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Four Stages of a local small business

Congratulations on getting this far in exploring the options to pursue your passion !!

Hope the quick 2 min quiz was a bit insightful - Not taken the quiz yet? - Click here

Okay - Let's straight get into it.


CK_4stagesBusiness Monetisation Scores illustrated
 

Stage 1: Awareness (50-70 Points)
Stage 2: Survival (70-90 Points)
Stage 3: Existence (90-100 Points)
Stage 4: Success (100 Points)

1. Awareness

In this stage, a person is aware of their passion but has doubts about pursuing it. It's only natural to question our interests, skills, and talent comparing them with the best we often see all around us. Being aware of your passion and exploring the options to pursue it further is the first sign of you trying to move forward toward success.

The best way to figure out if it's the right one for you is to get on with it. Don't wait for perfection. 

Tasks to take you to the next stage:
  •  Practice it every day. Even if it's a small step or for a short period of time. Keep doing it.
  • Find out who in your wider community has similar interests and try to have a group catch-up routine.
  • Look out for product or service ideas in your area of interest. Meet people who are already doing it and get a sense of what it would be like in their shoes. Do you see yourself doing that?
  • Try building a minimum viable product that you can offer to friends and family. Get feedback to improve on it and figure out pricing etc.
  • It's important to keep things simple at this stage. 
 
Pro tips: 
  1. Participate in one of our local 'Community Business Workshops'  where we brainstorm ideas and learn about setting up and operating home-based businesses. We'll have other local business owners walk us through their experiences and challenges.
  2. Your local CommKit community participants may be already doing other products or services in your area of interest. Feel free to have a catch-up with them or join us in one of our 'Community Meet' organized locally, for a chance to meet all other CommKit participants.
 

2. Survival


At this stage, you've already built your product or defined your service and have feelers in the market to gauge the interest level for your offering.

For you to continue to survive, you need to find a way to make your business viable. At a minimum, you should be able to recover the value you put in to deliver the goods or service plus a modest profit. 

It's a long tough road to take your business to the next stage

Let's list out the tasks

  1.  Don't let your emotions get the best of you. Some days are really good and others are not so much. Keep your undivided attention and focus on the prize.
  2. Learn to take feedback and see how it could help you solve a hurdle or fit into the broader scheme of things.
  3. Focus on improving efficiency in your processes and systems. Look for other products or services that can help you improve yours.
  4. Talk to other businesses that are servicing the same target audience as yours and see if you could share client references or provide a hybrid bundle through brand partnerships, affiliate deals, etc.
  5. Explore new markets or expand your base audience. Ensure to take the additional cost and resources into account for such expansion.
  6. Lastly, look for better-suited alterations to your offering so that it can cater to a wider audience. A well-timed pivot can save a business just enough for it to become sustainable and profitable.
 
Pro tip: Look out for other providers in your local CommKit community providing similar services or products.  Working together you could bring more efficiency that can benefit you both and your clients as well. Please remember we are all in the same boat so we are collaborators rather than competitors !!
 

3. Existence


If you've already managed to reach this stage - Congratulations !! Job well done !!

Kudos to the unwavering commitment and dedication that made it possible to get here. You've finally managed to not only see the light at end of the tunnel but much closer to reaching it.

In existence, you already have a profit-making viable business out of your passion. You've built a brand for yourself with an audience totally satisfied/committed as its followers.

What next?

Remember - “You don’t find your passion- You grow it” 

Expand the scope of your passion and dare to dream BIG. 

Sometimes, you may be in striking distance from treasure and you won't see it if you stop digging.

Tasks to consider:
  1.  Regularly meet your clients and get direct feedback. If everyone seems to be totally satisfied with your offering, ask them what else you could do to take it to the next level.
  2. Participate in business workshops and other forums where you could interact with thought leaders in your sector and look for things over the horizon. 
  3. Innovate new ways to keep providing the best service to your audience. You should be the one leading the new trend in your sector rather than catching up to one.
  4. Invest in building both personal and business brands - Products may change over the years but the goodwill you earn for yourself and your business will keep giving for years to come.
  5. Look after your team - be it your own staff, vendors, suppliers, or clients. Be genuinely interested in their well-being. None of what you accomplished would be possible without the countless hours of hard work and support you got from them.
 
Pro tip:  CommKit helps keep your products or service local to bridge the gap between you and your clients. It can be the perfect incubator for building, operating, and introducing newer products or services.
 
 

4. Success


You made it !! Congratulations !! 😄

Your business is now a well-oiled machine on autopilot.

It can run as efficiently and smoothly even without you spending every hour of your life working or thinking about it.

You have already achieved the state of nirvana!! (almost 😊)

What now?

Things you could focus on

  1.  Take up mentoring opportunities for budding entrepreneurs. Help them to walk through the misty world of business and guide them to see the big picture.
  2. Invest in new ideas and businesses that have promise. Helping finance someone's dream take wings and for the best part, it would be a rewarding experience - both emotionally and financially.
  3. Spend more time with your family and loved ones. You can never buy them back the time that's lost when you poured your heart and soul into the business to get it off the ground but you owe everything you achieved, to them - for standing and supporting you even when things got tough and untenable.

Pro tip:  We love to have you mentor our community members on finding their passion, monetization, and building a profitable business around it. We see heaps of brilliant new ideas that solve real problems in the local community - Financing in these early ventures, however small it could be - give them the confidence to take it further.
Hope it's a valuable experience to go through this exercise. Thank you for taking interest in exploring the path to making your dream a reality.

Our mission at CommKit is to support home-based businesses and other community initiatives with one of its kind passion economy platform.

Visit https://commkit.co.nz to learn more. 

Like, share and comment - Let's make everyone's dream come true !!
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