Are you thinking about starting a business? Did you already start a business and you can’t figure out how to take it to the next level? From my experience, there are 3 things that are absolutely essential to any business: a product or service, good marketing, and a meaningful mission.
Products and Services
The main goal of a business is to be profitable. You can have many other goals (and we will touch on this in the mission section) but if there’s no profits you’ll run out of business. To make profits you need to sell something. You need an offer. Your offer can be a physical product, informational product, or a service as long as you have a way to deliver on the offer. If you sell something and can’t deliver on it, you’ll have some unhappy clients on your hands.
Your offer needs to solve a problem at a price people are willing to pay. There are probably already lots of companies trying to solve the same problem. Therefore, your offer needs to be better than your competitors’ offer. There are lots of ways of improving your offer, but bigger companies will usually have an edge when it comes to economies of size. This means that they can provide the same product or service at a lower price point. Unless you have a lot of start-up capital at your disposal, I wouldn’t recommend competing on price. If you make your prices lower than your competitors, you attract the cheapest customers who will take advantage of you every chance they get. And guess what? They still want the job done to their high standards. So you will work your ass off, the customer still won’t be happy, and you won’t make any money.
It’s better for everyone involved if you charge what you’re worth. When you know you’re making good money, it’s easy to put in that extra effort to deliver an exceptional product or service. When you are able to go above and beyond for your clients, they will be happy to pay your prices even if they are on the higher side. This is why I always choose to compete on quality rather than on price.
When I started Carroll Property Services, my main offer was going to be weekly lawn maintenance. Lawn maintenance takes time and energy, so I would essentially be selling people back their time and energy. But I quickly realized that I had no way to one-up established property maintenance companies. I needed a better offer. I wasn’t getting any business so I had lots of time to turn inwards and search for a better solution. The solution was not to continue servicing lawns week after week, but rather to design gardens using native plants that need less maintenance. This lines up better with my environmentalist values and is just more fun and challenging than cutting grass. Of course, there are other design companies, but design is an art and art is subjective, so I am able to tailor my designs capture a larger percentage of a smaller market.
It’s okay if your offer isn’t fully developed. As long as you can deliver, you can start selling. However, always be open to change. As you spend time in the market you will see gaps that need to be filled. Fill them.
Always work on improving your offer.
Marketing
People can’t accept your offer if they’ve never heard of it. Marketing is a way to get eyes on your business and establish a brand.
There are so many ways to market your product or service: websites, social media, email campaigns, Google ads, Facebook ads, Tiktok (please don’t ask me how to use Tiktok), network marketing, door knocking, cold calling, stickers, signs, business cards, banners, flyers, I could go on and on. When you are first starting your business you are going to want to focus on 2 or 3 marketing strategies so you can understand what works and what doesn’t. The marketing strategy you choose will be highly dependent on what kind of business you have, but a good place to start would be with a website.
A website establishes trust. It’s like a job application, it should show your strengths, your personality, and your results. It allows potential customers to read about your offer, learn more about your company, read testimonials, look at port-folios, and find your contact information. Your job is to help people make a decision. The more information they have at their fingertips the easier it is for them to make a decision. The most important part about running a website is to consistently post quality content. Google will reward you with free traffic if they see that you are active and that your content has depth and value. Think about what kinds of questions your ideal client might have and answer them!
If you want to create a WordPress blog-style website like this one, I highly recommend checking out Income School on YouTube.
Consistency with your website is key. The same thing goes for most other marketing strategies, keep posting on Instagram, keep knocking on doors, keep picking up the phone, keep taking no’s (the yes’s will come!). Content is king. Marketing is all about getting more eyes on your business. The more people who know about you the better. Now that you listened to my advice and you have a beautiful website, you have somewhere to send people from all your other platforms. This shows them that you are professional, you’re serious, and you mean business!
Running a website isn’t free. It costs me about $30/month to keep it up and running. If you’re tight on cash, you can always start your marketing for free using social media, but invest in a website as soon as you can afford it! Before spending too much more money on marketing, make sure that your product is satisfactory and profitable. Once you get a few clients and start to establish your business, you might want to kick things up a notch by running paid ads. Paid ads allow you to get new clients for your business on demand. It’s like turning on a faucet that will keep pouring until you turn it off. To catch all that water, you need a bucket (like a website) or the water will run away.
No matter what marketing strategy you choose, I can’t stress enough how important it is to continue providing value. You should try switching up your messaging to see what works best for you. Does it work better to focus on the problem or the solution? Tap into how somebody might be feeling without your product. Show them the value of your service but also the pain of not having it. But most of all, keep creating content. Some content will flop, just keep creating until it hits home.
Keep feeding the content monster.
Mission
Your mission is by far the most important factor in determining the success of your business.
Of course, that depends on how you define success. I think that success is waking up in the morning and going to sleep at night having done only what you wanted to do in between. By this metric, you can be successful in anything as long as you find meaning in your work and it meets your basic needs.
When you start out, being able to provide for yourself and your loved ones might be your only mission. This is a noble mission as you can’t help others until you’ve first helped yourself. However, you will hopefully reach a point in your business where your basic needs have been met. This is the turning point where if you haven’t found a deeper mission yet, you will have to.
Some companies choose to put their shareholders first and make it their mission to be profitable at any cost. This might work for some people, but how many more solid gold Humvee’s do they really need? No. Like I said before, profitability is essential, but it should never become your main objective. I strongly believe there is more fulfillment to gain by making it your mission to help others.
At Carroll Property Services, our mission is to create sustainable systems. I know it seems kind of vague but it really comes down to 2 things: less work, and less waste. One of the ways we are achieving this is by designing and installing native plant gardens. Native plants require very little maintenance and watering since they are already accustomed to the local climate. They provide shelter and food for local wildlife and pollinators. They store more carbon in the ground than lawns can, and most importantly, they don’t require all kinds of gas-powered equipment (mower, trimmer, blower, etc.) to keep them looking amazing.
Are there times when I don’t feel like I’m achieving my mission? Definitely! But this is how I constantly re-evaluate the work that I’m doing, sharpen my sights, and become better. A mission is a life-long endeavor. It isn’t an end destination, but rather a direction for your life.
We all have a different purpose in this life, so choose a direction and move towards it. You will gain nothing by putting off the choice to move.
These are the 3 things that I constantly work on to improve my business. If I had to add one more thing it would be repeatable systems. Systems can help take the hard work out of making decisions. What did I miss? What is the most important aspect of your business? Let me know in the comments below.
Thanks for reading!
Scott Carroll
Carroll Property Services
289-943-5477
