6 Tips from a Business Owner

I have a bachelors in Business Administration and have managed a number of small businesses over the years. Here is what I've learned so far that may help you. This is a long article, but it's worth your read if you want to avoid mistakes early on and get ahead of the curve. Now, this is not a short article. I don't want to cut any important details out. So here are tips from a business owner to help you be successful.

1. WHAT IT TAKES TO RUN A BUSINESS

Anyone can run a business, but not every is good at it. You have to be very disciplined, organized, a self-starter, and independent. You should have a plan in place and set goals for your first year (at minimum). When you become a business owner, you don't have a 9-5 anymore, you have a 24/7. The work never stops and the tasks always stack up.

2. THE BORING SIDE OF BUSINESS

When it comes to tracking income, expenses, customers, etc. Quickbooks will be your best friend. I did my own reports, my own balance sheets, and my own profit and loss statements with Excel for the first few years of my business, and let me tell you it's not fun. Doable, but not fun. It's a lot to keep track of, and it's very time consuming. You could hire someone to do this for you, but Quickbooks does a great job at a decent price and is fairly easy to use and figure out. (This is not an ad, just personal experience.)

3. PRICING YOURSELF

This is probably the hardest part about being a business owner, is knowing what you are worth and knowing what you can charge your customers. But you also have to understand your niche and what others charge. If you're underpriced, you devalue your work and it makes it appear as though your work is not good. If you're overpriced, it will be harder to find customers because everyone in the knitting community is on a budget. Who is going to hire a tech editor at $60 bucks an hour for a one-size-fits-all headband? Or who is going to buy a skein of yarn that is a basic solid color on a basic base for $40 bucks? It would be hard to find customers/clients when you charge unreasonable prices. Do your market research, see what others are charging for the same or similar things you will be offering.

Then ask yourself, what makes me different or stand out from them? What is the minimum I have to charge to pay for my costs to make my products and restock them again? You don't want to just pay for your costs, but you want to make sure you can buy them again in order to keep selling. If your yarn base cost you $6 bucks a skein, you don't want to sell it for $8. You're only making $2 - so that means that you can buy one new yarn base to dye for every three skeins sold. But what you want to do is sell it at a minimum of $12 dollars. Then you have paid for your original cost, and can buy a new base at the same time. Then add your time and labor into it, and you'll be anywhere from $18-25 dollars per skein. Now this is very rough and quick example, but you get the idea.

4. YOU WERE A CUSTOMER ONCE

I think this is where a lot of people get tripped up. They excited about starting a new business, they have all these ideas, and they set their rules and expectations. But what they forget to do, is look at their business from the perspective of a customer. After all, without people, you have no business.

You have to treat them right, make them feel like you care. When they reach out for help, they don't want AI or someone unknowledgeable to talk to them. Especially for small businesses, people want to talk to the owners. Nothing beats human connection and empathy. When they have problems with their order, work it out. When they want to give a bad review, make it right with them to solve their issues.

5. BE WEARY OF GIVEAWAYS

On the subject of keeping your customers happy and pricing yourself what you're worth, this is one place were businesses can shoot themselves in the foot. You need to attract the kind of customers that will stay for the long term. Giveaways are a very touchy subject. On one hand, it's a great idea! It gets people to follow you on social media, it gets people to hear of your business, it could help you grow. But on the other hand, it usually does not attract the kind of customers you want. It attracts people who will always be asking for discounts, people who will only stay for the giveaway and then leave, it attracts people that don't understand or frankly care about the quality of your business. The only times I see where it could be successful, is when you already have a large and steady following. I have seen many people do giveaways or trade an item for a "free shoutout", only to realize what they got in return were low quality customers and lost product value. And "exposure" doesn't pay the bills. Just sayin.

6. SOCIAL MEDIA IS HARD

I manage three social media profiles - two are for my own businesses and the other is a family business. They are each in their own niche, and each come with their own challenges as far as audiences and marketing goes. But let's just focus on the knitting side of things.

The hardest part about marketing on social media, is that these days you are expected to be an entertainer. Videos is what drives views, but videos take so much more work! Not only do we have to work our 9-5 jobs and manage our knitting business, we are also now full time content creators! I admit, this is where I struggle most. I am so busy with my full time job, it's hard to find time to be a content creator and make videos to post every week. Especially for three businesses.

Another thing with social media is that only so many of your followers will see your content. Everyone follows hundreds of people, and these social media platforms can only show so many creators posts. Your content is bound to get lots in your followers feed. So now we have two problems - finding time to be a content creator, and getting your content actually seen by your followers. Let's tackle these.

First Problem: Finding time (and content) to make posts for social media.

Solution: Batch create content and schedule it to post automatically.

Why it works: Scheduling content to post automatically is a life saver. I can't even stress that enough - it will save your sanity. Take photos and videos in advance and get enough so you can schedule at least 2-3 posts a week. Batching like this will take a little bit of stress off your shoulders.

But now you ask, where on earth am I going to find content that I can schedule to post over the next month? Well, the nice thing about social media is that no one knows what you're working on or when you made something, so you could make posts about projects you made three months ago! When you start a project, document your progress. Take photos for WIP Wednesday progress updates, take videos of you fixing mistakes or trying your WIP on. Then you can take that media to share over the next few weeks. I know that can be hard because then it won't feel like you're "in the moment", but if you don't have anything else or struggle with posting, this will help you.

Second Problem: Getting your content seen by followers.

Solution: Create a space outside of social media platforms, like a newsletter and/or blog.

Why it works: It get's your clients on YOUR platform, not someone else's. Instagram even says that your content gets shown to about 10% of your followers. Social media platforms also may or may not be reliable. Moving clients to your own platform where you can personally reach them is the best thing you can do. This also ensures that the people on your platform and actually want to be there for you.

Consistency is Key! Building your business with real people is a very slow process. I had been doing my photography business for over five years, and even though I was only one of three people in the world at the time that were in this (extremely small) niche, I am still meeting people that have never heard of me. Just keep at it, keep posting, keep making connections. It's consistency of yourself, not quantity of followers, that counts.

NEED ADVICE?

You can always reach out to me and ask my opinion on things. I may not have all the answers, but sometimes getting another perspective and new ideas can help you get through a rut or slow spot in your business. Even I still struggle - who doesn't?

Thank you so much for reading, I hope you found these tips and tricks helpful! Have any questions or other advice? Comment below!

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