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What can be done to make your small business successful?

My husband and I want to start an invitation business. We would be doing graduations, weddings, announcements, anniversaries, anything that people want. We have already done invitations for friends and family members, but have decided we want to be getting paid for our work. What can you suggest we do to make this a successful business?

Public Comments

1. put out flyers make a set price for invites same with everything... like 200$ for invites/225 for weddings/ 250 for anniversaries/ might sound a lot but ur doin all the work..graduations 175$..
2. Hello. First off it's going to take a lot of patience. It's a highly competitive field. I, myself am in the same field and have found it to be a tough one. I've been operating out of my home for about a year now and I've had very little sales. Marketing is key when you are doing something like this. I'd try sites like Craigslist, jaabu and kijiji. They are free advertising sites. I'd get you some business cards made up and hand them out like crazy. Flyers would be good too. It's just going to take a lot of dedication and patience to get it up and running. You also need to find out from your local small business office what all you need to get started (as far as licenses and such). If you'd like to talk more about it, I'd be happy to give you some pointers. My email is Jsbutrfli@gmail.com. Good luck!
3. My wife made hand-made greeting cards for a while, so I have some idea of what you're going through. The first thing I would suggest is finding a niche within the field that is appealing to you and that puts a different spin on the invitation business. It might involve focusing only on certain kinds of events, a certain type of customer, or some combination of the two. The idea is to carve out a niche where you can compete successfully, because your offering is uniquely tailored to the needs of your target market in a way that nobody else is. You'll know you've discovered the right market for your invitations when you've found a burning, unmet need among a set of customers that resonates with your own interests and that plays to your strengths. The tough part about doing this is that you'll have to learn to say "no" to people who fall outside the boundaries you draw for your business. While its tempting to chase all leads, you'll get a lot farther in the long run by staying focused on customers you can really help. The last piece of advice I would give you is to avoid taking on fixed obligations like rent or making sunk investments in equipment as long as possible. Ideally, you don't want to incur any costs until someone orders invitations from you. This keeps your risk low and gives you more flexibility to survive until you can build up a dependable base of clients. The fastest way to go broke is to spend a lot of cash up front in the hopes that customers will show up. Find the customers first, then make the investments necessary to serve them. Best of luck on your new venture!