Although most people do not achieve success the first time around with their business, success is always within reach if the right principles are applied under the right success factors. There is no luck to success, it simply occurs for everyone where preparation meets opportunity.
To succeed in business, an entrepreneur must be aware of the following five key success factors:
Ability to sell at a profit
A businessman must sell at a profit to remain in business. You can’t afford to run a business at a loss, and the inability to sell profitably is the surest and fastest way to run out of business. You must fathom a way to sell for profit without running any losses with overhead costs.
Ability to reduce overhead costs
One thing an entrepreneur must do consistently is to constantly reduce overhead costs. The higher the costs of running your business the lesser your profit margin; so you must work out means to cut down on operational costs without reducing overall product quality in any way.
Ability to develop new products while maintaining the old
Since the needs and wants of customers are ever changing, an entrepreneur must respond to these changes by developing new products to cater to new preferences while modifying existing products to retain their market value. Your ability to foresee and respond to the dynamic preferences of targeted customers is key to remaining and succeeding in business.
Ability to find and retain high-value customers
Your ability to source for high-value customers is essential to selling your products and remaining in business. Sometimes 10 high-value customers can be more valuable than 80 normal customers, because what the former will purchase in bulk is what the latter will purchase in bits. But where certain high-profile customers drive the main success of a business, the businessman must seek to increase this high-value customer base.
Ability to create and maintain customer satisfaction
Customer satisfaction and continual patronage are key to sustaining new and old customers. You can’t remain in business if you lose customers at a fast rate, and you can’t keep customers if they are not satisfied with your product or service. So you must always strive to exceed customer expectations to remain in business at all times and to keep your profit rising.
You must however bear in mind that these key success factors will only yield results in the face of quality characters such as hard work, self-confidence, profit-oriented, goal-oriented, motivated for the future, persistence and tenacity, instance response to customer feedback, risk-taking, honesty and integrity, demonstration of initiatives and willingness to listen and adapt to others.