What’s an Exit Strategy and why you need to have one in place

Exit Strategy is one of the most important element of your preliminary business plans (even though you wish that the need of executing these plans will not arise anytime soon). Exit Strategy (also known as an Exit Plan) is the line of action that you may choose in case the going gets too tough to continue. In simple words, it’s the easiest way out of a ruinous situation while incurring the least possible loss. You’ve got to have an exit strategy as a backup plan right from the start instead of waiting for some unfortunate situation to surface, since in most cases the upheaval will be too sudden to tackle on the spot.

Even if there’s no catastrophic situation, you can possibly have other reasons for disengaging from the business that you’ve started (when wrapping off everything is not an option). These reasons can be, you looking to go for another more lucrative venture, or you may be thinking of giving up work for some time, you may also need an exit strategy when planning to sell a running business and sellers are interested in knowing if there’s any exit strategy in place, in case the profits start to go down, putting up an exit strategy will cast positive impression on prospective buyers or investors.

People often make this mistake of ignoring the exit strategy and starting without having any backup plans. Some entrepreneurs are too optimistic to think that anything can go wrong with their business; others are confident that they’ll handle the situation, then and there. Nothing’s wrong with the optimism or confidence but it’s always harder to evaluate and tackle the situation once you are “in” it, the haste or pressure situation can get on your mind, resulting in an erroneous decision. Besides, having an exit strategy will only boost your confidence.

Put these two kinds of entrepreneurs side by side, one starts off without an exit strategy while the other one is having a solid exit plan. Who do you think will crumble more easily and more quickly as soon as the proceeding goes wrong? Quite obviously, the one who’s having an exit plan will immediately get to the task, while the other one will have to do the thinking from the scratch. More often than not, this thinking will eat into the grace period and result in a much bigger loss as compared to the loss incurred by the other fellow.

Source:
Sports Wholesale Suppliers & Distributors

How important are business surveys and customers feedback

How do we differentiate between serious and not-so-serious businesses? An easy way to make this distinction is to take a look at how eager they are to get the feedback from their customers? More often than not, customer feedback is free but when we look at its value, it’s priceless. Making a product and then vehemently trying to convince customers that this is the product they need, is nothing more than a shot in the dark that mostly misses the target. A much better and more practical approach is to ask customers what they want and then make it available to them. Customers can give you much better advice than any of those high priced consultants, and customer surveys and feedback is the only way to get this information.

Instead of welcoming feedback, some businesses are seen trying to discourage any kind of feedback, probably because they are sure that there's going to be nothing but complains. Not knowing, how imperative these complain can be to their long term success. Don’t think of the complaining customers as unappreciative souls who’ve got nothing better to do but to criticize your product or services, rather take them as courteous friends who were kind enough to take some time out and guide you on how to make improvements to your products. They could’ve just dump your products like others, leaving you in dark as to where did you go wrong? Irrespective of the feedback being good or bad, it is something that must be encouraged, for it will provide you with the opinion of those, who matter the most (i.e. consumers).

Coming to the question of what’s the best way to get customer feedback? It depends on the type of your business and as well as your customers. If your customers are internet savvy, then a quick survey form at your website or some other social networking website is an excellent bet. Encourage suggestions and request them to come up with honest reviews of your product, when they do, don’t forget to acknowledge their contributions.

Whatever method you choose for acquiring customer’s feedback, make sure that all those suggestions and feedback is not going in vain. Try your best to take appropriate steps according to the feedback; the customers must not get the impression that they are wasting their time for nothing. Instant reaction on customers complains and suggestions will make them feel privileged, ultimately resulting in a more loyal customer base.

Source:
Wholesale