Businesses come in many different forms, and as such, the approaches entrepreneurs take when running them can vary dramatically. Whilst there isn’t necessarily a right answer to the question ‘how should I run my business?’, there are certainly a lot of wrong ones.

Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of launching and running a business without putting a strategy in place first.

Throwing together a logo and a website; compiling a list of services with little-to-no thought put into the pricing; and establishing a thin presence on all the social media platforms, is not at all sustainable and definitely doesn’t equate to a well-considered long-term strategy.

Solidify Your Brand’s Foundation

In order to successfully build, grow, and scale your business, developing a firm foundation for the brand is essential. In order to do this, you need a thorough understanding of what your brand is all about.

Ensure your mindset is focused on the success of your brand by visualizing exactly what makes you stand out against the competition.

An entrepreneur must always identify the ideal way to position their business. The positioning of your brand - in other words, the way people view it - will have an immeasurable impact on the company.

It will help to clarify your mission, vision, ideal client, USP, and more. Knowing the answer to all of this, and positioning your business in such a way that it comes across clearly to your target audience, is key in creating a strong foundation.

Identify Your Signature Offer

What is it that your brand promotes above everything else? Identifying and establishing your signature offers (a maximum of three is recommended) will help to position you as an expert in your field.

A signature offer can be quite easily defined as a product or service that helps to bring in the most money. If you need further help in identifying what this should be, it’s important to really get to know your clients or customers.

Not only will this be key in inspiring confidence and marketing your products or services effectively via your social media content, but it will also help you to identify the area of your business that requires the most significant promotion.

Brand Identity

At the beginning of this article, you were warned against depending on a vapid social media presence, over the development of a strong long-term strategy. Whilst this is definitely still true, that doesn’t mean social media shouldn’t factor into the strategy.

In fact, taking advantage of social media is near enough essential in the modern age. It currently stands as the marketing strategy many find to be prosperous, depending on the industry.

Whilst brand identity covers more than your social media presence, the latter will be strongly influenced by the former. Brand identity consists of everything that contributes to people’s visualisation of your brand - logo, fonts, colour palette, etc.

All of this should reflect who you are, what you offer, and the level of service customers can expect, whilst also appealing to your target audience.

Having a deep understanding of your brand identity will help you to establish yourself consistently across all of your social media platforms - something that will instantly make your brand more recognizable and feel more trustworthy to potential customers or clients.

On the topic of social media - if it’s to be utilised as the exceptional marketing tool it is - it’s highly important to use each platform effectively, to guarantee the best organic results.

With Instagram, for example, this will mean understanding and following their algorithm and utilising the various features (stories, reels, IGTV, etc) in order to engage with your audience. Doing this correctly will place your page higher in the explorer page; creating a wider reach and organic growth.

Identify the Perfect Supplier

A key element of developing a sustainable long-lasting business strategy is to source the best suppliers for your brand and build a healthy working relationship with them. The best bet for those working in specialised industries, is to work with a specialist supplier.

In order to source the best suppliers for your brand, you should ask specific questions that are important to your business. Dig deep into their customer service and delivery model; and enquire whether they can meet all of your business needs.

Ask about (and research) the long-term business strategy of their business to ensure they have the expertise you require. Crown Connective’s supplier e-books can be a huge help in identifying the ideal, industry-specific supplier for your brand.

Nicky Bentley is founder and CEO of the supplier connection service Crown Connective.