Starting a new business can be exciting but is also terrifying at the same time. A startup founder can face a number of challenges and hindrances at any given time. From getting the business idea off the ground, to hiring the right team to develop the business, to raising finance, to defining you brand’s image, there are n number of obstacles that you must overcome to ensure success and longevity.
Below are 5 common challenges faced by early-stage startups and the best tools and solutions to combat them easily:
Tackle Sales in a Methodical Way
Sales demands certain unique skill-set from people involved in selling with an in-depth knowledge of the product. They should clearly understand what the customer wants and offer them the solution that fits the customer’s needs accurately.
In the early days, startups tend to sell through networking and look for customers within their circle. However as the startups grow, they need to bring order to their sales pipeline and require a fruitful sales process. As the customer base increases, it becomes difficult to manage the details manually with excel sheets. All they need is an apt CRM tool that makes the work effortless for them.
Adopting a CRM tool helps in centrally storing the sales data and enables salespeople to optimize their daily schedules and prioritize tasks to make sure none of the customers are ignored and important prospects are contacted on time. Sales reps can easily prepare their weekly or monthly reports and can segment data and identify valuable opportunities via criteria based selections. CRM also allows sales professionals to analyze the needs of customers and even anticipate their problems.
Manage it’s People
The only asset that a startup has in its early phase is it’s employees. An employee of a startup needs to wear multiple shoes and look after as many things as possible. Emergence of technology has led many people to opt for remote working nowadays. Tools meant for team collaboration can come to resque here. They considerably help employees to work together as a team and aid managers to comfortably assign tasks to their team in a sincere manner.
These tools assist in keeping a track of projects and checking the status of the assigned tasks. Implementing a team collaboration tool allows managers to put forward contingency plans on time and prioritize things in a meaningful way.
Create a Brand Image
Companies, especially B2B, have stopped investing in traditional marketing practices such as billboards and TV commercials.
These days companies rely on social media, other online mediums, email marketing and leverage SEO to create a brand following.
There are several marketing automation tools such as Hubspot and Marketo available to take care of your needs of managing multiple social media accounts, email marketing, content management and marketing analytics. You can also opt for individual tools for each of these and mange them independently. These tools easily integrate with your website and helps in keeping your visitors engaged.
These tools aid in generating and nurturing leads and create a healthier and long-erm relationship with your prospects. And if you plan on emailing your prospects, different email warmup tools can be beneficial since they help you to warm your email so they won’t be filtered as spam.
Take Care of Customers
Customer service plays a very crucial role in the success or failure of a business. It is not just an opportunity to make your customers happy and satisfied but also a golden chance to get the valuable feedback and insights about your product. Listening to your customers ensures customer satisfaction and helps in accelerating your product development.
Investing in a customer experience management tool such as Ameyo Emerge aids you to get closer to your customers. These tools help you integrate seamlessly across channels and provides transformational insights in to contact center operations and deliver more personalized customer experiences.
Manage Finances
Dealing with financial management tasks such as accounting, bookkeeping and invoicing are certain inherent challenges that startups face. As most of the startups do not hire enough accountants in the beginning to manage the above mentioned things, they can invest in one of the financial management tools available in the market. There are several tools ready for use for every facet of small business financial management.
