Top 10 Traits of a Successful Business

There are many different ideas out there for being successful in creating a business. The approaches vary depending in part on the type of business. However, there are some traits that nearly all successful businesses have in common. Let’s take a look at ten of them to get a good sense of what it takes to be successful as a small company.

1. Innovation. A successful business will not just repeat what everyone else is doing. They’ll be on the cusp of figuring out what everyone wants to be doing next. Sometimes it’s about innovation in products or services but other times it’s just in marketing or business approach or store design. Successful businesses are innovative somewhere.

2. They fail. That sounds absolutely counter to being a successful business but it’s true; most successful businesses fail with something along the line. That’s because successful businesses take calculated risks and sometimes those risks don’t work out. Being too afraid to fail in your business will hold you back and actually prevent you from succeeding.

3. They outsource what they aren’t good at. If you’re terrible at accounting and aren’t ever going to learn to do it right then you need to outsource that part of your business. If you aren’t good at web design and you’re launching an online business then by all means hire a web designer. Successful businesses hire people to do what the person does better than they can do themselves. This means putting out some money before you make money but it’s well worth it.

4. Big Dreams, Small Steps. Most successful businesses are founded with a big dream in mind but they are successful because all of the small steps are taken along the way to realize that dream.

5. Marketing and Promotion. A business cannot be successful if nobody knows about it. All successful businesses are skilled at marketing and promotion in one form or another. Sometimes this goes along with point number three and they hire someone to do that for them. Sometimes it goes with point number one and they get creative about marketing. However it’s done, successful businesses let people know that they are out there.

6. Awesome Customer Service. It doesn’t matter how great your product is if you are known for terrible customer service then you’re not going to be successful in your business. You need to treat customers well and get their loyalty if you want to have a business that succeeds. You need to respond promptly to complaints and go the extra mile to prevent future complaints.

7. Savvy About Trends. This does not mean that a successful business jumps on every single trend. However, it does mean being aware of trends and knowing which ones are worth getting on board with. Things like offering Groupon discounts, creating a Facebook fan page and making a website mobile are trends that a lot of successful businesses found it worth participating in.

8. Smart About Money. At some point the bottom line does matter in every business. A business has to spend wisely to be making more money than it’s spending and therefore generating a profit that can go back into growing the business.

9. Personality. In my opinion, all successful businesses have what I call personality. Officially it’s probably better known as branding. The business itself as a sort of persona. It has an ambience, a sense of character, a style, a voice. You can see it in everything from the physical store to the social networking activity.

10.A Little Luck. When it comes down to it, you can do all of the first nine things right and there’s a really, really good chance that you’re going to have a successful business but a little bit of luck will get you the rest of the way. It may be luck in timing or investments or some other area. You’ll know it when you experience it!

What do you think is missing from this list?