I have one of those “for love” businesses. Sure, I’d prefer it was more of a “for profit” business, but it’s definitely getting there! BUT, when it started, the motivation was love. I first had a dream of starting a baby and kids online clothing business when I was pregnant with my second child. I wanted to be able to give other parents a great shopping experience, far beyond the same old chain clothing shop. My dream was all about bringing together eCommerce and old fashioned retail – where the products, and customer relationships are all unique. Little Peeps Clothing launched – and within a few months, all but fizzled out. I was about to become one of the 35 percent of nascent businesses that fizzle out before they reach three! Why? Newbie mistakes. Lots of them. So, as Little Peeps Clothing turns one (phew – that’s a big milestone down) I have some no-longer-a-newbie insights to share.
First, I figured out what the successful businesses were doing differently
With a worrisome 69%* of businesses either closed or failing to thrive at three years, I began investigating what was making business sustainable. People were throwing words around like, SEO, business plan, niche, targets and the like. It might seem like a no brainer to have all those things at launch but in fact, almost 90%* of start ups are a one wo/man show and only 25%* of start ups have external funding – so there are plenty out there that don’t have a marketing team on hand!
1. The cheap and cheerful mistake – Social Media Marketing vs Social Networking
So, I was on a tight budget and was full of the hubris of a new biz owner who’d made a few sales! I knew everything! What do they know? My advertising was all Facebook based, it was free, effective and I could DIY it – just look at all the start-ups making a motza on Social Media. I thought this is all I needed and it will bring the business to my site. But, a few sales here and there does not a business make. When Facebook started messing with their algorithm, things went bad fast! So I started researching, I started spying on my competitors to see what they were doing and what I clearly wasn’t doing. I reached out to other like-minded business women and asked what they were doing. Then I got involved in newsletters and also advertisements on certain pages. It was networking on Facebook that grew my business, not advertising. Even with a network of people ready to market my product for me, Facebook’s algorithm changes meant that the Facebook dream is over. Little Peeps Clothing is now on more social platforms and I was forced to learn how to reach Mums online, I also developed directory listings on Mum-focused websites. Lesson Learnt: don’t put all your eggs in the Facebook basket. Social networking will only get you so far! Reach out and connect with network partners across multiple platforms and carefully assess where your fans are.
2. To plan or not to plan
At start up, only about 5% of the businesses I networked with actually had business plans – and it didn’t seem to make any difference at all to the survivability of their firms – so I didn’t bother. I talked with a business coach (totally worth the money!) and I discovered that I should have a business plan in place, have set goals that I want to achieve, a budget (yuck, formerly a dirty word in my world) and a target market. So I undertook this task! I worked out that what makes me different from the rest and who I want to target my business towards. Suddenly, I could make sure I was spending on advertising that really mattered and I saw far better ROI than randomly spending on Facebook ads. For me the goals and budget were confronting, that was the point I realised that I had made some big mistakes with my start up business and I needed to correct these. By not having a business plan with an idea about the customers I am aiming for, I was buying products that were all over the place. It did cover every price range, but there wasn’t enough product per price range and therefore not a lot to offer for a client’s budget. I took a step back re-evaluated my product range and are have a clear plan for future stock. Lesson Learnt: If you don’t have a clear vision and goals, you’ll waste a lot of money on stock that won’t sell and ads that won’t work. It’s a hard task that is no fun at all, but that’s part of being in business, it can’t all be about fabulously cute kid clothes!
3. SEO – who knew it mattered so much?
At first I was stumped. I barely understood what search engine optimisation was, let alone how to develop a strategy and then make it work and my start up budget didn’t allow for the thousands of dollars my bigger competitors were paying! After just 7 months in business, that was it, I was ready to throw in the (beautifully decorated, hooded baby) towel and go back to my day job. I was exhausted. Facebook leads had dried up and SEO was sealed away in the too hard basket. Nothing worked. I stumbled across a company that specialised in SEO for start-ups and small business. I made contact with them and began a course of DIY SEO study with them. With eBooks, private SEO mentoring groups and networking groups I have finally cottoned on to SEO and my traffic and sales steadily began increasing. Lesson Learnt: If I had known a year ago how important SEO is to a business and the simple things that someone like me (totally baffled by these things) can do help myself, my business would be in at a whole new level now.
The real secret to nascent business success
Little Peeps Clothing is not swimming with the big sharks – it’s a small business with moderate goals, fuelled by passion. It’s getting there and will continue to improve as long as I continue to improve. All these lessons were vital and hard learnt but the real lesson for passionate nascent businesswomen is that improving your business worth is mostly about improving your own worth. Become rich with knowledge and your business will follow.
Many start-ups struggle with the same issues Kylie faced. Learn more about social media marketing, building an effective business plan or how to use SEO to boost your online exposure.
