Starting a business is an exciting journey, but maintaining and sustaining it is often challenging. The majority of businesses fail within the first five years, and even if they do manage to stay afloat, they often struggle to build an established customer base. To ensure that your business is successful and can thrive in the long term, it is important to have a well-thought-out plan and follow a few key principles. In this article, I will discuss five tips that can help you sustain your business and ensure it stands the test of time.

Before sharing the tips, let me share a story of a successful grocery store I came across during my daily life hassles.

The Story of a Grocery Store

One afternoon, when I was moving around with my camera taking some pictures along a busy street for my photoshop, I came across a grocery store full of groceries with many people making purchases. Slowly I approached the grocery store to find out the reason for the attraction of many people in the store.

It was a scorching day, and I was very thirsty. Before I could ask for help to quench my thirst, I saw a glass refrigerator full of soft drinks. I realized that the service was a self-serving system. I quickly opened the fridge and got an icy soda which made me very happy and relaxed. As I continued to drink the soda, I was amazed at the seller’s ability to serve his customers again with great competence. I wanted to know how long the store had been. He told me that the store is over five years old and doing well. That’s when I wanted to know the strategies he used to run the store successfully for over five years. I told the young man about the various businesses I had started and closed before even reaching three years. I am very grateful to the young man because he agreed to give me time and explain the various techniques that enable the business to be sustainable.

The Tips Necessary to avoid early closure of Your Business

In the next section, I will share five tips to help you run a sustainable business.

1. Be your time manager

Remember that you are the manager and owner of your business, so you must care more about time than anything else. To manage and spend time effectively, choose a few activities to ensure the presence of the right markets at the right time. One of the mistakes many business owners make is focusing on wanting to do more business without thinking about marketing.

Remember that you are your own manager; no one will tell you what to do. Successful business owners are keenly focusing on their role in managing time.

2. Look for a great sounding board

Business management is an art that requires adequate skills and expertise. Therefore, it is advisable to have a great sounding board where you will get regular advice and professional consultations. Make sure you find a mentor who is successful in business because if you find a loser, they will likely lead you into failure. Learn from the successful ones. The losers have so many words they will lose you.

3. Know your capability

It is good to recognize your ability to run the business. Most people think they can do everything; of course not. Recognize your potential so that you can focus on your potential instead of doing everything else. Find other experts to help you implement what you think you cannot. The ideal situation to grow a business in the fastest possible timeframe is for the business owner to stick to their areas of unique ability and outsource the rest to people with the appropriate skill sets.

4. Narrow your focus and niche your expertise

If you want to be successful in business, select a market segment (market niche) that you can save to the best of your capability. According to Wikipedia, a niche market is the subset of the market on which a specific product is focused. The market niche defines the product features that satisfy specific market needs, the price range, production quality, and the demographics it is intended to target. It is also a small market segment.

5. Give yourself time to think about your business and revitalize

Some researchers who studied the work character of self-employed people found that they work six hours more a week than their salaried counterparts. It is worth noting that it is not necessarily correct that simply working longer and harder guarantees success. Instead, “work smarter” and create enough downtime to think creatively about how to grow your business.

Conclusion and Take home

In conclusion, running a sustainable business is not rocket science, but it does require planning and dedication. Following the tips above will help you stay on track and ensure your business is successful for many years to come. With proper time management, having a great sounding board, being aware of your capabilities, and focusing on a specific niche, you have the potential to create a successful and long-lasting business. Give yourself time to think, plan, and revitalize your business to stay ahead of your competition

Running your business can deliver great rewards, but making it through the first few years can be challenging. So be careful and follow the critical business success factors.

  • Focus on becoming a great marketer of what you do instead of being a great doer.
  • It does not require talent to run successful businesses; instead, learn how to market the talent you have to win.

CPA. Dr. Seraphia Mgembe

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