Remember how it felt to be the new kid on the playground? Everyone else had friends already, and it felt impossible to get yourself seen. It was uncomfortable, daunting, and you were probably glad to leave all of that behind you at school. Which is why it can come as such a blow to realize that starting a brand new business can send you right back there.
Most markets are now saturated with brands claiming that they’re the best and, if those competitors already have a decade of experience and a client backlist to boast about, you might not be overly keen to go up against them.
But here’s something to bear in mind – new businesses outstrip more established competitors every single day, and there’s no reason why you can’t also take yourself from the new kid on the block, right up to the top. You simply need to walk the walk, talk the talk, and learn to give a pro impression with your brand new business using the following crucial pointers.
# 1 – Experience Comes From Teams, Not Years
Have you ever seen a company that claims to have ‘an accumulative experience of two decades’, or something similar? This is now a commonplace turn of expression, and it doesn’t mean that the company has been in existence for twenty years already.
Instead, many brands take their experience from members of their team, which has the benefit of sounding even more impressive, and proves their industry worth from an early stage. Or at least, it can if you think hard about quality hiring in your startup!
While you might assume the best hiring prospects won’t even look your way, remember that you offer something those more established competitors never could – you’re on the cutting edge of fresh new business opportunities. And that alone can make great hires bite. Remember, too, that you don’t necessarily need the best in the business to make impressive experience claims. Even just four employees with five years of experience each allow you to claim an accumulated expertise of twenty years!
# 2 – Tools That Account for the Knowledge You Lack
Even the best team can’t cover the fact that there will be some things you don’t know about your industry and the people/processes within it. This lack of understanding is only to be expected from a new business. Unfortunately, key blind spots when it comes to things like your network and overall industry standing can leave you on a collision course. Luckily, seeking the right tools can help you to see the light.
Nowadays, there are plenty of invaluable tools to help you find a more professional footing for your brand. In the most basic sense, it’s now entirely possible to invest in tools that provide professional-grade business graphics or other content at an affordable rate for even new companies. Equally, tools like Zoominfo’s go-to-market intelligence platform can boost your sales by providing an extensive catalogue of contact details for all of those sales teams and other relevant professionals that you simply don’t have a feel for yet. As well as using this crucial tool to boost your business address book, attending ZoomInfo’s GTM 25 conference could see you networking with a lot of those contacts first-hand!
The availability of these tools, which typically come in ‘personal’, ‘ professional’, and ‘pro’ packages to ensure affordability at every stage, means that you can now look and perform the part of a fully professional and established company from day dot, and throughout your first years and months.
# 3 – Connections can Make a Huge Difference
We’ve already touched on the importance of creating connections with the help of companies like Zoominfo, but it’s time to hammer this point home – connections can make a huge difference to the impression your company gives.
To go back to the playground analogy, imagine that you’re a new kid in a school where you don’t know a soul. Making connections is inevitably harder because there’s no one to recommend you as a friend or introduce you to your ‘crowd’. Now, imagine you’re a new kid in a school where you know one or two people. It might still be hard to find your place, but at least you have a few people to look out for you and introduce you to potential friends.
Well, the same is true in business. Your ability to make connections with relevant professionals will make a huge difference to your standing, especially if those connections are with well-respected industry figures.
Connections including complimentary brands, sales reps, and even marketing people, can all prove beneficial to securing your place as an industry forerunner, even while you’re still green. What’s more, you can manage this while you sit at home by simply signing up and connecting on LinkedIn. Attending industry events and actively seeking contact details for the right people is also sure to help you.
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# 4 – Don’t Undo Your Hard Work With Poor Processes
If you’ve taken these steps, you’ll have carved out a pretty professional image for yourself so far. Just make sure you don’t undo it with poor processes. After all, even if you say all of the right things to buy the respect and trust of your customers, they’ll soon sniff you out as a newbie fraud if your processes are slow, convoluted, or amateur for any other reason.
Hence, why, as much as you want to perfect networking, your core processes should always be your primary concern. It’s especially important to eliminate common new business problems, which can include communication issues or shipment setbacks. Technical issues are another no-no. Luckily, having the right team and tools in place can help here. You should also regularly audit your internal processes and make sure that you’re scaling your capabilities alongside your growing audience.
It’s never easy being the new kid on the block, but you can bluff your way to the best audiences in no time using these top tips.