Jumpstart Your Business In 30 Days
By JD Esajian on May 17, 2019
Running a business is filled with wild swings of ups and downs. One day you go to bed feeling like a million bucks and the next you toss and turn wondering how you lost a deal. It is important to understand that most start up businesses experiences lulls, especially in the first year. This is magnified in the world of real estate investing.
When you are stuck in neutral it is important to get yourself going forward as quickly as possible. Instead of making drastic, wholesale changes you should take a step back and get back to basics. Doing nothing or complaining about something that happened to you won’t do much to right the ship. There are plenty of things you can do to quickly turn things around. Here are five tips to help jumpstart your business in the next 30 days.
- Create A Business Plan: If your business is having trouble you need to evaluate everything about it. Go back to your original business plan and look at what has worked and what needs to be tweaked. If you do not have a plan now is a good time to sit down and write one. Your plan doesn’t need to be professional quality. It simply has to cover all the major business points of how, when, why and with who. You should use it as a guide to figure out which projects to pursue, in what markets and how you plan to fund them. It will help you decide the best ways to find deals and who to networking with. Your business plan should also include goals for the day, week, month and year. Without a detailed business plan as a guide, you will simply bounce from deal to deal and project to project without a big picture goal in mind.
- Start A Website: Even if you only plan on pursing a few deals a year you still need to treat it like a full-time business. Like any business you need to have an online presence. This starts with having an operational website. A lot has changed online in the past decade. It wasn’t that long ago that only the elite businesses had a web page. Today, you can have one created and up and running in a day, without breaking the bank. Your website should act as a funnel for everything you do on social media and with your marketing. You can certainly invest without having a website, but you just make the process more difficult. For the time and expense, a business website should be a no brainer. If you are stuck in neutral, this may be one of the biggest reasons why. People like to work with people they know and trust. A website not only shows authenticity, but it can provide a glimpse in who you are and how you run your business.
- Understand Social Media Marketing: There are many ways to promote your business and generate leads online. One of the best, and easiest, is through social media. Whether you are thinking about Facebook, Instagram or Twitter there is no better way to reach the masses than social media. Simple social media posts to a business page are effective, but there are other ways to generate business. Instead of paying someone to run a Facebook campaign for you, it makes sense to learn how to do it yourself. In the beginning there will be some trial and error, but the more you learn and the more you do it the easier it will become. You can find a tutorial or a course online and there are books dedicated solely to social media advertising. Instead of paying someone to get the campaign you want take the time to learn how to do it yourself.
- Pick A Niche: In real estate, pursuing every opportunity that comes your way often has a negative impact on your bottom line. Until you are comfortable handing multiple types of different transactions you are better off sticking to a specific niche. Not only will this help improve your conversion rate, but it will maximize the profits on every deal. Instead of wasting time driving all over or guessing on the strength of a market you will be quicker to act. Your niche can be anything from mobile homes to condos to properties under $75,000. Any area of the business that you are interested in can be a niche if you are willing to work hard enough. Instead of trying to be a jack of all trades you may be better off picking one niche and sticking with it.
- Track Everything You Do For A Week: If you are stuck in neutral, there may be a chance that you are not working as hard as you need to. There is a big difference in being busy and being productive. It is easy to fool yourself that you are busy, when you are just unorganized. By writing down everything you do for a week you can get a real glimpse into your time management. Your actions often determine your results. If you are not working hard, or smart, you can make the necessary changes. If work ethic is not your problem, it is a sign that something in your business needs to be changed.
Getting out of a business rut is much harder than getting into one. Use these five pointers to give yourself a kick in the butt and get your business going in the right direction.