How to Start With Success in Business (2025 Update)

Welcome to this week's I Numbers episode, How to Start with Success in Business. Now, today's episode is all about starting your business with success in mind. Now, you got to ask yourself, first of all, what does success mean to you? It means different things to different people. Is it freedom? Is it profits?

That's certainly got to be one of them. Is it about helping others? Is it about building something that makes you proud? Well, here's the truth. If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up somewhere else. Unfortunately, I can't claim copyright for that. Yogi Berra said that. It's a pretty smart quote for anybody starting in business now.

You need to make sure your journey doesn't spiral in circles. You want to make sure you plan it, do it and fundamentally profit. Now, if I think about my own business journey 30 years ago, started from my back bedroom, which I've migrated out now, I should say then, you know, if I had these thoughts 30 years ago, life might be slightly different. Now,

first of all, think about your business why, and before you worry about sales, social media, shiny business cards, ask yourself: Why are you doing this? What madness possessed you to take that plunge and to start your own business? Now, your why is the heartbeat and it's the core of your business. Now, fundamentally, marketers talk about are you solving a problem?

Are you filling a gap in the market, making a social impact, chasing freedom from the nine till five? Whatever it is, write it down, get some clarity and repeat it to yourself. If you don't keep that focus in mind, you could find life to be very problematic and challenging. Now, your why helps you give focus.

It shapes your goals and keeps you going when the road gets tough. And let me tell you, it will get tough. There will be side roads, there'll be crashes. There'll be moments you think, why me? Why, oh, why am I doing this? If you are saying, by the way, one of your objectives, your why is to make money, that in itself is going to cause some challenges.

All businesses, whatever shape or form they are, should be there and structured to make profits. Profit is not a dirty word, but that isn't actually the why. That's a consequence of what you're doing now. Define what success looks for you, not what it looks like for somebody else. Now, as an individual, it might mean that you generate those magical 10,000-pound months.

It could be the amount of work you're putting in a three day week. It could be creating jobs in your local community. It'd be making a difference. Do that brain cerebral dump and ask yourself with your crystal ball and your thought process, what does success look like to you in the first year? What would you like it to look like five years from now?

How can you answer that question? How do you know when you've arrived? If you have no idea, if you've got no Northern Star, then you're forever going to be chasing your tail and we don't want that. This is your roadmap or certainly the foundation of it. Without it, you are driving with a blindfold and we know what will happen if you do that.

Now, goals and KPIs. These are your signposts. Now, once you've figured out or partly figured out your why, what success looks like to you, then go about setting your goals, which should be following that pneumonic of being SMART. Now, SMART translates to specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. I’m from the old-fashioned business school,

Perhaps. I think you still need goals in your business. Now, avoid statements like saying, I want more customers. Translate that as something that can actually be measured, something that can be identified. It could be, I want 10 new clients in the next 90 days. Don't say things like, I wish to be wealthy and rich.

That's too generic. That's too wide a statement. I want to generate 20,000 pounds worth of profit in year one. I want to be able to generate income of something makes it specific, makes it measurable. Whether it's realistic or not, that's for you to decide depending on the efforts you expend. Now we need to talk about KPIs, key performance indicators.

Now, there is a myth here that KPIs need to be hard numbers. They're not, they can be surveys, observations, they can be raw numbers, they can be qualitative in nature. But if you can't measure what you think is important, how do you know you've actually achieved it? KPIs are your progress checkpoints.

Typically, as a general listing, you ought to be tracking things like the income that you are generating per month, the number of visitors to your website, the number of conversions, follow through, your client retention rates, your churn. Numbers will be your best friend here. They don't lie to you. They show you what's working, what's not working as well as you want it to be, and what needs a rethink.

Now, a small tip I'd share with you at this stage, review them often. Tweak it if you need to, but your goals are not your prison bars. The next thing to think about on this journey to success, that Nirvana, is about the customer. You cannot grow without customers. Now, it might seem obvious when I say it, but many businesses still forget it.

Ask yourself, who are you serving? Who are your customers? What are the problems you are trying to help them with and how does what you offer your product or service or both solve that? What's the transformation you're trying to make? It's not about what you want to sell. It's about what they want to buy.

Now, I’m throwing this in as well. I'm not a marketer by expertise in, but by experience having studied it as well, you have something called the seven Ps of marketing. It's still relevant in my experience today as it was when it first came out. It's about the product. Is it solving a real need? The price. Is it fair and profitable. Promotion.

How will people actually find you? The place. Where are you selling it? Are you selling it online, physically? The packaging - how you present it to your customer (potentials or actual ones). Positioning. How do you distinguish yourself from others and the people. Do you and your team reflect your values? Now, your values don't have to be a carbon copy of somebody else.

Remember, you are defining success for you, not for somebody else, but the customer has to be at the centre of every decision. It's a good, solid way to build trust and your reputation. Now, you won't get away with this one. But you've got to know your numbers. If you thought I skipped this one, you don't know me very well.

Numbers are your business compass. Now, too many startups crash and burn, unfortunately, because they ignore their numbers and they are oblivious to them. And the thing that shocks me much these days with businesses, but sometimes I'm aghast at the businesses I come across that don't even have basic digital bookkeeping systems.

Now, for me, here's what you need. You need a robust record keeping system, not just to keep HMRC happy. You need a good cloud accounting digital setup. It makes the heavy lifting much easier. It gives you access to data and information. You can remotely talk to it. And again, if you check out the show notes, folks here,

there's a link if you want to have a chat about digitising your business if it's not done, give me a shout. We're a Xero Accredited Platinum Partner and we've helped thousands of businesses over the year embrace the world of digital. You need a basic budget. You know what you expect to earn, what you expect to spend.

You need a clarity and a clear vision of your cash flow. If there's nothing else, you do, a cash flow forecast looking ideally ahead at least 12 months and do it on a rolling basis is a must. You need to have some idea of what you expect to come in, what's going out, and the ability to track what's going on.

And that's where your digital system comes into play. If you're overspending, well, that's a fast track to sleepless nights, and possibly knocking on the door of bankruptcy. That's obviously extreme, but it does happen. Under charging -you'll be working hard for very little. So become comfortable, become cosier with your numbers.

They're not as scary as you think they are. If you do need help, you know what I'm going to say. Reach out. That's what we're here for. Now, as we come into the final section of this podcast, leadership and mindset play their part. Now, starting a business is like climbing a mountain. You need stamina. You need focus and you need resilience.

There'll be good days guaranteed. There'll be rubbish days guaranteed. There'll be days that will be somewhere in the middle. We're human beings. We have a huge range of emotions, so it can't always be happy clappy, and it can't always be dismal, rubbish days. Try not to over focus on the rubbish days and try not to get too complacent with the good days.

The key is being consistent. Ask yourself these questions. Am I making time to work on my business, not just in it? Am I delegating an outsourcing where I need to? Is it a good use of my time? Am I learning it and adapting? Do I have a positive attitude towards spending money? Am I merely looking as being miserly and not investing that with those funds to help me move forward?

Leadership isn't about just barking out orders or emulating Alan Sugar of the Apprentice (not a very good role model, in my opinion, in the sense of what's going on in a small business). Leadership isn't that. Leaders come in many shapes and sizes, and it's about making decisions, learning from mistakes, and keeping your mission alive. And when things go wrong, because they will do,

get back up. The world's most successful business owners failed plenty before they won. Now let's complete this with the mnemonic and the strap line: Plan it. Do it & Profit! Let's bring it all together. A quick glance at a business success starter checklist. Define your why, picture what success looks like,

set smart goals and KPIs, understand your customer, empathise, put yourself in their shoes, get familiar with a seven piece of marketing, get your numbers in order, build your mindset, develop that as a leader. It takes time to make that transformation from the world of studying the world of work into running your own thing.

Now, planning isn't just about paperwork. It's an essential first step to making profit. And profit has got to be embedded as one of your key objectives, your key goals. Doing is what sets you apart from dreaming. It's the execution, it is the implementation that is critical. Now, profit is the result of smart decisions and systems.

It's what gives you freedom, stability, growth, impact, and obviously the ability to pay yourself and your business to not only sustain, but to grow as well. Now folks, if you're just starting off in your business journey, welcome. Remember, business success does not happen by accident. It takes purpose planning and persistence.

But if you need some help building a solid foundation for your business, you want to have a chat about planning, pricing, cash flow? Well, you know what to do. Check out the show notes. Book a call. Until next time, Plan it. Do it & Profit!