How To Attract The Right Customers When Forming A New Business

While having a great business idea is an important step for entrepreneurs, it’s by no means the only step that counts. Once you’ve got what you think to be a great product or service, it’s time to determine whether anyone is actually willing to buy them from you.

When it comes to starting a business, whatever industry it’s in, it's all about what the customer wants and what they are willing to pay for it. In other words, the customer is who you are working for.

And yet so many startups fail early on due to a lack of real planning and research when launching a service or product; and often because they failed to invest in the services of a start up business consultant to help them really understand their customers.

If you’re in the early stages of starting a business, or are looking for ways to grow what you’re already offering, here are some ways to help make sure that you attract the right customers:

Understand your target customers

To make what you’re selling popular, you need to know everything about the customers that you’re targeting, from what they do and don’t like, to where they’re based, and why they would want to buy what you’re selling etc. Once you’ve got this basic information, you can begin thinking about what you’re getting right, and what might benefit from some changes; you might even need a complete do-over.

Informal surveys or focus groups targeted at potential customers can give you some great insights.

Implement the right systems

With professional help, you can seamlessly and effortlessly integrate any number of systems to help your business get ahead and start attracting customers, such as HRIS, Project Management Systems, CRMs and ATS solutions among others. Without such integrations or hiring professional to assist you, processes can be complex and drawn out. Therefore, from limiting your productivity and efficiency, you could stop your new business from hitting the ground running.  

Know your competition

While it isn’t always easy to stand out in a crowded marketplace, it’s important to focus your energies on trying to differentiate your brand from the competition, which means you must get to know them better. How are your competitors attracting customers, what are they doing to make themselves stand out, and what are they charging their customers, are all questions you should try to answer in order to give your own business the best chance of being successful.

Think about the future

Carefully consider whether what you’re offering customers has lasting value. Will it be something that they want to keep coming back for more of? With the help of software, plan to create some upgrades to your products, or add-on services that will help carry what you’re offering forward, into a long-term client relationship.

Seek professional help

While you may think that money spent on consulting services for startups is frivolous when your business is in its’ early stages, it can actually be incredibly beneficial. Setting out and executing a sound business plan could be the difference between customers queueing up to buy from you, and customers wandering next door to buy from your direct competitor.

Finally, once your product has hit the shelves (whether literally or figuratively), don’t just walk away and expect it to sell. Continually ask for feedback from customers, and work on ways of improving it so that you can remain successful and outsell your competitors, long into the future.