This story is part of a series about financial literacy for small businesses in the Ypsilanti area. It is made possible by University Bank.
For many entrepreneurs, having strong guiding principles for a business goes hand-in-hand with success. These measures are often invaluable when it comes to assessing a company's performance, identifying potential problems, making informed decisions, and setting future goals.
Knowing what to track isn't always easy, however, so we asked four Washtenaw County-based experts to weigh in on the must-know guiding principles to help your business succeed in 2025.
1. Entrepreneurial community engagement
This principle is crucial even before you launch your business, according to Michelle Julet, director of the
Entrepreneurship Center at Washtenaw Community College. She points to data showing that successful entrepreneurs either come from a family of entrepreneurs, or from a community of entrepreneurs. Her team tries to create a community that encourages success across cohorts. It's important because many of the people who walk through their doors are first-generation entrepreneurs.
"Do you have others who are in a similar situation, so you can share and learn from each other?" she says. "Ensure that you're in a community with other entrepreneurs so you can really feed off of each other and grow on each other's success."
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WCCMichelle Julet is pictured at right with a contestant in Washtenaw Community College's Pitch@WCC competition.
She adds that your community is "really every single person you connect with. Everyone is a potential customer or someone who could help you, either with your business or as a potential client."
2. Product viability
You've got your business, or an idea for a business, but what's the point without customers? Gauging interest is a must for any entrepreneur. Julet and other experts recommend collecting feedback from 100 people.
"You really need to be talking with at least 100 people about your product or service. And it can't be your mom, or your friend, or anyone that's going to be nice to you," Julet says. "Ask 100 strangers in non-leading ways for feedback on your product or services."
The idea is to identify opportunities for improvement and business evolution.
"I'm going to morph, or I'm going to switch, and I'm going to make these changes and then maybe I'm going to start again," Julet says. "And that is a win, if you can pivot and make changes and then start again. That is an absolute win."
3. Mission and client alignment
Are you actually delivering on your business' mission? And are your clients truly aligned with your mission and beliefs? These are questions that
Laura O'Connor – who has worked in marketing consulting and marketing communications for 24 years – asks herself and her clients.
"It's my most important metric for any entrepreneur," O'Connor says. "What is going to eat you up in the mornings? What's going to help you sustain your business is making sure you're working with the right people and on issues that you believe in."
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courtesy Laura O'ConnorLaura O'Connor.
O'Connor says this is a holistic decision that creates a ripple effect for business owners both personally and professionally.
"Am I going to like working with this person? Are they going to pay me a fair price? Am I going to like the work that we're doing together?" she says. "When I have good collaborative partners, and if they're checking all of those boxes, it makes me feel better as a well-rounded person."
4. Reputation
Gauge your personal reputation as a business owner. You need to understand how others perceive your professionalism, expertise, reliability, and overall character within your professional sphere, O'Connor says.
"It's almost like doing your own little performance review," she says. "As a business owner, you have to hold yourself accountable, because you can be in a vacuum of just thinking, 'Oh, I must be amazing at this.'"
O'Connor personally seeks feedback on what people think of when they just hear her name.
"It's important so I can keep improving and evolving and innovating, instead of just doing the same old, same old every year, or maybe not realizing my own blind spots," she says.
5. Market gaps
Erik Rakoczy, a lawyer with 13 years of experience providing legal advice to startups, emphasizes the importance of keeping on top of customer bases and market gaps.
"When someone is looking at a metric, they should really look at what people are doing and find out what they like," he says. "Then look for the gap in the brick wall – like, what service is now missing?"
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courtesy Erick RakoczyErick Rakoczy.
He explains that business owners should take stock of what products or services are missing in their communities – what's out there in other cities, but not here. He points to the growth of Groupon, which started in Chicago and then replicated its success in cities around the world, as an example.
"Those are your big opportunities to make something here that'll grow fast," he says.
6. Business processes in keeping with scale
Rakoczy advises business owners to revisit corporate structure documents, such as operating agreements or by-laws, and modify those to fit present needs, versus what was needed at the start-up stage.
"There's a way to make your company lean. That doesn't mean cutting employees or lowering costs, but getting more efficient business processes set in place," he says. "Look at what software tools are around now for bookkeeping and management that weren't around where you started."
He adds: "You can not just save money by making things more efficient. You could also make more money by making things more efficient."
7. Email list leverage
Eboney Byrne, a certified financial educator and founder of
Liberty Financial Services, stresses the importance of keeping on top of social media outreach and the power of customer email lists.
"Building an email list is important. I think a lot of people focus a lot on social media and followers there," she says. "An example is TikTok. Will it be banned? Will it not be banned? We'll find out. But there are people who are genuinely freaking."
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Doug CoombeEboney Byrne.
She shares that she's found a lot of businesses who have thousands of followers, and are making their whole living on social media. But those entrepreneurs are not getting those people onto their own platforms. This is where an email management system comes into play.
"If TikTok were to shut down tomorrow, or Instagram or Facebook, how would you reach your customers?" Byrne says.
Jaishree Drepaul is a writer and editor based in Ann Arbor. She can be reached at jaishreeedit@gmail.com.
Eboney Byrne photos by Doug Coombe. All other photos courtesy of the subjects.