In today’s podcast, Lysa Miller from Ladybugz.com speaks to Stephen Halasnik from Financing Solutions about how she built a digital agency that passed seven figures by leveraging a basic marketing strategy and agile methodology. Business owners who want a successful company should consider factoring in these essential ingredients while building their business.
Summary
Building A Successful Business
There are many reasons you would want to have your own company. The number one reason people strive to build their businesses is to have control over their lifestyle and schedule. Another important reason is to achieve financial independence. However, building a thriving business demands hard work, due diligence, passion, and creativity.
Many business owners struggle to build a successful business because they fail to implement the right tools for their growth strategy. Knowing the internal and external factors that affect your business is essential to running a successful business. Read on to learn how you can build a robust company.
Build an Agile Team
You can’t build a business all by yourself without the input of others. Successful business owners don’t fly solo; they work with like-minded people who share their vision and business objective. Team building is the process of creating a team that works in tandem toward the realization of your business goals. Team building is very important because it helps to create bonds and connections among people within your business.
An agile team makes running a business easy and helps get things done as workplace projects are collectively and happily performed. In addition, team building fosters increased communication, motivation, and collaboration. Successful team building contributes to a more creative workplace, helping your business reach its objective quickly.
Engage in Active Marketing
Marketing is at the heart of every business, and small business owners must have a strategy for acquiring and retaining customers to maximize revenue and grow and expand market share. To build a successful business, you must devote a sizable amount of revenue and effort to your marketing activities.
Marketing is the process of getting your product and services in front of the eyes of your target customers. No matter how good your products are, you can hardly make sales if people don’t know about them. 
In recent times, innovative technology has made modern marketing inexpensive and efficient. Today, small business owners can aggressively embark on marketing campaigns that break boundaries with the capabilities of online marketing tools, such as SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and PPC ( Pay Per Click advertising).
You must conduct adequate market research to have concrete data about your ideal customers. This will give you valuable insights into how to make an informed decision while creating your marketing strategy. Below are the common tips that will help you create a winning marketing strategy.
Know Your Audience
Before you invest in marketing, you must, first and foremost, understand your target audience. Create customer personas to determine who your business is trying to serve. In addition, endeavor to figure out where you can best reach your target audience and how your product or service can meet their demands or solve their problems.
Understanding your audience is critical as it will help set the foundation of your marketing strategy. Below are the factors you should take cognizance of when creating your audience personas:
- Geographic location
- Interests
- Pain points
- Motivations
Craft Your Messaging
After you have determined your target audience, you’ll next create a message that resonates with them. This involves leveraging content marketing techniques to create educational content around your brand and display authority or expertise.
Your brand messaging should be unique, consistent, compelling, and differentiating from competitors. In addition, there should be uniformity in your brand tone across the various channels you use to reach your audiences.
Define Your Budget
You should next determine the number of dollars you’re ready to spend on your marketing effort. If you don’t take the time to prioritize and strategize, you might end up spending more than you expected.
So, you must know beforehand what you want to spend before starting your marketing campaign for effective results. Additionally, you should allocate more money and effort to marketing channels that generate more rewards. Some effective digital marketing tools for small businesses include SEO, Email, Search Advertising, Social Media Marketing, and more.
Have a Metric for Measuring Results
You should evaluate your marketing effort to know its impact and effectiveness. For example, suppose you’re using many digital channels for your marketing campaign, you should periodically assess the impact of each marketing platform on business performance to see whether you’re recording progress.
Numerous analytic tools can help you ascertain the level of your marketing effort. However, if you’re just starting, Google Search Console and Google Analytics can be veritable tools.
Leverage Agile Methodology
Agile methodology is a term associated with project management but can also be used in small business building and management. It’s a way to manage a task by breaking it into varying phases and constantly collaborating with stakeholders for continuous improvement at every stage.
In other words, once you kickstart a project, the various teams cycle through a process of planning, execution, and evaluation for maximum results.
Learn About Our Guest
Lysa Miller is the founder and CEO of the award-winning web design + digital growth agency, Ladybugz Interactive in Boston, MA. Miller and her talented team found an industry niche serving early-growth biotech companies across the country. The agency also works with growing nonprofits, B2B companies, legacy brands, and independent schools.
Recent accomplishments include being featured on the cover of Boston Business Journal’s 2020 Annual Book of Lists, named “Top Women Owned Marketing Agencies to Watch” by Agency Vista, and in 2022 Named “Top Women Owned Agencies” by Cloudways.com
Learn About Financing Solutions
Financing Solutions provides an easy-to-setup unsecured small business line of credit to small businesses. The small business financing product is a great cash backup plan that costs nothing to set up, nothing until used, and is inexpensive when needed. Financing Solutions is rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and 5 stars by the BBB/Google Reviews.
Unlike a traditional business bank loan, our business credit line requires no collateral or personal guarantee (except in fraud cases), making it an excellent alternative business financing option. Small businesses often use their line of credit for short-term expenses, working capital, to make payroll, or for business investment, especially when business cash flow is temporarily down.
Get a free, no-obligation business line of credit quote by filling out our simple 2- minute business line of credit application here.
Remember: The time to set up a credit line is when you don’t need it.
