Startup Canada #StartupChats – How To Start Up Strong Recap

How To Start Up Strong: Here is a recap of today’s Startup Canada #Startupchat, where we explored How To Startup Strong. The event had 39 contributors, 29.7 million impressions!

My Advice: I love data, which is fitting as I offer data-driven marketing solutions. I believe you should be reviewing your results on a monthly basis. This helps you track your progress in reaching your goals & by doing so on a monthly basis you have a better chance at catching any issues as they begin to occur. Also by tracking on a monthly basis, it breaks down the amount of work you face at year-end when revisiting your goals & writing your next year’s business plan. I have built a tool in excel that allows me to track my monthly revenue vs. the goal, my leads, prospects, proposals submitted, & my close rates. All of these results help me set achievable goals for the coming year. @SovInsurance #StartupChats How To Start Up Strong!

My advice: Your new annual plan should be based on your previous year’s results, the lessons learned, and from there, your next year’s goals should be set. Once the plan has been created it should be full steam ahead. As I mentioned I track monthly so pulling all of the results together & building out my new plan usually happens over two weeks, during the Christmas holiday break. @SovInsurance #StartupChats

My advice: Businesses can differ significantly, so in general, I would say the previous year’s results, the results you would like to achieve in the coming year & how those yearly results break down into trackable monthly goals. @SovInsurance #StartupChats #StartupChats

My advice: Indicators can be external & internal, I have clients in the US & the current political climate & recent events, causes instability with ongoing & upcoming projects, which lead to an adjustment in my business goals & re-evaluate my insurance. Internal signals come from customer service & satisfaction feedback channels. I work to keep my processes & practices fluid to improve & streamline. @SovInsurance  #StartupChats 

My advice: The marketing plan adjusts to reflect what is working & what doesn’t seem to be working, which can cause fluctuation in the budget. The goals tend to shift as well throughout the year based on results & other changes. @SovInsurance  #StartupChats

My advice: As a solopreneur who will be expanding shortly, I am interested in seeing what the other advisors have to recommend. @SovInsurance  #StartupChats

My advice: As a solopreneur I don’t have any internal buy-in to worry about, but if the changes affect external project stakeholders, such as my clients, I make sure to include them in the process & seek out their perspective & feedback. This ensures they are part of the process & we end up with solutions that work for everyone one involved. I also make sure to document my processes for future reference & to on-board support should I need it. @SovInsurance #StartupChats

My Advice: While writing your yearly business plan it should include a section that outlines the possible risks associated with your goals/business & what possible solutions could be implemented. By getting these out onto paper (or rather your PC) it gets you thinking about what can go wrong, how to fix these issues & perhaps what can be done to prevent them entirely. This also allows you to have a game plan to fall back on should you find yourself in the middle of a crisis. @SovInsurance #StartupChats

My advice: It is important to review your insurance & your coverage while writing your yearly business plan to ensure that your goals & any changes in direction for your business will still be covered. For example, when I started signing clients in the US, my insurance went up based on the % of revenue generated outside of the province my business is located in. @SovInsurance #StartupChats

My advice: I find that the best way to achieve this is by breaking down your long-term goals into what needs to happen in 5 years, 3 years, 2 years & the current year. This will help you outline the tasks or steps that need to be taken in order to process towards & ultimately achieve your goals, along with the KPIs to track the process at each scale level. This can work with revenue targets, expansion plans, customer service ratings, audience growth, etc. @SovInsurance #StartupChats

My advice: Start thinking things through & pulling together the info you need in Oct. with the goal of completing the plan in Dec. This will allow you to think things through & revisit it over the course of a couple of months. This will allow you to get your pipeline & marketing activities organized ahead of time & hit the ground running in Jan. If you wait to write it every Jan. you will need to include ramp-up time in your goal setting & might cut yourself short. @SovInsurance #StartupChats

Closing off:

How To Start Up Strong is an important factor and as #entrepreneurs one thing we universally understand is the need to do more while spending less – why should our approach to marketing be any different?

If this sounds like you, check out my free ebook ‘How to Market a Startup: 10 ways to bootstrap your sales funnel for success. #StartupChats

To check out the awesome advice from all of the advisors who participated in this How To Start Up Strong chat, view this thread on Twitter