You have human resource experience and a big idea to help leaders transform their work culture, build employee engagement or stream line how employees cooperate with one another. You are also no longer satisfied with simply daydreaming about starting your own consulting business. You are ready to take the plunge into entrepreneurship and navigate the rocky waters of startups to building your consulting practice.
But with 90 percent of startups failing, it is important to look for proven turn-key opportunities to become one of the 10 percent that succeeds. While there are no guarantees in life, strategic team development tools and advice for startups can help bump you into the top 10 percent. This doesn’t ensure success, but by taking the advice of successful startups and the resources we give you in this article, you can learn from best practices and others’ errors and save yourself from some of the mistakes, and failure, that go along with starting a business.
Team building advice for a successful Consulting startup
Consider the following team consulting tips to ensure greater success.
Start with your product. Or service or app or whatever it is that you’re planning on bringing to the human performance market. In order to have a successful startup, your product needs to be ready to fill a void in the current market. So before you go to the trouble of creating a business plan, seeking funding and hiring employees, you need to have a valuable product that the right market finds valuable and will invest in. Take the time to do your research and determine the viability of your product before you take the plunge.
Make sure your product avoids income downturns. Feast or famine income cycles can plague start up consulting practices. To ensure that you avoid this cycle focus on products and services that offer multiple application benefit to your client — not just one service.
Make a plan. Many new businesses make the mistake of not creating a formal business plan because they are not planning on seeking outside funding. While you may not necessarily need a business plan to get started, research finds that businesses with a formal plan are two-and-a-half times more likely to succeed. This does not mean, however, that you have to have every single aspect of the business figured out before you can start on the actual work. Business plans should instead be viewed as living documents that adapt and change with the business as it adapts and changes. Create at least a rough draft business plan to start and fill it in as you learn and discover new things about your business.
Find funding. If you have funding already in place, great! And we know that businesses can grow and change over time. With a business plan in place, you can start searching for available funding, which includes crowdfunding, venture capital, small business loans and lines of credit. The first step is to find funding opportunities that are compatible with your product, vision and industry you serve.Look for funds that invest in your business type, such as ecommerce, software, tech or others, and choose a fund that invests in your current round of funding, such as first rounds or later rounds. By taking the time to research which available funds are a good fit, you will save yourself time and energy by not pursuing opportunities that have little to no chance of investing in your company.
Be creative. With the advent of the internet, there are many new solutions for old problems. For example, the internet makes it extremely easy for businesses to use crowdsourcing to solve problems associated with many different areas of the business. Businesses can use crowdsourcing for marketing; to gather possible solutions for existing problems; and to reduce labor costs, among others.
Get help. Another resource that business owners can utilize is leadership training programs. If you have not built one, look for tools that allow you to resell existing platforms to your clients. When the leaders you serve learn essential leadership skills, they are better able to improve their performances, increase productivity among employees and improve business confidence. One program that offers reselling opportunities to team developers through team developing licensing is on demand training for leaders. Leaders can learn new skills by taking part in a proven and effective program. You are enriched by the process and do not have to reinvent the wheel meaning that you can work to grow your company rather than diligently working to develop content rather than increasing your revenue.
Remember both the short and long game. When starting a new business, it’s easy to get caught up in all of the tasks that need to be accomplished immediately. But for a business to be successful, leaders need to think in terms of short-term and long-term goals. Long term goals include content development and social network posting. Short term goals mean meeting with leaders in your community on a weekly basis to assess their team development and leadership need.
When jumping into the business, leaders have a lot to complete in a short amount of time, and while it is important to complete many important tasks in the beginning, entrepreneurs need to take care to not burn out in the beginning. The road to success is a long one, and leaders need to be ready to tackle new obstacles as they emerge. Play the short game, but don’t forget that the long game is also going on around you.
With 90 percent of startups failing, entering the entrepreneurship game can seem daunting and almost impossible, but unless you try, you will fail 100 percent of the time. So if you have the experience to support a consulting idea or product that deserves to be on the market, make it happen. By connecting with existing team development and leadership platforms, you can increase your chances of remaining in the top ten percent.
Some tips include starting with the product; making a business plan; finding funding; getting creative; utilizing available resources; and playing both the short and long game. Nothing in life is guaranteed, but your startup can succeed if you take the right steps in the beginning.
The following resources offer additional information on helping your startup succeed:
- 90% Of Startups Fail: Here’s What You Need To Know About The 10%
- Eternal Sunshine of a Flawless Plan: Winning Startup Strategies
- Success At First Pitch: What VCs Want In Your Startup’s Pitch
- How Crowdsourcing Can Help You With Ideas, Content and Labor
- Leadership Training Programs Counteract Falling Small Business Confidence
- How Your Company Can Survive Its First 12 Months
Copyright TIGERS Success Series, Inc by Dianne Crampton
About TIGERS Success Series, Inc.
TIGERS Success Series is a Bend, Oregon Leadership and Team Improvement Consultant that helps committed leaders build more cooperation among employees and collaboration between departments for improved growth and revenue.
We do this by deploying the TIGERS team process that improves workforce behaviors that are anchored by trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk resolution and success. Providing diagnostics and customized team interventions, you can improve both work culture and transform your adequate teams into exceptional ones. We also license and train HRD Executives, Project Managers, Managers, Trainers and Team Consultants in the use of our award winning resources. For more information, call 1+ 541-385-7465.
