Ditching the corporate life cubicle and starting your own business is exciting, rewarding, and a bit stressful. There are a lot of working pieces involved in going from idea to operational business. From legal requirements to marketing, the list of to-dos is definitely a bit overwhelming. And knowing where to start in order to ensure business success is the first hurdle.
“But even with all these uncertainties, people are still attracted to the startup world,” Mike Templeman explained in an Entrepreneur article. “There are just as many, if not more reasons to take the leap and go start your own business.” Bootstrapping is one of the top ways to do start your own company on a frugal budget.
Bootstrap A Big Business
The good news is that bootstrapping your business to success can be slightly easier than you may think. You simply need a little nudge in the right direction. The following four critical steps can serve as your road map to get your new business off to a pleasing start. Let’s dive in!
1. Get Your Legal Ducks In A Row
When you’re bootstrapping a business, you may overlook a few essentials like taking care of the legal requirements needed to own and operate a business legally. This is pretty common, but you shouldn’t be one of these business owners. To start, you need to get your new business entity formed in your state. This can be done a number of ways, but going the Limited Liability Company (LLC) route is most traveled.
You can get most of the LLC processing done using an affordable company that specializes in doing just that. Check out IncFile LLC services to get an idea of what’s available to help you register your business legally. Once that is done, you need to get your business banking, tax forms, and EIN taken care of. This allows you to stay in good standing with the state and federal governments and reduce your financial risk, which could be catastrophic if you are bankrolling the entire company yourself.
2. Develop A Website That Google And Your Customers Will Love
Even if you have a small store in a small community, you need to have a strong online presence. In today’s digital age, if you’re not online, you don’t exist. This makes having an optimized website that Google loves to rank, and that your target audience loves to engage with a top priority. How do you do this? It’s actually pretty simple. Here’s a website checklist:
● Signup w/ web hosting provider giving you a free domain name
● Choose a paid WordPress theme that is mobile-friendly
● Design your website with SEO in mind
● Provide a good user experience for your website
● Create a lot of informative content for each web page
● Use a lot of images and videos on your web pages
● Sign up for Google Analytics and track website metrics
3. Register Your Website With Google My Business
Google My Business allows businesses to get a ranking boost locally, and provides a place for customers to leave reviews and ratings to help build your business’ brand. It’s also pretty easy to register. First, ensure your website is launched and then register your business.
You will then get a code in the mail (real mail) and enter it in your Google My Business account. Or you could do it by phone as well. That’s pretty much it for GMB. After that, start netting a lot of reviews and ratings to give your business a competitive edge. This is free, so bootstrapping business owners should take advantage of this free marketing opportunity.
4. Create A Social Media Marketing Campaign And Start Selling
Social media is a great way to reach customers 24/7. You need to have a strong social media presence. The rise of smartphones has pretty much given business owners unprecedented access to consumers, since everyone has their social media alerts on always. As a bootstrapping business owner, it would be foolish not to take advantage of the free social media networks available. However, don’t just start posting wildly on them. You need to have a social media marketing strategy.
First, identify the social channels your target audience uses. For example, if you are a B2B business, LinkedIn and Twitter are potentially better to focus on. If your target audience is mainly females, Pinterest and Instagram could have more value than other social networks.
Identify them and begin sending value via posts in a very strategic sales funnel. First post is awareness, second, evaluation, and third is for conversions.
Bootstrap A Better Business
The above important steps to bootstrap your business to success are only the tip of the iceberg. But they are a great place to start, giving you direction for the future. Not to mention they are all affordable or free. This is music to the bootstrapping business owner’s ears. Do you have a bootstrapping business tip? What has helped you to bootstrap your own business on a budget?
I hope you enjoyed this blog post about the critical steps to bootstrapping your business to success and longevity.
Interested in more articles about bootstrapping businesses?
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