With the fourth series of the Start Your Own Business podcast coming to an end, we looked back over all eight episodes to bring you the key lessons from each of our small business owners and experts.
In this series, we have covered everything from how to survive a recession to how to build confidence as a small business owner in the hope we can help your small business succeed.
1. "If your own costs are going up and you're not passing them on, you can very, very quickly start selling at a loss"
Our very own Rory MccGwire, founder of Atom Content Marketing and the Donut business advice websites spoke to us about how to keep your business afloat when times get tough (eg recessions, cost of living crises, pandemics etc). Although it's a no-brainer that increased costs equal lower profits, for small businesses this can be especially difficult. Limited funds, the inability to buy stock more cheaply in bulk, and the reluctance to increase prices can quickly create the perfect storm for small businesses.
Rory emphasised the value and importance of keeping a detailed cash flow in order to project future earnings and address any drops in cash flow months in advance. Having experienced owning and running a business for over 30 years, sometimes during extreme economic difficulty and the resulting fall out such as managing debts and redundancies, Rory has lots of great advice to offer.
Listen to 'How to keep your business afloat when times are tough' here.
2. "The negative part of your brain is lying to you. Please stop investing in what it says. When we invest in fear, we shrink"
Self-confidence and human behaviour expert, Jo Emerson, explains how to build your self-confidence when running a small business. Describing self-confidence as self-belief and the ability to go with the flow, Jo explained how being happy for other people's success is a sign of real confidence. Confidence can also play a major role in our mental health and wellbeing. For startups and small businesses, it's easy to feel overwhelmed while trying to balance the volume of work. The feeling of burnout and imposter syndrome are not unusual. Jo emphasises how anyone can be self-confident if they decide to be. If you decide to stop listening to the negative part of your brain, you're more likely to grow both your business and yourself.
A regular speaker at conferences and business coach, Jo is the perfect person to help you grow both personally and professionally. Her advice is not only helpful for small business owners and start-ups, but also for freelancers, sole traders, and people in general.
Listen to 'How to become more confident when running a small business' here.
3. "Go into it knowing you will have to make sacrifices, there will be challenges, but they will be worthwhile"
The first of our start-up stories this series was from Matt Mahatme, a former bartender turned co-founder of mixer brand Lixir Drinks. Having started the business with a friend while at university after spotting a gap in the market, they decided to launch their contemporary disruptor brand. Having predominately self-funded their business, and being forced to pivot their business plan with the arrival of COVID-19, Matt is no stranger to sacrifice and struggle but he remains positive that all their efforts have paid off in the long run.
Matt takes us through his start-up journey, including the initial idea, pre-launch product development, and how they developed their branding and found the right distribution channels. He also explained how being patient with the start-up process - investing more time in thorough product development and branding in the beginning, can help you grow your business down the line.
Listen to 'Start-up Story - Matt Mahatme of Lixir Drinks' here.
4. "There are about five million family businesses in the UK and they employ about 14 million people"
We spoke with Fiona Graham of Family Business UK about the importance family businesses still hold in the UK. Though many may think of family-run businesses as quaint, or a thing of the past, Fiona was keen to stress that family businesses are not old-fashioned, but actually make up a large number of UK businesses, particularly small businesses, generating a quarter of UK GDP.
Fiona took us through some of the pros and cons of starting and running a business with family members, before discussing the importance of setting boundaries when working with family.
Listen to 'How to start and run a business with a family member' here.
5. "If you really want to get value from a peer board, then the most important thing is to have diversity in the room"
Award-winning business coach, mentor, adviser and peer board facilitator Jonathan O’Shea from The Alternative Board (TAB) stressed the benefits seeking peer group support can have on your business. However, he highlighted that business owners will get the most value out of peer boards and networking if they create a diverse group of people. This will offer a wider range of opinions and perspectives. From helping you get to know different potential demographics, to sharing skills you don't possess, a variety of ages, genders, backgrounds and stages of business development within your peer group will help you learn and grow your small business. Not to mention that peer boards are a good place to unload the stresses of running your own business to people who genuinely understand - hopefully benefitting you both personally and professionally.
Of course having an open mindset, a willingness to learn and share your own knowledge will also improve your peer board experience.
Listen to 'How small-business owners can gain from peer group support' here.
6. "No niche is too small"
In our second start-up story, we spoke to Charlie Low and Dale Comley, best-selling authors and co-founders of Climbingvan. Climbingvan provides parts, plans and installation guidance on how to convert a van into a campervan. Although this may seem like a very specific business aimed at a limited market, Dale explained how no niche is too small when it comes to business. He suggested using Google Trends to search the niche you are interested in, to get an idea of how many people in your country, and across the world, are Googling your niche. This can then be a good indication of market size and opportunity.
Charlie and Dale were also kind enough to explain how they have managed to create the perfect work-life balance while growing their business. Taking a leaf out of their own book, Dale and Charlie built their own campervan, the initial inspiration that inspired their best-selling book, originally never intending for it to develop into a business, let alone their full-time jobs. They shared which parts of their business they had to adapt in order to maintain their nomadic business lifestyle so they could build their business while travelling around Europe and discussed how they split their work across certain days to leave them with more time to explore their changing horizons.
Listen to 'Start-up Story - Charlie Low and Dale Comley of Climbingvan' here.
7. "For every dollar you invest in email marketing, you generate $44 back"
Laura Hanlon, company director of ecommerce growth acceleration agency Pink Leopard gave us some hard-hitting facts about the benefits of email marketing. In a world dominated by social media, Laura explained how there is no better channel for retention marketing than email, revealing how for every dollar invested in email marketing, on average you should see $44 back. That is far more than you'd achieve with social media marketing.
Laura also shared her top tips for email marketing including how to grow your mailing list, how to keep things GDPR-friendly as well as the type of tech you should be using to get the most out of email marketing.
Listen to 'How to use email marketing to grow your business' here.
8. "I would say it is the mindset of an entrepreneur that determines whether a business is a scale-up or an ordinary slower-growth business"
Many startups find that their business grows steadily over the years, while others achieve rapid growth in a short time. To be considered a scale-up, your business must have grown by at least 20% annually over the past three years and have at least ten employees at the start of that period. We spoke to The Entrepreneurs’ Adviser, Guy Rigby, SME mentor and author about what it takes to turn a start-up into a scale-up. Although scaling up is more applicable to certain sectors than others, Guy explained how the real factor that determines the success of small business growth, is the mindset of the entrepreneur, or business owner. Having spent most of his career advising growing SMEs, Guy was the perfect person to share his best advice for overcoming key start-up challenges.
Listen to 'How to start a scalable business' here.
Read the eight lessons we've learned from series three of the Start Your Own Business podcast here.
Copyright 2023. Post written by Sarah Bonehill, Donut Blog Team.