My 10 Tips for Your New Small Business
- Chef Joshua Yves
- Jul 30, 2020
- 7 min read
In this time where online selling is getting more and more prominent as a legitimate platform where you can conduct business, people tend to make mistakes and rush to certain situations without knowing that it is bad for their business.
Hi, I am Chef Josh founder of Oven Spring, and I am here to share a few tips that I've
learned through the years in conducting business online. I started Oven Spring back in 2017 so I am not new to the Online Selling gig, I do this just as a part-time from my previous job before and also during peak seasons like Christmas, but this year I quit my job and focused on my business and luckily enough it started growing at a fast pace.
Here are some tips I would like to share with the new owners and I would like to congratulate you on starting your own business.
1. Build an identity.
When you want to start a business or just start selling stuff online, you must have your own brand, your own identity. Don't just sell your items on your personal Facebook page or just message people. Create your own brand so that your customers will recall and remember you easily because you have an identity. For example, what are you most likely to remember, an online shop with a Facebook page that you bought from or a random shared live stream video of a person selling makeup and bags? Trust me returning customers will make your business flourish. Luckily I have my brother, Ira, to help me in that aspect. He handles all the branding and visuals of our brand. He is our Chief Creative Officer in that sense.
2. Spend Money to Make Money!
This really goes without saying that you need capital to start your business. Just don't be stingy when it comes to buying tools and equipment that will really benefit your business. Always assess if it is an asset or a liability. People tend to save money in the wrong places when starting a business. It really comes down to what are the needs of your operation. For me, it was a big help when I bought a stand mixer, it was not cheap by any means but it helped me cater to more orders and also helped me to produce goods faster. Again it depends on the needs of your business. If its an asset then go for it.
3. Establish a relationship with good suppliers.
Quality should be the first thing you check every time you buy your raw materials. Establishing a good rapport with suppliers and vendors not only makes your transactions easier but sometimes you get to be the first to pick from their products. Maintain a good relationship with your "suki" market vendor so that they will be just one text away and they will set aside the things you need for you, also give them free samples of your product. It is the least that you can do since it's also their materials. Like me, I have not changed my suppliers for a good 2 years so I end up with a lot of perks.
4. Keep your Menu SMALL and in theme.
This is one of my pet peeves whenever I eat at a new restaurant and I see that their menu is all over the place, there is a little bit of everything in the menu, you don't really understand what they want to serve. I always tell my students that a sign of a bad restaurant is a messy menu. There are many cons to a big menu, one is that you will need to buy ingredients for all of your items even the ones that don't really sell well, second is that there will be a lot of food spoilage so that's just money down the drain and lastly you will have no specific identity if you don't pick a cuisine or type of food you serve.
Also given that you are a small business you will be forced to make your menu small due to storage restrictions, you have to choose your products carefully you have to be able to store a lot of your finished products plus your raw materials. During the first months of Oven Spring, I have cream puffs and sansrival on the menu then I immediately encountered the problem of chiller space. So you have to tailor your menu to your available capacity of storage and capability of your production.
5. Love and Trust your Product.
Never sell something that you will not buy yourself. You have to believe in your product that it is really worth buying. You have to love your product enough to sell it and trust that your customers will like it. Look at me, I love my banana bread so much that I have the audacity to call it "The Best Banana Bread in Town" but of course you have to be able to live up to the claim so you have to put in the work to make your product the best.
6. Do not rush to make a profit.
This is a common mistake that I see in a lot of online sellers since they just bought all of their materials, tools, and equipment they tend to make their selling price too high in order to gain back their investment quickly. Do not be impatient in making a profit, business is a long term game. You have to make your price fair to your buyers for them to buy from you again and again. Ideally, you want your mark up price higher than your cost so that you will be able to make a profit, so around 100-200%, mark up is enough to start with. Do not be too hasty, getting your return of investment really takes time.
7. Innovate.
Just like in any business you should not be stagnant. Innovate in ways that will improve your product and operations. Look for ways to make things easier, like establishing a delivery schedule and create a new way of ordering for your customers. Also, innovate on your products so that your existing customers will have new things to look forward to and also to attract new ones.
8. Time Management is key.
You might be overwhelmed with all the things that you need to do when your business starts booming that is where time management comes in. You need to have a schedule and designate tasks to specific days, Don't just wing it. In a week you need to have specific days for purchasing your raw materials, a day for making your product, and a day for delivery to customers. You have to make system that works for you. You have to be organized because remember that you are the boss and no one will do it for you. Now you realize why owners get angry when their employees are late because in running a business the most valuable resource is TIME.
Like in Oven Spring, I buy ingredients every Tuesday and Friday. I bake every morning and deliver goods via Grab and Lalamove the whole afternoon. If there are not a lot of orders I tend to schedule them all every other day just to make my baking time worthwhile. This system I made tailored to my operations so you have to study your flow carefully in order to make your business run smoothly hence you don't waste any time.
9. Surround yourself with positive people.
Have a support system that helps you in your business, it may not be physically but emotionally. Surround yourself with people that inspire and motivate you to work hard. Creative people that can help you with your business. It can be your family, a group of close friends, and a special someone.
Trust me you will need positive reinforcement when you are having a hard time, it happens to me a lot and I am lucky to have a very supportive family that will help me when it gets hard and too busy, My Mom helps with the packaging of the products, My Dad helps with running to the store to get last-minute needed ingredients, My brother helps with delivering by going down to the Grab and Lalamove riders when I am too busy baking due to the number of orders. Kim, my fiance, also helps me a lot emotionally when I often breakdown and doubt myself (it will happen guys). So surround yourself with positive people to help you.
10. HUSTLE! HUSTLE! HUSTLE!
Nobody is going to do the work except for you. It is your business you have to dedicate 200% of your time to it. You cannot afford to be distracted, you got to lose the "bukas ko na lang gagawin" mindset. You have to work for it. Your growth and your gains reflects from the amount of hard work you put in. You have to meet your goals and set higher goals after that, DO NOT STOP.
Back when I started Oven Spring I was prepared to do all the hard work, from buying raw materials I often use public transportation lugging around big bags of my ingredients to all the preparing and baking to delivery of the goods one by one this was the time that people was not yet willing to pay extra for the delivery fee so I tend to set up meeting places mostly MRT, LRT stations and Malls, I do that all day bringing my big bags of banana bread meeting customers one by one to give their orders in the chaos of everyday commute back then. Then the next days doing it all over again.
I hope some of these are helpful to you, these are just insights I got from experience and I wanted to help other new businesses. Just remember that all your hard work will pay off, stick it all out, take the risk, start your business, put in the work, and get your reward.
Congratulations on your new business!
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