Ten steps towards a successful business, with a healthy side serve of increased goodwill.
- Business Plan
A business plan is the ultimate road map to get you, to your business destination. The benefits of completing a business plan are:
- It encourages you, the business owners, to think through your ideas, expose possible shortcomings and identify the strengths (SWOT analysis) associated with the business owners, the business, your products/services.
- It gives the business a sense of direction with action items and agreed timelines allocated to specific members of management / staff.
- It helps build commitment because you have publicly announced your objectives.
- It enables you to benchmark progress against agreed targets. Success is a team effort, and everyone who participated in achieving the relevant goal, must be acknowledged.
- It builds credibility and convinces others (including financiers/lenders) that you know what you are doing, where you are going and how you are going to get there.
- It enables the business to perform better. Remember the saying "Fail to plan, plan to fail". Research shows that businesses that undertake regular business planning have higher profit margins than those that do not.
A well thought out business plan is an effective competitive advantage. It provides you with the necessary focus that enables you to outperform the competition.
- Web site
The benefits of a web site are many:
- it promotes your business to a huge number of potential new customers
- no other advertising can reach so many people and still be affordable;
- it generates business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It takes no leave;
- an informative, well designed site can give you the edge over your competitors;
- it assists provide better customer service and communication;
- it shows your business is progressive and keeps pace with technology;
- Customer Database
Without your customers you have no business. Take every opportunity to collect the names and contact details (including emails and birthdays) of your customers. Communicate with them on a regular basis.
- Customer service
Service or price, which one is the greatest motivator? A difficult answer. Both are essential, however you have a better than even chance of closing the sale if your price is within the ball park and your service is exceptional.
- Guarantees
A guarantee that simply states you stand behind what you sell, provides a first time customer with security. It may be the only thing standing between a sale to you or the competition.
We offer our larger clients the ability to try any of our products free of charge. We know that our delivery platform when combined with the quality of our documents is unique. So long as the client ?puts their toe into the water? we have a 90% chance of closing the deal. If they don?t come back, we need to learn why not and address what needs to be changed.
- Business systems
Your business systems are interwoven with customer service. If you run an inefficient, disorganized business, you will not survive for long. Put in place systems/procedures that will assist both management and staff to perform better, in less time than the competition.
Systems may be implemented for many areas including banking and finance (monthly management accounts, aged debtors, collection agents), human resources (employment agreements / policies / procedures), data collection (for entry onto your client data base), response time to customer enquiries (whether phone, fax or email), or product dispatch. Systems are essential for ensuring that you provide a consistent level of service to your customers.
- Business Image
First impressions count for a lot. Addressing your business image is all about paying attention to the little things that will exceed your customers expectations.
Your image is created using a combination of things including your product range, marketing materials (business cards, brochures, web site, email), location and staff. Everything you or fail to do, contributes to your image.
- Branding
Branding is about creating and communicating a set of values to the consumer of your product or service.
- Marketing
Who is going to purchase your product/service? The answer should be in your business plan. Marketing is essential to the success of any business. If the buyer doesn?t know you exist, how they can buy from you?
Think of ways you can get your business in front of the people that want your product/service. Do this via the media, trade journals, web sites, newsletters, trade shows, flyers or business cards.
- Staff
It is all well and good having a client base, but you also need to be able to service them. Attracting talented, knowledgeable staff is important. Incentivize your employees for achieving measured results.
Many employees want to learn, so give them that opportunity. Training courses, trade certificates, time off to attend presentations/lectures will appeal to the more progressive employee out there.
Involve your staff in the business. Ask for their ideas, get them to contribute. Meetings are an opportunity to inspire your staff and give them a sense of belonging through the process of sharing information.