Today we wanted to reach out and offer some advice to those of you just starting out in business, as these are 3 relationships that we feel are essential to you if your business is to thrive.

Your Family and Friends

We will start with this one as this is often overlooked. In order to build your business, you are going to need the understanding and support of your family and friends.

This one is rarely talked about because it can be easy to think that it is your business and others are not directly involved. Whilst this is often true, in order to keep on giving it all of the attention that it deserves, something needs to give elsewhere in your life. You might not have the time that you used to have for everyone, you might not be able to make it to Sunday lunch at your parents’ house or you might struggle to read to your kids every night.

For these reasons, it is worth gaining the support and understanding of your loved ones at the outset and keep checking in with them and appreciating them as your business develops.

Your Customers

Your customers should be the driving force behind your business. You need to put them and their needs at the center of all that you do so that you can strive to deliver the very best service possible.

You will probably carry out some market research with potential customers before you launch your business to ensure that you know what they want from you. Whilst many businesses then take that information and run with it, we would suggest that you constantly seek to carry out that research and get that customer feedback. This will help you to shape your business and ensure that you are delivering.

Demonstrate to your customers that their views are important to you and seek their input regularly. In turn, ask them to refer and recommend you, ask them to leave online reviews to boost your online reputation.

The Experts

It can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking that now you are running your own business, you need to do everything yourself and know every single thing. However, you will find that the most successful businesses know how to play to their strengths and when they are out of their depth they enlist the expertise of others to save them time and get the job done well.

There are so many areas of your business that you will know and understand inside out, and then there are those that warrant getting the professionals in to help you. It might be that you enlist the services of an IT management company or perhaps you need to look into forklift driver hire. It might be that you use the services of a graphic designer to create your branding, or you might employ a virtual assistant to take on a few administrative tasks.

There are so many experts available to you so build those relationships with them and utilise their services.