeking guidance on how to run a successful business, use these 10 valuable tips to navigate the challenges of entrepreneurship and drive business growth. From setting clear goals to optimizing processes and investing in helpful tools, these insights will empower you to succeed in business.
1. Set clear and realistic goals.
Setting clear and realistic goals is the foundation of a successful business. Clearly define what you want to achieve and establish measurable targets. This provides direction, focus, and motivation for you and your team. Realistic short- and long-term goals ensure that your objectives are attainable and aligned with the resources and capabilities of your business.
2. Keep detailed records and data.
Regularly monitor and analyze key metrics such as sales figures, expenses, company’s value, and customer data. These records offer valuable insights into your business’s financial health, identify areas for improvement, and enable you to make data-driven decisions that drive growth.
3. Analyze your competition.
There are over 30 million small businesses in the United States. Small business owners who want to stay ahead in the market must understand their competition.
Don’t be afraid to thoroughly analyze your competitor’s strengths, weaknesses, pricing strategies, marketing tactics, and more. Use the insights you’ve gathered to refine your business strategies, target the right audience, and grow your business.
4. Improve your customer service.
Great customer service can set your business apart from the competition. Focus on delivering a memorable and personalized experience to your customers. Train your staff to provide excellent service, actively listen to customer feedback, and promptly address any issues or concerns.
By giving your customers the best possible experience when doing business with you, they will be more inclined to come back and even refer your services or products to those they know. This means gaining a strong customer base and increased profit.
5. Improve your reputation.
Consumers these days don’t just rely on direct advertising and marketing messages to make a purchase decision. They will search for and read reviews from previous customers before deciding whether to choose you or your competitor.
Therefore, paying close attention to what people say about your business or how people perceive your business is important for success.
One way to boost your online reputation is by getting positive reviews. Unfortunately, getting positive feedback from customers can be quite challenging even if you provide the best service and product. Customers either forget or just don’t care.
One thing you can do is to request reviews from them. Send them emails or text messages asking them to leave positive feedback on your website, social media platforms, or review sites like Yelp. These tasks often take time and are tedious, but you can use tools like Podium Reviews to generate more reviews.
If you want more positive reviews on your Google Business Profile, use a Google Link Review Generator from Podium. It allows you to easily create and send a review link to your customer.
6. Optimize your website.
Building your website won’t be enough to get an edge over the competition. You are competing with millions of other websites on the internet. If you want your website to be found by people looking for your product or service, you must optimize it.
Optimize your website for search engines by incorporating relevant keywords, creating informative and engaging content, and ensuring fast loading times. Implement intuitive navigation and clear calls to action to guide visitors through your site. You can also consider adding Podium webchat to start conversations with your website visitors even when you’re not around.
A web chat is a live chat tool that connects your website visitors with your customer support representatives. By using this tool, you can provide quick answers, solve issues of customers, and lead in real time. Customers will spend less time finding solutions to their problems.
7. Optimize your marketing strategies.
Running marketing campaigns isn’t cheap. But you can make the most out of them through optimization. For example, you want to send promotional content to your target audience through text. If you’re going to create and send text messages manually, you’ll likely waste your precious time. In this case, you can use a text marketing tool.
A text marketing tool like Podium is packed with functionalities that make SMS marketing a breeze. There are ready-to-use text templates you can choose from so your marketing team and customer service agents can save time and effort.
8. Consider customer feedback.
Customer feedback is a valuable resource for business improvement. Actively seek feedback from your customers through surveys, reviews, and social media channels.
You can analyze customer feedback to identify areas of improvement, understand customer preferences, increase customer satisfaction, and build long-lasting relationships.
As mentioned above, customers often don’t initiate leaving feedback. They are only likely to do so when they have a bad experience. If you want to get as much feedback as possible, you can use tools for requesting and getting more reviews.
9. Automate your workflow.
Automation can streamline your business operations, saving time, reducing errors, and increasing efficiency. Identify repetitive and time-consuming tasks and consider automating them using workflow automation tools.
Some processes you should consider automating are invoicing, inventory management, email marketing campaigns, and customer support. Automation will free up your time for more critical tasks. It will not only improve productivity but also allow you to achieve organic business growth.
10. Consider tools and software.
Investing in the right tools and software can significantly enhance your business operations. Evaluate your business needs and explore software solutions that can automate tasks, improve collaboration, and provide data-driven insights. Consider tools for project management, customer relationship management (CRM), accounting, analytics, and communication to streamline operations and make informed decisions.
Business Success Trends
Below are three current and new trends defining business success.
1. Artificial Intelligence
According to research by Redpoint Global, the majority of consumers (73%) believe AI can have a positive impact on the customer experience (CX). Approximately one-third of consumers said they see positive CX impact from AI in website, mobile, text/SMS, and in-store interactions. 1 in 4 consumers also see improvements in email and phone. Incorporating AI into more aspects of the customer experience while still including the human element will be crucial for success moving forward.
2. Environmental, Social, and Governance Compliance
Increasingly, consumers prioritize environmentally and socially responsible businesses — and businesses are responding to this heightened consumer concern for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues
According to a PwC survey, 83% of consumers think companies should be actively shaping ESG best practices and 91% of business leaders say they believe their company has a responsibility to act on ESG issues.
Companies integrating sustainable practices, reducing carbon footprints, and engaging in social initiatives will be most poised to succeed in the future.
3. Remote Work and Flexibility
The workforce has become increasingly hybrid. The number of people working from home tripled between 2019 and 2021 due to the pandemic, and many continued to do so after. While a hybrid or fully remote workforce introduces challenges of collaborating across time zones, complying with different countries’ laws and regulations, and creating an organizational culture that supports all workers, it helps businesses attract top talent, enhance employee satisfaction, and reduce overhead costs.
Successful businesses today are embracing a hybrid work model that balances productivity with employee well-being.
All-in-One Business Growth Solutions
If you’re ready to scale your business, Podium can help you. Podium is an all-in-one growth and management solution for businesses in different industries. Here are some of what it has to offer:
Growth Solutions
Any business would need more customers to grow. Growth solutions by Podium, like text marketing and website chat, will help you generate more leads and convert them into paying customers.
Communication Solutions
Communication with leads and customers is important. When someone interested in your product or service has questions or concerns, you would want to respond quickly.
Podium makes it possible with its Inbox. With this solution, you don’t have to switch from tool to tool to respond to every message from every channel. You can see and send every message to your customers from one platform.
Payment Solutions
Most Millennials and Gen Z prefer the cashless payment option. So, if you don’t offer a digital payment option to your customers, now may be the time. Digital payment makes payment processing faster and easier.
Podium also features payment solutions, so you can manage almost everything from a single platform. Podium’s Payment supports all major payment options, like financing, buy now, pay later, and subscription. It also features automatic reconciliation and advanced fraud detection, guaranteeing that every platform transaction is secure and accurate.
FAQs
1. How to increase sales?
Here are a few ideas to help you boost sales and generate more revenue:
- Focus on understanding your target market and their needs
- Reach your potential and existing leads via text messages (SMS have a higher open rate than emails)
- Improve product/service quality
- Provide excellent customer service
- Utilize social media, partnerships, and customer reviews to continuously refine your approach
2. How to manage a business successfully?
Managing a business successfully requires effective strategies and practices. Start by setting clear goals and creating a well-defined business plan. Build a competent team and delegate tasks accordingly. Foster strong customer communication, prioritize customer satisfaction, optimize and automate your CRM processes, and adapt to market changes. Also, continuously evaluate performance, make data-driven decisions, and invest in ongoing learning and improvement.
3. How to grow my business?
You’ll need to attract more potential customers and retain them to grow your business. One of the things you can do is respond to your customers and leads more quickly, which you can accomplish by adding a web chat tool to your website. Of course, that’s just one way to do it.
There is no surefire formula for instant business success, but you can boost your business growth with the tips we’ve listed above.
