10 Business Tips for Startups

 Image by Karolina Grabowska from Pixabay 

Here are the ten business tips for startups. 

1. Start with Why. If you are already in business write down the reasons or purpose of your business. Why are you in business? What niche area you are serving? What are the pain points that you intend to solve? How your business would address specific issues.
2. How you are different? Explore the businesses in your domain…the competition. What are they doing and what are their marketing strategies? What is the USP of the products in the market? Have you innovated?
3. Strategy to Excel: Compare your product/service or offering vis-a-vis the competition. How it is or going to be different from others? Are you building into your system some ease-of-usage, better turn-around-time, or improved quality with same or less pricing? What shall be your USP?
4. Design Excellence: Is there an improved design? In product, packaging, delivery, usage experience?
5. The Team: Do you have the team on board which are not square pegs in round holes.? People matter. Having the right team for each process is essential.
6. The Right Resources: Do you have the right financial resources to implement your plan, your ideas, and innovation? Who shall be providing the resources for your success? What kind of partnerships you shall evolve?
7. Do you know your customers? What are their psychographs and demographics? What are their preferences? Why should they be using your product? How do they make their choices?
8. What is the market size you intend to cater to? Local, national, or international?
9. Your Business Environment: Your organisation is affected and impacted by the business environment; be it government policies, economic or political situation, social or cultural considerations, international trade, etc. Are you aware of it as to how you can operate within existing business environment?
10. Communicate: List out all your internal and external stakeholders who matter to your organisation, your product or services. Be specific and develop communication strategy that resplonds to their needs, and which can influence them positively and create a favourable image for your organisation / brand.
    
    These are just some of the tips that a business management pro should look into. These may not be complete, but 10 most crucial pointers to start with for any startup, or an existing organisation. 

CorePR: 5 Things You Need to Do

CorePR: 5 Things You Need to Do: Holed up at home?   Everyone is.  World over. It could be a blessing in disguise. For many of us, who remain busy day-in...

5 Things You Need to Do

Holed up at home?   Everyone is.  World over.

It could be a blessing in disguise.

For many of us, who remain busy day-in-and-day-out in our worldly pursuits, hardly get time to introspect.

All of us are on Fast Forward Mode.  There had not been any Pause button in our lives. Come what may.  Until now.

As curfew and lockdown has forced us into our homes, it is time to reflect and do things that you always wanted to do, but never did.

Here's a list of 5 things that you should be doing every day.

1. Maintain a Journal
Pick up a small notebook, diary or download 'Keep', a Gmail app on your mobile to take note daily.
The morning ritual should be to jot down what you intend to accomplish today.   Have a schedule.  Go over it and get into action.

2. Get Ready
When you are locked down and no one is there to look you up, you tend to relax and stay in your night suit.   Getup in time.  Get Ready.  And start working on your 'to do' list.  If you are working, reflect on the new things you would do at your job to make work much more efficient and productive.   And if you are an entrepreneur, it is time to plan and prepare a strategy to take your business to newer heights as soon as the normalcy returns.

3. Learn a New Skill 
You wanted to play a musical instrument, set up a blog, or learn cooking....just go ahead and do it.  Enough YouTube videos are available to revive your hobby or learn a new skill and utilise your time more fruitfully.  For entrepreneurs, this is the time to look for more opportunities for your enterprise to grow.

3. Reconnect with a Friend/Colleague/Relative
Haven't we lost touch with the people around us?  Many have not talked to their parents. Though they might be there on social media, remember, there is nothing like getting in touch with them and reconnecting.  You would simply love it. 
For business people, stay in touch with your employees and customers.

5. List Your Gratitude
Before sleeping gets back to your journal and jot down your list of Gratitude.   All the people you talked to, all the loving care that you got from your family, the food that was served to you, the air that you breathed and a whole lot of things you feel you are grateful for.  Thank the Almighty for all those gifts that you received today.

There is much more that every one of us can do.   But in the next 21 days, this is the habit-forming schedule if practised regularly, religiously and with a commitment.  It would turn you into an amazing person.

Indian wireline broadband pricing likely to fall by 50%; segment to generate Rs 80,000 crore over 5 years

Indian wireline broadband pricing likely to fall by 50%; segment to generate Rs 80,000 crore over 5 years

Journey of CorePR since 1986

Thirty-three years of managing communication for diverse industry sectors and organisations makes me look back with satisfaction for having helped organisations, brands, and individual celebs including authors, garner limelight for themselves in a highly competitive world.

CorePR was born in September 1986 as a one-man startup (the term did not exist at that time) which gradually graduated into a private limited company. 

That was the time when little did corporate know about public relations as a profession or business, except a few beyond Delhi.  But that was the time when some of the big corporate like Crompton Greaves and Pepsi were looking at Punjab and gave me the opportunity to begin. 

Already I had met several leading PR professionals in reputed companies across the country during my stint in PR with a German company, which included Mr KS Neelakandan, Vice President at Pfizer, Mr Ajit Gopal, the PR head with Indian Airlines, Mr Anil Basu of Goodyear, who had helped in my journey as a PR practitioner. 

The firm belief that effective communication practice can help resolve any issue  in the world, whether it is improving employees sense of belonging, internal communication, training the stakeholders, or reaching out to different external audiences like customers, financial institutions, or the need for changing the government's policies.  The holistic approach to communicate the right message in a desired format through right media at the right time, made the difference. 

The best part remains in PR practice, especially working with small enterprises and startups who have a long journey to traverse, to seem them achieve their goals through effective communication practice. 

From the initial years of concept selling and educating clients about the PR Power, till date, the outcome-based approach to address specific pain points has continued to reap tangible results for our clients.   

How to Elevate Your Startup with PR

Emboldened and inspired by the 'Startup India' many startups are emerging, and youngsters especially, are enthused to setup their own enterprise.  At the early stage, the promoters are more concerned about their product, streamlining operations, hiring the team, and looking for funds to give wings to their ideas. 

However, in all this exercise, PR - the Power Tool to empower any organisation, remains ignored, and those who consider it, keep it on the back burner, since it holds the least importance in the initial stages.

How can PR help a startup grow?

BUILDING BRAND 
The moment the founders conceive the idea, the role of PR starts to help them define the organisational's mission and vision.  They can help in getting the visual identity of the organisation created effectively which can communicate the concept to diverse audience.

INTERNAL INTEGRATION 
Integrating all stakeholders within the organisation is the first step that PR professional can help put together by establishing robust internal communication channels, both formal and informal, for complete transparency, and keeping everyone on the ame page.
Shared goals contribute to the internal strength that gets projected to the external stakeholders strongly paving way for startup's growth.

EXTERNAL IMAGE MANAGEMENT
Every aspect of the branding for consistent reproduction and projection needs expert imaging specialist as also take care of the communication needs of external stakeholders, be it collaborators, technology providers or knowledge partners, financial institutions and individual investors, government institutions and academics, to name a few.

Every group's communication needs to be strategically designed to achieve the desired objective.

MEDIA MANAGEMENT
One of the significant partners for any organisation is the print and electronic media.  Though most founders are young and social media savvy, the importance of print, radio and television channels cannot be discounted.   Even in the print categories, there are dailies as well as vertical or industry specific periodicals that need to be targetted to share your story.

The PR professionals work with the startups to provide them media exposure as well as design opportunities for them to showcase their story through speaking assignments in professional conferences, social clubs, community meetigs, etc, that also adds up to some media coverage.

Good stories published in media also gets public support and supports talent hunt.

FUNDING
Getting the startup founders ready for pitching and presenting to the investors is another key area where properly pitched stories make a difference.  All the buildup through marketing communication, media coverage portfolios, help in generating investors' confidence in the startup.

Engaging PR agency or professionals right from the very beginning can only change the entire scenario for a startup.