Story by Elliot Rhodes
As a small business owner, your dream is to see your business grow from one level to the other. You want to see the number of customers increase and become return customers, more income streaming in, happy and satisfied employees among other improvements.
The only way to achieve the above is for you to employ the right amount of effort and strategies. However, with vast competition and other business downsides, sometimes it becomes a challenge to record the expected results.
So, how do you ensure that you are consistently getting improved results for business elevation? Here are some tips to get you started.
- Expand your business
You could be trying to gain new customers, but your strategies aren’t showing anything much. Try casting your networking on a greater scale by expanding your business to other geographical areas. As a small business, you could be thinking about how this is possible with your limited resources. Well, you can easily set your business in other countries through an International PEO company, such as New Horizons Global Partners. This organization will help you hire talents in such countries compliantly without really establishing a legal entity.
- Build a customer referral program
Giving your customers an excellent experience is a great way to ensure that they stay loyal to you, but it doesn’t always guarantee that they will refer you to other people. On the other hand, if you give them a small incentive, they can be inclined to tell other people about your business. You can create a referral program to reward your customers when they refer you to other people. It is a faster way to see increased results in the number of new prospects.
- Set clear goals
You might be working extremely hard on your business, but if you have no idea of what you are working towards, your efforts could well be yielding zero results. Set clear and specific business goals of what you want to achieve, and give yourself a timeline. You can then list the steps that you are going to take to achieve the goal. That way, you will have a clear path to follow, and a laid down procedure of what you are needed to do. You will be able to measure your work regularly and see how far you have gone with a particular goal.
The same applies to the work that you put in day in day out for your business. You might find that you are working nonstop from morning to evening, with nothing to show at the end of the day. This could be a result of not having a planned daily to-do-list, and not prioritizing important tasks. Plan a daily schedule and ensure that you are giving priority to important tasks. If a task is overwhelming, consider breaking it down to small doable tasks. Having such a plan will help you focus and eliminate the chances of drifting away from important tasks.
- Motivate your employees
Your employees help you carry the vision and objectives of your business. However, you could be having the best talents but recording lower results than expected. Help your employees be of optimum help to you by keeping them motivated. Rather than being the boss, foster a relationship of trust where your staff knows that they can come to you for anything. Show empathy and concern for them both at work and their personal life. Offer guidance, honest feedback, and reward performance. Listen to what they have to say and foster an environment for open communication. When your employees are engaged, they will work at their optimal to drive great results.
- Take it easy
Hard work is crucial in running a small business. There is a lot to do with little available time. This leads to the tendency to overwork for most small business owners. While it may seem okay in the early stages, continuously working this way can lead to catastrophic results. For starters, you are highly likely to reach a burnout point, which can be detrimental to your health. Secondly, it becomes extremely difficult to work or make proper business decisions when you are fatigued.
Ensure that you are taking care of yourself. Find time for breaks even when you are jammed with work. A five minutes break between a complex task can do wonders for your energy levels and creativity. Ensure that you are eating a balanced diet and getting enough sleep. Learn to delegate tasks so that you can have some time for yourself. Take vacations whenever you feel your energies running dry.
- Offer excellent customer service
They say people can forget what you did to them, but they never forget how you made them feel. That is true when it comes to the experience you give to your customers. It is easy to think that you have a great product that can make people keep coming back regardless of the quality of your customer care service. The truth, however, is that only a small percentage can be enticed by the quality of a product. The majority will come back if only you delight them with your service.
Continually look for ways to improve your customer care service. Encourage your customers to give you honest feedback on their experience. That way, you will be able to capitalize on the areas that you are doing well and improve on the areas that you are failing. That is how you will build loyal customers and attract more to your business.
- Streamline business workflow
One of the reasons why you are not recording your desired results could be caused by delays in your workflow. Your team could be working hard to drive results, but if there are hurdles in the way, recording results can be a daunting task that will drain their energies and morale.
Take time to assess the workflow. There could be some tasks that don’t contribute anything to the results. Such are better off removed. In addition, look for repetitive tasks and consider automating them. You will reduce the effort required to do them and increase efficiency. There could also be a problem with the hardware. If a particular computer hangs in the middle of a task, you must think of replacing, rather than repairs that never get it to work. Additionally, make use of modern tools of technology in your operations. Communication tools, for instance, can cut down delays in communication by a huge percentage.
- Have an online presence
The modern consumer will most likely search your business up on the internet before deciding to buy from you. If you lack an online presence, you could be losing out on a lot of potential customers.
Have an active online presence on all major social media platforms. Ensure that you actively engage with your followers, addressing their concerns, and sharing useful information with them. Set up a business website and ensure that you optimize it for SEO to make your business searchable on search engines. Additionally, optimize it locally to reach a targeted demographic.
Conclusion
Running a business is not a smooth journey. You will meet with pitfalls, make mistakes, and sometimes feel like you are stuck in a rut, with no results to show. Don’t set your expectations too high, and be ready to learn from the mistakes that you make. Above all, be open to continually be a learner. Continuously adding knowledge in different aspects of your business will help you in improving results in these areas.
