That's a question I've heard a lot in the past and I believe many of you would too.
What is the secret of a successful business ?
First of all, I'm surprised that people think there is some sort of a secret ingredient that would make a business successful and that is you're missing this very unique ingredient, you're business will fail.
That would give business losers a good excuse other than themselves to justify their tremendous failure: "I haven't uncovered the secret of successful business yet".
So well, it's not your fault, let's moving on: keep searching.
That's a typical reaction of someone who hasn't really understand what a business really is. For those kind of people, a business is something that will bring fortune to his owner if he master the secret ingredient and a good dose of luck.
I am always bemused to notice how many people identify the reason of success of certain businesses: it's either luck or having the right idea at the right time, which equals at being lucky to have ideas when it serves best your business.
None of that is true.
If you use your brain for its right purpose, you'll figure out what makes business successful.
A business is not all about his owner.
Let me get there with very simple questions:
1. What makes a successful business ?
- it is profitable and have many customers, happy customers.
2.1. What makes a business profitable ?
2.2. What makes customers happy ?
- 2.1 a business is profitable when it buys cheaper than it sells and sells a lot.
- 2.2 a customer is happy when he got good value for money.
See where we go ?
3. What makes a business sell a lot ?
- when demand for his product or service is high.
4. What makes a customer feeling having good value for money ?
- When what he is paying for is what he need and the happiness he is feeling overpass the sadness of loosing some cash in exchange for that. Yep, people are chasing for happiness and they are ready to part with something if the other thing they have in exchange makes them happier.
Would you be happy if I gave you a thousand dollars ?
Yeah. But if in exchange of this one thousand dollars I would give you a house in your dream location for a year, I bet you'd be even more happy than is you keep the cash. That's how customers trade their happiness.
5. How can we meet high demand and customer's happiness ?
Get them what they need, but most of all, give them more that what they are paying.
By the way, this process is called the 5 whys process, often used in engineering to get to the root cause of a problem.
There it is: the secret of success for business revolves around customers satisfaction. Surprised ?
Give them what they want, exceed their expectations and they'll give you their cash in exchange and relay their happiness around them so they'll promote your business at the same time.
Many businessmen make the mistake to build their business around themselves or around a product, then they are surprised that it fails. That's how we find them eventually blaming external factors such as bad market or the weather for their failure.
Failing business are mainly due to business owners failing to provide their markets with what they need. As simple as that.
This is the bonus question:
6.How do you know what your customers need ?
You all know the answer: Listen to them !
Ask them what they want, engage with them, listen to their concerns, consider them when they complain: the way you manage their feedback is what will make the difference between highway to success or footpath to hell.
(The path to hell being paved with good intentions as we all know)
Nature has given you two ears and one mouth, be sure you use them proportionally.
Keep that in mind and your business would be in good way for success.
Good luck anyway !
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