3 Pointers for Starting and Running a Small Business

We founded AsiaBC in 2009 as hands-on leaders of our firm, and like the thousands of other Hong Kong small business owners, we are in it for the long haul.

We were obligated believers of the adage “No pain, no gain.” because we handled the business operating routine on our own without a large sum of money in the company bank account. The challenges of the markets often slowed us down and made us frustrated. As a result, we find it difficult to devote time to strategic expansion planning. As a result, we failed to recognize issues that stymie progress, such as outmoded pricing models, a lack of capital investments, and insufficient manpower.

Then we had a series of discussions on how our company should operate and where we should steer it. We immediately understood that we needed to carve time out of our seemingly hectic schedules to think more strategically about the company. However, how can we be certain that we will make wise choices? How can we effectively allocate our resources?

Count on accurate and timely financial data.

No one should make decisions based on intuition or conjecture; instead, we should rely solely on hard data to eliminate bottlenecks.

Our company’s financial information must be well-organized, systematic, and up-to-date in order to make strategic decisions. We need to know how our pricing model works, which areas of operations are the most expensive, which services are the most cost-effective, and who our most important clients are.

We engaged local accountants and hired a HK CPA as our auditor because we were not accountants, and they all worked together to produce accurate and timely reports. Because our accounting team and auditor were specialized in accounting tasks and focused on their primary work, they were in a better position to offer information to us from a variety of viewpoints.

In summary, new business owners are constantly sidetracked by other things. We should delegate professional responsibilities to professionals so that we can concentrate on our own development.

Regularly review the pricing strategy.

Unless you are doing a business that is immune to competition, pricing strategy is critical in closing deals. In our case, AsiaBC is a company service provider in HK, and undoubtedly many providers are doing the company services, including HK company registration and company secretarial services.

After we gained some free time, we rendered the ongoing marketing duties by ourselves because we hoped we were touching with the latest changes in the market. We divided this job into two tasks. On one end, analysis of our competitors’ services and pricing system was deciding, we sourced their fee table on their website and quotations quarterly; On another end, we asked for help from our potential clients if they would tell us some details about our competitors they had contact.

We made the right moves by freeing our hands to do market research by ourselves because the outcome was more significant than expected; we saw a jump in the deal closing rate after we began to manage our pricing carefully.

To conclude, leaders should always be in touch with the market. We should not drown the outreach of pricing information in administrative works.

Regularly review the pricing strategy.
Pricing strategy is crucial in closing deals unless you are in a business that is immune to competition. In our example, AsiaBC is a company service provider in Hong Kong, and there are definitely many more companies that provide similar services, such as company registration in Hong Kong and company secretarial services.

After we had some spare time, we took on the ongoing marketing responsibilities on our own, hoping to keep up with the latest market changes. This job was split into two halves. On one hand, we conducted an analysis of our competitors’ services and pricing systems, obtaining their fee table from their website and quarterly quotations; on the other hand, we sought assistance from our potential clients, asking them to provide us with information about our competitors with whom they had contact.

We made the right moves by freeing our hands to do market research by ourselves because the outcome was more significant than expected; we saw a jump in the deal closing rate after we began to manage our pricing carefully.

To conclude, leaders should always be in touch with the market. We should not drown the outreach of pricing information in administrative works.

Gain exposure through partnerships with other business services providers.

Buying advertisements is the quickest way to get greater exposure of our services to the target customers. However, it is expensive, and it was not bearable during our budding stage.

So we looked for alternatives and we eyed on the digital space. The online social network platforms, company websites, and directories enable the possibility of reaching international communities of self-employed people, entrepreneurs, and experts of professions in various fields.

So, we started to search for the mid-tier foreign company service providers and service firms online, and we wrote emails and made online voice and video calls to contact them to initiate the co-operation between the service providers. As a register company Hong Kong provider, we help our partners to promote the offshore incorporation and financial services of their countries, and in turn, they help us to promote our services. The connections between us and our partners are more than channels of sales, both parties gain publicity and bondage of their services when people in other countries are mentioning the company names and the people running the business.

As a wrap-up, we should grasp the opportunities to let others see, hear, and remember the services and products that you are offering, but people are not interested in “useless” information. We can start promoting the business of people in your network as a gesture of goodwill, we will see the opportunities for co-operation with other like-minded entrepreneurs. Seeking a “win-win” relationship is a low-cost way to send out the message of your company in the long-run.