ABOVE PHOTO: Nikki Purvy
By Kiarra Solomon
@By_Kiarra
If you’re thinking about starting a business, you may be a little nervous. Starting a business is a big step and ITS success is solely dependent on you. It’s no longer about having a great idea, now it’s about monetizing that idea. There’s a lot of advice out there for entrepreneurs, but the best advice will come from those who have experience in what you are trying to do.
Nikki Purvy is a self-described serial entrepreneur. She’s started several companies in the past decade and even worked as an institutional bond trader. Four years ago, she founded her latest company, Lidyr Creative Marketing Agency, which provides graphic design, web design, social media marketing and search engine optimization. Her client list includes Comcast, The Mike Vick Foundation, Ming Lee (owner of Snob Life) and Premier Luxury Rentals, to name a few.
Through working with so many startups (as well as launching a few businesses of her own), Purvy has decided to begin offering another service for her clients, business development.
“We meet so many business owners, most of them during their start-up phase, and we started to notice trends. We also became a sort of advisor to some of these business owners, helping them succeed.”
Purvy says there are five things every small business owner should do before launching their business.
1. Find Your Niche. Whatever industry you’re in you need to niche down as much as possible. This will enable you to communicate better with your target market, which will make your brand stronger, and ultimately, make more money.
2. Develop your elevator pitch. Your elevator pitch should be a two or three sentence explanation of your business and your brand. You need to be able to explain your business in layman’s terms. If people can’t understand what your business is or what it does, they will be leary of doing business with you. Why would they do business with you if they don’t understand what you?
3. Invest in a good website. Your website the personal billboard for your business. Your potential customers will judge your business acumen based on your website. Many times chosing website can be the deciding factor between you and your competitor for a client.
4. Do your research. You should do as much research as possible. Is your business going to serve an existing market or is will it just be feeding into your hobby? For example, you may have an interest in green finger nail polish, and want to start a business selling it. But if there isn’t a market for green finger nail polish, it won’t be successful. If no one is in the market for whatever it is you’re selling, you won’t make money.
5. Be committed. Commitment separates the successful businesses from the unsuccessful. You are going to have bad times. You have to be committed to your business in order to see the fruit of your work.
“The number one businesses fail is fear. Subconsciously, people create reasons they can’t be successful, like ‘I don’t have enough time’ or ‘I don’t have enough money to do it.’ So they don’t do it, which ends up being the reason why the business fails. You have to really overcome any fears that you may have about starting your business”, says Purvy
“If I had to create an entrepreneur toolkit, it would be a series of questions. These are the questions that every entrepreneur should ask themselves. The answers will probably evolve over time, but you should have a very clear answers to each of them at all times.”
Entrepreneurs Toolkit of Questions
1. Who is your target audience? Describe them clearly. What problem are you solving.
2. Your elevator speech should answer who, what, when, where, why, and how. It should also be well-rehearsed, clearly defined and you should say it with confidence.
3. What does your day of success look like? Define your goal, and your day of success. How many clients, how much money, etc.? Take that goal and multiply it by 10, and then determine what clear actions you can take today to achieve that goal.
4. How can you refine your discipline in your everyday life to get you to your goal? Should you be saving more money? Investing more money in your business? What can you do to get closer to your gaol?
“At the end of the day, your success will be dependent upon the daily actions that you take to reach your goal. There isn’t one component that anyone can point to that will make your business successful. But your success is based on your daily actions, and how well you have defined your product and target market.”
Nikki Purvy the Lidyr Creative Marketing Agency and their services, please visit www.Lidyr.com. You can also connect with Lidyr on social media at @LidyrCreative on Instagram and Twitter and www.Facebook.com/LidyrCreative.
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