Founders of LEADR reveal top 3 strategy secrets to business success

According to Google, up to 1 million people search the phrase ‘Business Plan’ each month, with the terms ‘Corporate Strategy’ and ‘Business Development Strategy’ also receiving high search volumes.

What does this tell us? Business Owners need and regularly turn to Google for help with growth and development, demonstrating a need for advice and support to aid business success. This, of course, a somewhat telling statement when you consider a massive 74% of businesses unfortunately fail within the first 2 years alone.

LEADr team members, Andy Backhouse and Jack Waller, suggest that with a few key changes many more businesses would be able to grow and succeed for the long term.

Here are their top three tips:

Markets

According to Forbes, the top reason start-ups fail is because “…they make products no one wants” – which begs the question, how many businesses undertake extensive market research prior to launch?

Understanding your market sector, and its potential for growth and scalability is the first point in the LEADr Commerciality Model, and first key strategy to business success. Without a true understanding of your market sector, and whether there is a demand for your product and/or service, how do you know if your business has the potential to succeed?

Taking the time to undertake thorough market research, including target audience analysis, will confirm a demand for whatever product or service you are planning and hoping to bring to market.

Competitors

With market research comes competitor analysis and the next key strategy for business success. Jack and Andy explain that if you operate within a good market sector and you can provide a better service than your competitors, there is no reason as to why you should not be successful.

This, broken down into two segments – Offering Position and Operating Position.

Offering Position: Is all about price and whether the business in hand can create a product or service that betters competitors in design, quality and price to the customer.

Operating Position: Is all about what it costs the business to deliver said product or service to the customer – incorporating cost-saving efficiencies and improved productivity.

The key to success? If your business is able to beat competitors in both Offering Position and Operating Position, you will be in a very strong position.

Risks

To echo Mark Zuckerberg, “The biggest risk is not taking any risk… In a world that is changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks”. But how many entrepreneurs or business start-ups are fearful when it comes to taking risks? Or make error in judgement and take the wrong risk entirely?

According to LEADr, how you take and handle risk is the final strategy secret to business success. Part of this is having and utilising the personal characteristics required to be successful in business, where -according to Entrepreneur.com - risk features heavily, together with determination, confidence, passion and a desire to continue to learn and develop as an individual.

The good news? Calculating risks is something that can be learnt – particularly through LEADr, where candidates undertake experiential learning through real-life BBC Dragon’s Den footage, where you will understand how to balance and make decisions – where taking risk plays a key role.

To Summarise

To summarise: Business success depends on understanding what your targeted customers want, delivering it better than any competitor and identifying the risks that may be encountered in delivering it and overcoming them.

Develop Your Business Skills

Are you interested in finding out more about LEADr, and how it can help you achieve your business goals? Listen to Andy and Jack's webinar.