Three Important Points to lift your Business

By: Argjira Morina

Nowadays is it trendy to start and run companies, especially among young people. Social media is packed with articles about successful business people and it usually creates a drive for young people who have the power to do anything with their lives.

Every day, different companies fight on the market in order to become popular. Some succeed and some fail, but what makes some successful and others go bankrupt? What is the difference between these companies?

We met with Argjira Morina, a nineteen-year-old economics student and politician who will soon be launching her own beauty brand. Argjira has a true passion for entrepreneurship and building businesses.

I would never claim to be an expert in business, but from an early age I have been interested in companies, spent time with entrepreneurs, been on company visits and today I study the MBA program where we analyze how the market works. I have noted some obvious differences between companies.

What many believe is that you should have an unique idea to succeed with your company. Your product or services should be different from other products and services. I can partly agree, but I don't think that's the whole truth.

The foundation is passion

It is common among new entrepreneurs to think about how to make a lot of money from their business. You want to reach the big money. However, I think many people have the wrong picture of what a life as an entrepreneur looks like, especially at the start. A newly started company will mean many early mornings and late evenings. There will be many ups and downs and if it is the money that drives you, then you will not be able to handle the downs. I believe in passion. You have to have passion for what you do. You should love your product or service. It is the passion that will make you get up from bed every morning. If you chase after the money, then there will certainly be something wrong with your product or service, but if you love your idea, then the money will chase after you. Your company should be your passion and not your duty! Start by asking yourself: What do I want to do in my spare time and what do I think is fun? Passion is the foundation, hold on to it.

Get to know your customers

The second important point is to know your customers. You need to know who they are and what they want. Become an expert on your customers. Economists often talk about efficiency - internal and external efficiency. Internal efficiency means doing things right, which is about the amount of resources spent on production. Resources that are added can be capital, materials and employees. Everything that add the company with costs. If you do not look at the costs, it will be irrelevant how much income the company has. The bigger costs a product incurs in the company, the less the range will be. It is therefore important for boards and managers to analyze the costs, try to reduce them and to try to make the production more productive.

External efficiency is about doing the right things. Doing the right things is about offering something that the market asks for. Always ask yourself the question: What does the market demand? Your idea may be unique and smart, but if it is not wanted then no one will buy it. Then you might as well shut down your business because without customers you are nothing. Analyze the market, become an expert on what is in demand. I would highly recommend market research.

Marketing

A third important point is to understand what world we live in and how it works. The world today is a stressful place and it can feel difficult to reach out to the customers as everyone is focused on their things and there is big competition. It is therefore important to build a strong brand that people know about. How should one differ from others when there are so many competitors? How do you capture the attention of customers?

Marketing has become one of the most important tools for raising companies. How to set up a marketing plan is different depending on the product, but the most important thing is to first know where your customers spend their time. Analyze your customers and find out where they are. The world is becoming more and more digitized and people spend much of their time on the internet. I have some tips you can use when promoting your product:

• Feel free to use email marketing. You may think that it is a naive way to reach out to your customers, but I would like to say that it is even more effective than social media when you get direct contact with your customers, instead of competing with potential competitors.

• Blogging! People love to be inspired and motivated, so make sure to actively blog about your product and introduce it in a good way. This way you can build up a strong brand.

• Use social media properly. Whether your customers spend their time on Facebook, Snapchat or Instagram, these platforms look different and use different languages. It is therefore important that you use the correct language within the specific platforms. The expert and virtuoso of social media, Gary Vaynerchuck, believes that marketing today is about inspiring and providing customers with interesting information before asking them to buy.

• Use so-called "Influencers". Often, these types of people have over a hundred thousand followers on Instagram and if they pay tribute to your company on social media they will help take your product to whole new levels.

I usually say that running a company is an art. An interaction between possessing the ability to inspire people, having passion for what you do and knowing how to communicate with the customer. If you possess the three abilities, your business will probably be successful. Make sure you keep track of what motivates and inspires people today, that you have passion for your company and ask yourself the question "why am I doing this?" - your answer will be the proof of passion and that you know who your customers are and what marketing strategy you should have to get their attention. Find the balance between these! - Argjira Morina