David Beckham’s guide to building your business

8 Jun

The multi-talented, multi-famous and multi-millionaire David Beckham is going to give us a look into a few lessons any small business owner can learn from. Although injured for this month’s World Cup in South Africa, he is still training and being part of the England team in his now familiar “ambassador” role.

Never say die.

It always pays off to be determined, motivated and driven when you are starting up in business. Never look back and never take “no” for an answer. Sometimes you will get set backs and things will look darker, but that’s the time to go back dig deep and reproduce the best you can and try and try again.

David got red carded in St Etienne in France 1998 (World Cup) and went from hero to villain in seconds. That summer he trained hard and came back to win the first European Treble with Manchester United the following season, captain England and became arguably the biggest soccer star ever. In times of need, look adversity in the face, laugh and come back stronger.

Embrace Change.

Change is a good thing and the quicker we embrace it, the more successful your businesses can be. Sometimes changing your environment, products, services and marketing ideas can work wonders. If you keep on doing the same things, you’ll keep on getting the same results. Get your head up sometimes. Look around you, see what others are doing and ask yourself why. Move position, do something risky and challenging everyday and enjoy doing it.

David moved to Spain to play for Real Madrid in 2003 to a whole new environment and ended winning a LaLiga title in his final season at the Bernab éau, which they hadn’t won for 3 years. Not a bad thing to change something.

When you’ve got to go, go with a smile.

When things go wrong, it’s always best to make the best of a bad situation. Life goes on. Clients will get upset, clients will come and go. Sometimes expectations will not be met, communication may be poor or deadlines are not achieved. Remember, you are the boss and you can make things better. Sometimes admitting to customers when you are wrong, taking action and offering value in return will go a long way to patching things up. And, remember to thank people. Not just be email, but with a letter or postcard or small gift. And even if they can’t get over that small complication, you’ve done all you can and can hold your head up high.

David after his alleged affair left things graceful and lots unspoken, although he denied the allegations. Sometimes is best to just shut up and move on.

David Beckham's guide to building your business

Build your brand, build your business.

A brand is almost like an extension of you. It embodies everything about your business. It is a consistent image that you present to the public at all times. This could be in the way you speak to customers, your logo, the colour of your business cards, the copy on your website, your email signature, your ring tone, your van. Everything you give out to people adds to your brand and creates an impression with people that over time they can become to trust and develop a relationship with in terms of sales, loyalty and recommendations to others.

Don’t underestimate the power of the brand and start creating yours today.

Brand Beckham is a top brand. He is now know as just Beckham, not only David Beckham, and a worldwide fashion icon and strong marketing brand.

Sell yourself, get yourself known.

Be confident, get yourself known and tell people who you are. Go around to all the local businesses if you sell business to business, introduce yourself and give them a little information on how you helped others similar to themselves and start to build a correspondence with them. The more you do this, the more familiar people will become of you. And, if you sell to Joe Public, be proactive and look for unique opportunities to get yourself known.

Run a competition in the local paper, where the prize is your service for free, that way you get loads of names and phone numbers, loads of people who are interested in your product (and you now know they are) and you get yourself in the newspaper…and for free.

Beckham is in the papers and splashed all over the magazines with photos and news all the time. Don’t be shy, tell the world about who you are and your story.

Networking.

A network of contacts is a powerful thing. Get out there, make yourself known, give out your business cards to people, get your little mini team of advocates working for you. Remember that networking is all about creating relationships, helping people get what they want and can take time to mature. It is not direct selling! However, it can form most of your business generation if gone about in the right way.

Think how many people you can meet at a networking event or party, connect with them, think of a genuine and real way to help them and give them your business card as opposed to giving out flyers willy nilly. It may be nerve wracking at first, but something you can learn, can get used to and maybe even enjoy in the end.

David made lots of ‘friends’ since he moved to Hollywood in 2007, including Tom & Katie.

Up sell, cross sell, back sell.

It takes more effort and more energy to win new customers than to sell other related and useful products to existing ones. This is fact. It takes 80% of your time to acquire a new 20% customer base. If you can perform extra services that are related to your existing range and customer base, then it is an easy way to get extra revenue from existing customers and build a better business.

As a web designer I noticed that customers were also in need for well designed business cards and other promotional materials to match their site, email marketing and other product. Creating these made life easier for them dealing with one company they trust to carry out the work, and I could offer these as a set or as add-ons to a website to generate more revenue for my business. If you can’t expand your skill set, look to network with someone in a related industry that could benefit your customers and provide you with more services to help your clients. They’ll feel more love, you’ll help them out more and get the prestige with it, and a little more dosh on the side.

David uses his brand to cross and up sell perfume, clothes, boots, his soccer school, you name it.

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Thanks a lot David for your wonderful insight into the world of business and your 7 tips on how we can all improve our own businesses. And this is from the man who, runs a soccer school, 14.1 million search results in google, paid $1 million per week by LA galaxy and is a household name. So if we follow his advice, and aim for around 1% of this success, I’m sure we won’t do too badly for ourselves and our small businesses either.