To ensure that you start off on the best possible foot for your new business, you must ensure that you are properly prepared and ready for your Grand Opening. While it’s critical that all of your new customers become lifetime customers, by staying organized you can keep yourself from getting worn out before the race even starts. By following these five easy steps, you can ensure that your Opening goes off without a hitch!
Step One: Choose the Right Team to Assist You
Just as when you are selecting your workforce to help handle the regular business, you need the right people on hand for your opening. While it might be tempting to cut costs by attempting to do everything yourself, it’s no more reasonable here than it is for your ongoing operations. Selecting the right people to assist you with the Grand Opening of your new store ensures that you have the best results. The “perfect team” for your business Grand Opening should consist of the following individuals:
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You, the Business Owner.
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A Public Relations / Social Media Specialist.
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An Event Planner.
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A Personal Assistant, for Every Other Thing.
By having the “perfect team,” for the Grand Opening, will ensure that the Grand Opening goes smoothly and without any hiccups.
Step Two: Determine Your Budget
It is important as a new business owner to ensure that you stay on budget and do not spend too much money. Sometimes new businesses fail because they overspend on opening inventory, equipment, and advertising. Sometimes critical or misunderstood elements like advertising might escape being budgeted in depth altogether.
It is always good to set up a budget for advertising expenses for the business, especially for a Grand Opening. Like any other aspect of your business, you need to plan for the costs of your event and ensure that you don’t overspend. With the right allocations, you can have an effective Grand Opening without setting your break-even date back too much.
Step Three: Hire an Event Planner
It is good to hire someone who has experience planning openings for new businesses. As we mentioned earlier, every part of your business is a group effort — there’s almost no way out of it. Even if not for the simple fact that there are only so many hours in a week, this might be your first time opening a business, whereas for a seasoned event planner, the opening of a new business is their bread-and-butter. Ideally, your job should be to show up, be the face of your brand management, and start building lasting relationships with your client base.
Step Four: Get the Word Out!
Many Grand Openings of new businesses fail because of lack of good advertising for the event. Maybe they put too much faith in their ability to use “word of mouth” or another specific method of marketing. But there is a new “word of mouth” to integrate into your advertising strategy — social media.
You can create great advertising banners that can be used on social media platforms to display your new business. Services like Quality Sign Designer can help you create banners and signage for your business in general, as well as your Grand Opening Event. But the main message here is that you don’t want to get too locked into one channel. You need to get your message out through as many avenues as possible — print, social, and web-based solutions can be extremely cost-effective. If you’ve got the budget, adding a TV/Radio arm to your marketing strategy will cover your bases.
Step Five: Set Reasonable Expectations
Sometimes as small business owners, we fail to realize that we cannot have everything “under the sun” when it comes to our business. Without realistic expectations, you may be setting yourself up for a struggle. Ensure that the Grand Opening is far enough in advance that you have enough time to plan for it.
It just makes sense to prepare for a new store Grand Opening by hiring the right individuals to assist you with such as an event planner, or a social media and public relations guru. With the right team, the business owner will have time to take care of those things that truly only they can do. Do not be afraid to have a budget for advertising costs like the making of banners, posters, and signposts to let the public know about your new business. Stay within that budget and set yourself up for a successful opening the same way you set yourself up for a successful business!
Lautaro Martinez is a freelance writer and professional student who offers articles and insights into the challenges of the business community and the occasional plight of the aspiring entrepreneur.
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