It’s Microbiz matters day on Friday in the UK. Tony Robinson OBE asked entrepreneurs to invest eight minutes to help a microbiz owners grow their business in 2017. I have been a microbiz leader for almost 40% of my career. It has provided fascinating experiences for both me and my teams. I’ve been blessed to know hundreds, if not thousands, of micro business owners over the course of my life.

What is a microbiz owner? My friend Tony Robinson OBE is a huge champion for this cause! He shares that Micro Enterprises have between 1-9 employees in the UK. There are over 5,200,000 of these businesses in the UK. They make up over 95% of small businesses in the UK. This number has increased substantially over the past several years, most significantly with many older entrepreneurs.  These micro enterprises have accounted for a large part of the UK economic recovery. They have a huge impact on the economy of the UK. Let’s see if we can give them the respect they deserve?

His challenge is to give microbiz owners eight minutes of your time. Sounds easy. Here’s my attempt to give all of you eight minutes that can make 2017 your best year ever. Let’s see if I can give you a great return on your time investment. This blog should take you less than 8 minutes to read. Now let’s get started.

The first rule of building a great microbiz is always be prospecting.  Successful microbiz owners are always prospecting for new business. They use sales prospecting tools at the beginning of the business and as they grow, they continue to invest time building an expanding sales pipeline.

One of the key challenges I find for many microbiz owners is they not only sell the business, over 90% of them are also responsible for delivery of the products and services for their organization. Successful micro business owner are very good at prospecting while they are doing the work.

They use many different tools to acquire clients including social selling, getting referrals, and sharing helpful information about the work they do. Many are also very good at networking with other micro enterprise owners to win larger projects.

Want to make 2017 your best year ever in your microbiz?  Invest an hour a day prospecting. The more you prospect, the better clients you will find. It’s critical that you are always finding new clients for your unique products or services. Prospecting also gives you a greater sense of control in your business.

The second rule for building a great microbiz is know who you best customers are. We all have limited resources. It’s critical that we identify who our best customers are. Successful micro business owners become masters of yes and. This means they know who their best clients and customers are.

Before their customers’ sneeze, successful microbiz owners are handing them a Kleenex. Successful micro business owners are very good at identifying key impacting factors for their clients’ business. They are very in tune with their clients and their clients’ markets. This provides them an advantage over larger, more cumbersome organizations.

Want to make 2017 your best year ever for your microbiz? Learn more about your best clients, then find more with similar challenges and get your relationships going.

Finally, the third rule before we run out of time, successful microbiz owners are very good at creating a unique value proposition for their organizations.  Most larger microbiz owners become very good at telling their story to others in multiple ways. They show up on social media, they speak before audiences and they are always building positive buzz around their unique products and services.

To succeed as microbiz owner, learn how to tell your story on many different media. This means that you must love what you do and enjoy sharing it with others.

Successful micro business owners are great at bringing others into their circle of influence. Can you find a better way to get your potential customers involved with your microbiz? One of the key advantages microbiz entrepreneurs have is they are more agile in how they engage their customers in their business.

They are very creative in how they share their messages with potential clients. Are you? The world doesn’t need another boring corporate message. Ae you bringing the best of you to your clients?

Want to make 2017 your best year ever for your microbiz? Learn how to become better at communicating your unique value to the market. Take time to create sales and marketing campaigns that help put your client into your circle of influence. It’s worth your efforts. Make it fun and watch how quickly your business starts to take off! Done in less than eight minutes!!

Want three easy marketing strategies that can help you celebrate Microbiz Matters this Friday? Check out our blog on Market Leadership Journal where I’ll share three more tools that can help 2017 your best year for your microbiz.

See you there on Thursday!