Three rules of small business

To be a successful small business, you need to be passionate about your business, you need to offer solid products or services, and you need to have an attractive visual identity. (This all culminates into your “brand.”)

The greatest success comes at the intersection between all three:

But, you can still be successful with two out of three…

1. You can find mild success by being absolutely passionate about your business and having an attractive visual identity. A majority of consumers make purchases based on the design/packaging, because first impressions are formed within 90 seconds. You may not have repeat customers, however, which are truly a business’ bread & butter.

2. You can find mild success by having great products or services and an attractive visual identity. Perhaps your passion has dwindled because, yes, running a business is hard mf-ing work. Customers can sense inauthenticity and it will taint their experience with your brand, regardless of how great or beautiful your product is.

3. You can find mild success by being passionate about your business and having great products or services. Word of mouth is the key motivator here, but you may lose potential business by poor first impressions.

If you’re checking the box on all three — you must be crushing it!

But it’s important to be honest with yourself — step back to assess if you can actually improve on one of these three elements to be even more successful.