Security generally isn’t the first thing you will think of when it comes to a start-up business. You have so many other options. Products, your team, HR, PR, Marketing and a whole host of other things. But the one thing that can halt a business quicker than anything else is damage to a property or theft. These can halt a business as insurance companies are extremely slow and notoriously difficult to deal with, especially for start-up businesses that have only purchased insurance in the last year or 2. As you can probably guess this is a big issue for fraud in the security industry, so even if it is a valid claim, it will take a long time to go through.

So with this in mind what can you do to protect yourself from these issues? Well it’s actually very simple. You have 2 things to protect against. The first is property damage, this includes water, electric or general wear. But our major issue we want to avoid is some type of property damage that would close down the business for an extended period of time. So 3 things you have to ensure you have; fire alarms, water guards and close off switches. If you have these 3 things in your business then you will be as secure as you can hope to be when it comes to natural damage against your business.

Although natural damage is a big issue, the bigger one is clearly theft of a business. Theft is not only a huge issue in the start-up world but all over the globe. When I say theft I’m not just talking about someone breaking into your property and stealing physical items of value, which for the most part for a business is either stock or technology such as computers, printers and phones. I am also talking about digital data that can be stolen. This means you need to protect both against physical burglaries and online data theft. For me there are 3 things you should do to help both.

The first and probably the most important is you want to utilise card capture software that lets employees get into the business property but only using their specific card, this is perfect as it prevents anyone getting into the building, and it passes blame to the individual if something goes missing when they were in the premises.

The next one is the alarms and camera function. For example when you have anyone around the property they should be triggering move alarms, these use a number of metrics to set off, but if you have simple motion trigger alarms set-up, to notify you as well as the police, and turn on the lights and cameras at the same time then this is a very good way to avoid any loss.

Finally you just have to trust who you employee. 45% of theft is done by employees in big businesses. Even if you trust the individuals in your inner circle or team. You have to remember that they know people who you might not trust. Dig deeper into people’s pasts if you aren’t sure.

Yawn

Last Updated 19th October 2016: There is a phrase that I’m not 100% sure who said it initially but it goes along the lines of:

Boring Businesses Make Billionaires

The line itself essentially states that the more boring a business is, the higher the profit margins will be, due to not many people wanting to go into that industry. Which when you think about it, makes a lot of sense. For example would you rather go into an industry about something you enjoy (say sports or music for example) or one you find very boring, say box creation…. The answer should be obvious and this is why everyone ends up going into the “sexy” industries and many people fail.

Take Tech businesses, over the past 10 years every new billion dollar company you have heard about in the news has been a tech based company. But when it comes to the industries that are extremely boring, the companies that are there in that space have little to no competition because people can’t be bothered to get into that industry, it is simply too boring. Take Haulage, toilet paper, wrapping paper…. All extremely boring.

I actually know the guy who decided to put wrapping paper on a roll, like that was HIS idea. Now he sits in a £3 million pound house and his Cat’s house (yes Cat) is the size of most average houses in the UK… All he did was improve a boring industry slightly.

Not very interesting!

Today I’m going to talk about how we are looking to improve a friend’s garage shelving business by utilising technological advancements. This is what we have so far but feel free to comment as that would be great to give us some ideas!

Another friend of mine owns a business that is not boring on the face of it (Blue Chip Supercar Rental) is the business but he says if you treat it just like a product/service + sale then that’s when you get the best bang for your buck in marketing, advertising and sales. So my point here? Treat even interesting businesses the same as “boring” ones.

Now if you are like me, shelving is not your thing. In fact I don’t know anyone in the world who gets “excited” by it. But it is profitable. The margins are good and if you can get in front of individuals who need what you are selling, then there is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to make money from it. That goes for any boring industry. It’s just about the target audience!

3 Tech Tips for Boring Industries

#1 – Utilise the smartphone revolution. Run ads for mobile users only for specific keywords. For example if someone is on a desktop they are likely to search around, click lots of different websites, look for the best offers ect. But when someone is searching from a mobile they aren’t looking to do this, they just want to get their item and checkout quick. Hence if you target only these users your conversion rate will increase!

#2 – Make your website look better than the competition. Not really much of a tech relevant point, but most boring business sites, look like well just that! Instead run offers, competitions and make the site itself look interesting, although its unlikely people are going to share a business site, there is no reason why they shouldn’t be able to tell their friends in the industry to go there! More than this you want your website to come up when people are searching for it! Hire Ghost SEO teams to help you do this, this is when they go in the background of your website and rank your site for all your keywords.

Be Creative

#3 – Finally, be creative, there is nothing worse than old school businesses not adapting. Business in itself is changing, don’t fall into the trap of “we are doing well” – Instead make the most of these changes.

Don’t follow what your competition is doing, in fact go the direct opposite route. There is no reason to be a sheep in your industry, in fact that’s the easiest way to stay under £1 Million a year in revenue. Go the opposite route, take some huge risks. Test and let the data speak for itself. Invest more into what works and pull what doesn’t. Get on social and test that. Same for SEO, same for Paid ads. Just TEST. TEST. TEST.