Teik Oh

How To Start Your Own Business

Mar 14 2017

Are you an entrepreneur wanting to start your own business?

Perhaps you are an expert in what you do, or you are a creative excelling in your specialty, and you work for someone else but think that you can do it better, or that your own business would be so much more?

OK so you want to start your own business but where do you start? What do you do first? What do you have to do? The questions are starting to overwhelm the enthusiasm, right? If only there were a number of steps laid out that you could follow, and be sure that you’ve thought about everything and that you haven’t missed anything.

Well there is!

I have created an online course to take any entrepreneur or small business startup from scratch – from idea to opening their doors. Funnily enough it’s called “How To Start Your Own Business“!

It is wrapped around 5 steps.

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Business Plans – Why and How

Mar 07 2017

OK, you’ve heard me talk about business plans before.

And if you haven’t, what? You really need to check this out at https://teikoh.com/?s=business+plan

Well, this week I’m going to talk about what the business planning process involves, and how you have to include the “why” of your business, why does it exist?

You see, people forget that business plans are written to be read. Yes, that’s a revolutionary thought isn’t it?

People think that business plans are boring internal documents that you write so that you can follow them step by step to grow your business. No. That’s called a to-do checklist.

Business plans are written to be read – by you, by your team, by outside investors, by supporters, by people close to you. Yes, they form the basis of what you have to do in order to grow your business – but more than that, a business plan is a story of what you have to do in order to grow your business to become the business that you want. This takes much more than a list of things that are your goals and a list of actions to achieve those goals. This means that your business plan has to be a reminder, an inspiration, it must attract people, it must make them want to be part of your story as an investor, as a team member, as a customer, as a fan.

So, let’s take a look at the why and how of the business plan process.

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Know Your Customer

Feb 28 2017

If you read anything about marketing, you know the basic philosophy of all marketing is market segmentation.

What’s market segmentation? It’s the way you analyse your market to understand how different groups of potential customers “tick”. Why is it important? So that you can focus your attention on the group or groups of potential customers who are most attracted to your offerings, and find them in the places they gather, whether virtually or physically.

Let’s take an example. Say you sell luxury fashion items. Who is your market? You might say men and women who like to stay fashionable.

Okay that’s great but that’s still a large slice of the wider market – are you sure all of them would be attracted to your offering? If you segmented that market you might be able to come up with at least two segments – men who like to stay fashionable and women who stay fashionable. If you then looked at the characteristics of the first, men who like to stay fashionable, you might find that say as a group their majority age group is between 18 and 25 and they don’t spend their money on fashionable fashion but rather trendy tech. Whereas the group of women are between the ages of 17 and 38, buy fashion, and often buy for fashion their partners. So who’s your better target market?

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How To Build Your Brand

Feb 21 2017

Your brand is not your logo – it is so much more than that!

Your brand is what makes you stand out from the competition. Your customers are loyal to your brand because it represents what your business means to them. Your brand is part promise, part standard, and all about your success.

If you haven’t done any work on your brand and think you don’t have one – think again! If you haven’t carefully created a brand, your customers have made one up for you. They see the way you behave, they watch your customer service, they look at your fonts and look, your marketing and your business standards, and what they perceived has become your brand. If you want to be in control of how you are seen and what your business means to customers, then you need to work on your visible brand now.

If you want to develop your brand there are 6 steps:-

Clarify your vision, mission and values
Decide how that vision should be seen publicly
Create a brand language and message
Design graphics and logos that are sympathetic to your message
Ensure your brand promise is backed up by your product or service
Develop a marketing strategy

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Are You An Entrepreneur, Or Are You Really A Hard-working Employee?

Feb 14 2017

Most of my readers are entrepreneurs and small business owners, so they would be surprised at the premise in the title of this week’s article.

Are you an entrepreneur – a small business owner – or are you actually a hard-working employee – for yourself?

A lot of my readers won’t want to hear this, but you must.

Successful entrepreneurs are driven. But then successful hard-working employees are also driven. But what drives them are two different things. A hard-working employee is driven to be good at their job. They take pride in a job well done. They work hard to make sure it is done well. When their entrepreneur bosses push these successful employees the reaction is often anger and frustration.

Successful employees deeply believe that they are doing their best and working hard. They are – but in their jobs. In their job description, within the parameters, working hard at the procedure or in the technology, putting in the hours…as an employee.

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Increase your sales through a highly focused marketing plan!

SMART Marketing: In this book, the owners of a small business are led through the SMART Marketing 7 Step Process to produce a marketing plan targeted at their most desirable customers. Any business can use these principles and in 4 to 6 weeks implement a plan to get them through the door! Find out how...

The SMART Marketing Workbook: Companion to “SMART Marketing”, this workbook sets out the SMART Marketing process in 7 workshops for you and your staff to complete questionnaires and templates that at the end, form the marketing plan you need to sell your REAL product to your REAL customer! View now...

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