marketing tips for small business Everyone wants to succeed in business, but knowing the path to success is not always as clear as we all want it to be. Many successful ventures have been built upon years of failures, mistakes, and starting over.

As the competition intensifies, emerging small businesses can disappear as fast in the sea of millions of other ventures offering similar products. As such, not every entrepreneur can afford this luxury of trial & error.

That’s where proven business coaching becomes invaluable; in layman’s terms, simply walking with someone that has already made those mistakes and now gives you a customizable template of strategies that work.

The big question remains from who and where the advice comes.

With the Tonika Bruce website recently featured in the top 10 list of 100 leading business coaching blogs, we are proud to share her top 10 tips for navigating competitive markets as a small business.

Further, we’ll touch on the essential information you need to know to choose a business coach.

Why Leverage the Power of Professional Business Coaching

Coaching is a process that helps business leaders or owners to achieve their goals through self-awareness, learning, and accountability.

Professional business coaching works because it helps you produce results by focusing on the process rather than the outcome.

The vision isn’t the problem for most entrepreneurs but the steps or at the very least mastering them to get there. There are a lot of business owners currently relying on general business knowledge or simply random internet search results to run their business.

While there’s nothing wrong with using online resources, free or paid, there is intentionality of purpose and measuring results that comes with professional coaching.

To demonstrate a few benefits of working with a professional business coach, here is what you can achieve:

Developing key skills

First and foremost, business coaching is as much about training to successfully run a business as it is about building the owner’s capacity- skills, aptitudes, mindset, and habits.
You learn how to manage people, communicate, negotiate, and build grit.

Establishing effective business systems

Coaches are also helpful in providing guidance on team organization, resource allocation and setting goals. Essentially, how to set up processes, best practices, and standard operating procedures for executing tasks.

Setting achievable goals and objectives

Every successful business starts with a set of realistic and implementable goals.
Emphasis on implementable. It is one thing to write down goals, however, it is another to bring them to life.

Factors such as resource level, alignment with business concept and market affect the suitability of goals for a business.

A professional coach guides you on nailing down the specifics of your goals in relation to your business idea, market and scalability.

Understanding customer needs better

Nothing ruins a business more than marketing a product to everyone. In essence, this is marketing to no one at all. You must identify your target market and know your customer avatar. A professional will help you brainstorm and create a buyer persona for what you intend to sell.

Creating a Strategic Growth Plan

When you enlist professional coaching, the first step, depending on the stage of the business, is to evaluate current performance and help you create an actionable plan that outlines strategies for future growth and development.

The training will focus on low flying business areas. This will allow leaders to make informed decisions regarding investments, staffing and marketing initiatives.

Access to Business Resources

Beyond training, professional business coaches have access to market research data and their own templates and business tools they have utilized. So, you are not trying what works.

Do you have a business idea? How do you know if it is worth investing in: listen for key pointers.

Business Growth Focus Areas

Whether you can afford to enlist the help of a professional or not, for a business to grow, you must be doing things right. You also need to know the core aspects of business growth.

We just looked at setting the right goals as one of the benefits of working with a professional business coach. Business growth is one of those common goals for entrepreneurs and company leaders. But in itself, business growth is too general.

Specific growth will depend on where you are currently in the business and life journey.

Before diving into this, the crucial three-fold question to ask yourself is what, why and how you wish to grow.

There are three main focus areas for business growth:

Profitability
Here the business is profit-oriented. If your goal for starting a business is to have revenue for funding your lifestyle- or a; cash cow, then this is the growth that works.

Profitability thrives on slow and steady progress by working with good clients and projects that align with business values.

Since the profitability model of business growth is about the long game, the entrepreneur must also have a plan for letting the business run without them. They can do this by hiring a team and building a system of automating everyday tasks.

Market Share
Market share growth is about scaling the enterprise to reach more customers in a specific market.

This is also the next level in business growth. It demands that the leader or owner is removed from the daily operations of the business to focus on big picture areas such as business development and sales strategy to increase the market share.

The business coaching and growth here requires focus on critical thinking to innovate, leadership training, and sales and marketing success.

Market Value
Increasing market value is a business growth goal for entrepreneurs looking to develop and sell their business. The focus here is identifying what investors look for in a startup and building on these to multiply its value for sale.

With that in mind, let us consider the strategies for success you need to have at the forefront when starting and running a business.

10 Small Business Coaching Tips and Strategies for Success:

1. Know Your Why and let it Show in Your Business

Purpose is an incredibly powerful driver for success. Jobs and Wozniak wanted to make computers small enough for people to use at home or office. Your why is the reason for your business existence. What problem it solves and by distilling it down to the daily operations.

Practically speaking, this is a breakdown of the vision, mission, goals, values, and culture around it- and how they all work together to solve the target customers’ problem.

Before you start selling, document all these in plain terms. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel as long as you have your vision; you can use business and S.O.Ps templates like the ones in our Call-to-Action program to do this.

2. Put Systems in Place to Boost Your Business

Well-defined systems are essential for efficiency.

Both business and customer-facing operations need documented processes by which teams operate.That means business management systems that account for work-related activities in customer service, accounting, operations, and marketing.

As an entrepreneur, you need these to save yourself sleepless nights, depression, and pounds.

Systems help streamline workflows, save time, fill efficiency gaps in humans, and act as reference for teams and collaboration tasks.

3. Focus on Growth and Expansion

Do not get too comfortable with where you are currently with your business if you want to experience rapid growth; always strive for bigger and better opportunities.

The enterprise will need to evolve eventually, so plan your next steps to stay grounded.

Expansion is a broad term, but it can be going for risks, such as offering products or services different from the current market, entering new markets altogether, or as simple as reviewing existing contracts to identify better deals.

4. Focus on Where You Want to Go, Not Where You Have Been

A mistake many entrepreneurs make is focusing too much on past successes instead of future ones.

To ensure constant advancement, redirect all energy towards understanding actions for today and in the coming weeks/months/years to propel the company forward.

5. Find the Right Team for the Job.

There is no getting around it – people break or build a business. Strong players on board are central for any business for long-term success and a steady growth trajectory.

6. Have a Visibility Plan

The ability to stand out from competitors in this crowded marketplace requires an effective visibility strategy.

Create a plan for actively engaging with customers through various channels, such as content marketing, social media platforms, and event activations to amplify brand awareness & recognition.

Focus on building your voice on social media with effective marketing strategies.
Brands that stay active online have a higher visibility than those that post sporadically.

7. Nail Your Customer Experience

Your business thrives on happy customers.

Most customers decide whether they like a product based on their overall experience – everything from product quality to customer service etiquette and sales pitches. So, pay attention to every touchpoint along their buyer journey & refine it according to respective feedback.

Customer relationship management (CRM) software helps you understand your customers better.

8. Research Competitors

It pays off knowing who you are up against when entering any market – identify data points like pricing strategies, and promotional tactics used, then build upon them accordingly.

9. Be Consistent with Your Branding and Marketing Efforts

The elusive online presence- the bane of small business owners. One tip to remember about building an online presence is that you are a brand, not a business.

Two or more businesses may sell the same product, but the brand (overall presentation in the eyes of a buyer) sets them apart.

The way to do that is with consistency in branding elements across marketing channels- logo, color schemes, messaging, and content quality. Wherever possible, since this helps consumers connect better with brand image established over time already – also set aside finances dedicated solely towards promotional activities like advertising campaigns.

Meanwhile, this marketing hub guidebook is an excellent start to understanding branding and building an online presence.

10. Don’t Forget About Yourself

Personal development is critical for longevity in business.
Staying afloat during tough times can become increasingly difficult without a proper balance between work life + leisure activities.

This encompasses mental and physical resilience. Consistent skill development and physical wellness play into the business.

Top executives often underestimate this aspect, unfortunately. Yet neglecting health issues (physical+mental) associated with burnout scenarios often leads to massive losses financially – so invest some extra effort into maintaining healthy habits.

Effective business coaching aims to improve your mindset, organization, processes, and overall business strategy.

How to Find a Reliable Business Coach

For many businesses, growth is a stated ambition – but when we look closer to understand what that entails or how they intend to achieve it, suddenly things become less clear.

Uncovering the desired outcomes of business expansion requires digging below the surface – with carefully tailored questions and sessions that empower you to chart your course for success.

This is the basis of identifying not just a professional coach but one with actual experience in the field.

Of course, you want someone that has practical information and guides you with their own template for starting and running a business.

Parting Shot

Working with professional business coaching in the early stages of a startup will help avoid many pitfalls, harmful generalizations, and ensure rapid business growth.

The indicators for success include revenue, profits, market share, customer acquisition and retention, and team size. But growth is also progressive, and these indicators will appear with the stage of business.

Let us walk you through the business journey. The Call-to-Action program’s new cohort is open now: Signup to Register!