Top 5 Tips on How to Build a Profitable Business

entrepreneur reviewing business documents

National Entrepreneur’s Day was November 17th, 2020—a day to celebrate creative minds who’ve taken great risk to build a business from scratch. As the CEO and founder of EvolveMKD, a digital communications and PR agency in NYC, I want to encourage and celebrate brave entrepreneurs by offering tips to set-up a new business to not just survive, but thrive (Yes, even during a pandemic).

Show Up with Enough Capital – Lack of capital and negative cash flow is often cited as the number one reason new ventures fail. Trying to grow revenues while controlling expenses becomes a vicious cycle. You infuse money you don’t have with the expectation that you’ll attract more clients. If you don’t attract them fast enough, your new company will become among the 50 percent that fail in the first five years. Businesses rise and fall on their ability to manage account receivables and payables. Having this awareness when negotiating contracts and understanding the pattern of clients’ payments will allow you to make more strategic decisions.

Diversify Your Advisors: Entrepreneurs tend to focus on developing their product and working with clients when they first start out, but it’s the management of your business that can make it or break it. A good accountant is worth their weight in gold. Having the right team to ensure forecasting, hiring, taxation, regulatory compliance, and other management duties are organized and correct is crucial to your business’s success. The data and information your back-office team generates will give you the power to make better decisions and to walk away from things that are not working before they become expensive mistakes.

Choose a Client Base with Right-Sized Expectations: Trying to provide champagne service on a beer budget never ends well. Choose clients with budgets that match what you’re offering. It’s tempting to think you can work it all out, but in the end, a mismatch will always cost more in real capital or in time than it brings in.

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Resolve To Evolve by Megan Driscoll

Harness Social Media: With the pandemic forcing people to spend the bulk of their time at home, social media is a primary channel for reaching out to your base on a personal level. Customers now expect companies and brands to be the thing they believe in and feel good about. Show them what makes you and your product different while also being something they can relate to and support with their now slimmer pocketbook.

Don’t Let Fear Stop You from Something You Want to Do. I have always prided myself on finding solutions to tough problems and persevering until I can find a way to get from here to there. Starting a new business during an economic downturn will have its challenges. However, if you explore solutions first, you’re bound to still be afloat and prospering when the crisis ends.

Want to know more about how to build a business of your own? I wrote #Resolve To Evolve on how to grow a people-first business in today’s changing markets.

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Megan Driscoll author Headshot

CEO & Founder, EvolveMKD

Megan earned a spot on PRWeek’s 40 Under 40 List and was one of five women from the United States honored at the International Women Entrepreneurial Challenge. Additionally, Megan was…

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