Invest in Your Success: Recapping Small Business Week
During Small Business Week Paste BN explored ways that entrepreneurs and small business owners can invest in their success. Whether its investing in yourself or buying software to make your website better, there are a plethora of ways for owners to maximize their businesses.
Over the past week we spoke with spoke with a variety of owners and entrepreneurs from companies of all sizes to gain their insight into growing a successful company. Here's a recap to get you caught up and provide some strategies to apply to your own enterprise.
First up was entrepreneur and best-selling author Tony Robbins, who stressed that small-business owners should invest in themselves which will in turn improve their businesses. “If you improve yourself, your skill, your ability, your talent, you're going to be able to do things nobody else can do,” Robbins says.
An equally important factor when building a business is investing in your employees, a message relayed by Jennifer Hyman, CEO of fashion startup Rent The Runway. "We have enabled people to bounce around at Rent the Runway and gain experience at various different divisions so that when they leave here they are fully equipped to go found their own companies," Hyman says.
When it comes to putting money back into growing your business, its crucial to know the right place to spend. For Greg Goodman, owner of an Alta Mere automotive accessories store in Oklahoma City, that meant purchasing physical digital menu boards as part of a rebranding, a decision that has led to a 15% increase in sales. For others like Quickcuts Media, a video production studio in Nolensville, Tennessee with two full-time employees and about 20 contractors, the solution was in software. It saw its business grow by 60 percent in the past year after they switched to the free e-invoicing platform Taulia.
Another key component to growing a business is marketing. For Miko Branch, CEO and co-founder of the Miss Jessie's brand of products for natural hair, its the secret to her company's success.
“Investing time and effort into marketing is so important because it’s all about getting the word out,” she says, adding that online marketing especially has been key to the success of Miss Jessie's which sells concoctions with names such as Curly Pudding, Coily Custard and Pillow Soft Curls for people with a range of curly and kinky hair textures. “The Internet remains the primary way we market and interact with our customers.”
Finally, there are the "little things" that help companies get and keep customers. Getting the details right, making the right partnerships and doing what you can to make sure the customer is happy.
"You’ve got to create something magical. I sometimes compare it to an artist. An artist is given a blank sheet of canvas and they create a beautiful painting," says Virgin Group founder Richard Branson. "An entrepreneur is given a blank sheet of paper and that’s their company and they’ve got to get all the details right whether it’s the quality of the staff, the quality of the chief executive the quality of everything and at the end you’ve created the perfect picture."