6 Painless Ways for a Startup to Improve Itself

November 12, 2015

Every business that’s operating today wants to grow and improve. But that’s easier said than done. To help you out, here are some painless methods to help improve your startup.
Don’t Throw Away that Plan
It’s not uncommon for business owners to forget about their original plan once the business starts to grow and time passes. Your business plan should be something you refer back to as the months and the years pass by. This will be one of the best ways you have of measuring your business’s success in comparison to what you wanted to achieve when the business was started. So, dig it out and make use of that original business plan.
Get Helpful Advice
There’s no reason to believe that your business can’t learn from other people. Every small business owner likes to think that they're in control, and they know what they’re doing. But this is rarely true. You should always be looking to learn from people in the industry who’ve been there and done it all before. You might be able to learn things from their mistakes; it’s a better idea than making those mistakes yourself!
Keep Striving to Better Your Rivals
Even if your business is starting to pull away from the competitors in your market, that’s no excuse to get complacent. Complacency should be your enemy. It’s something that has caused the ruin of many business and business owners who thought they were untouchable. It’s when you start getting complacent that the mistakes start creeping in and things start going wrong for your business. So, keep striving to improve and put more distance between your business and its rivals.
Get to Grips with Online Marketing
The online world is not something that any business can afford to ignore nowadays. It’s a vital part of the overall business world. So, if you still haven’t fully got to grips with online marketing and what it means for your business, now is the time to do so. This isn’t easy, and it takes a lot of work if you want to do it properly. If you don’t have the time to dedicate to web marketing, you could outsource to an online marketing company.
Offer Something Extra
Everyone likes to get something for nothing, and that includes your business’s customers. So, why not give them a little something extra? This can mean many different things. It could be as simple as offering relevant blog posts and advice on your website to people who visit. This is a great way to build up brand loyalty and strengthen that connection between the business and its customers. Give it a try today!
Place Trust in Employees
For people who have built a business from scratch, they can find it pretty hard to loosen their grip on the business. No one is saying that this is a bad thing as such. But it probably won’t be a helpful thing for the business in the long-term. You can’t do everything by yourself; you need to delegate some tasks to your employees. And by empowering them to take responsibility for the work they do, you should see their overall performance and job satisfaction improve.

Mark Asquith

That British podcast guy, Mark is co-founder of Captivate.fm, the world's only growth-oriented podcast host. A Harvard, TEDx, Podcast Movement and Podfest speaker (amongst many more!), he's a wildly approachable Brit and Star Wars/DC Comics geek.

Learn podcasting
in your own time

Listen to the
free podcast

The free, thrice-weekly show that brings you podcast education, industry insights & straight-talking reactions to podcasting news. This short-form show typically runs for between 7 and 15 minutes and releases every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Usually a solo show, every now and then, the show features expert podcast industry guests and release bonus episodes as the podcast industry continues to grow and develop.