Hit These Business Milestones in Your Career
If your age ranges somewhere between early twenties and late thirties, you’ve probably begun to wonder if your career is advancing fast enough. You’re not alone, especially if you operate your own company. It’s a fact that solo entrepreneurs have a harder time identifying milestones of success because they have no corporate culture to measure things by. What’s a millennial to do? Here’s a list of skills you should have or be ready to acquire in your mid-twenties to late thirties.
Establish Personal and Business Credit
By this point in your business life, you should have established two kinds of credit, personal and business. They should be separate, ranked from “good” to “excellent” by the bureaus, and you should not find yourself resorting to them regularly. For both, try to keep usage levels at or below 10 percent. If you haven’t yet applied for a credit line for your company, start making preparations to do so.
Use Advanced Marketing Techniques
Now that you’re a full-fledged adult, use grown-up marketing techniques. One of the most powerful for solo entrepreneurs is intent SEO. Not only can you multiply profits by can consistently beat your competitors to page-one rankings. How? Add intent-oriented words to your standard set of keywords. If you sell financial services, try “find financial advisors,” “review financial professionals,” and similar terms that use verbs to indicate the intentions of potential customers. Incorporating this kind of fine-tuning into your marketing strategy can quickly rev up your reach and bring in customers who are ready to hire you.
Know How to Raise Capital for Expansion
Even if you’re not a financial guru, it’s good business to hire one and find out how your company can raise capital. Unless you never want to expand, this is a necessary step in growing a company, earning more money, and widening your life’s horizons. Many entrepreneurs build networks of angel investors whom they’ve groomed for years. Others, make long lists of those who might want to buy a small piece of the company. Finally, there’s always crowdfunding. It’s a reliable way to generate cash for small expansion any time you need it.
Know How to Go Public
Going public means getting listed on one of the stock exchanges. Make no mistake that this is a major step for any business owner or group of owners. But, if you think it’s time to bring in a significant amount of capital in exchange for shares of ownership stock, contact a lawyer who specializes in initial public offerings. Expect to spend at least five years on the effort if all goes well. What will it cost? A rough estimate one-tenth of the amount of capital you want to raise via the IPO.
Be Financially Solvent
Aside from credit lines, raising capital, and getting listed on a stock exchange, this time of your life should be characterized by financial stability for yourself and solvency for your company. Work to bring debt down, pay off any past due tax obligations, and deal with pending law suits. It’s difficult to move forward when you’re held back by money or legal problems.