Focusing your efforts and energy is one of the biggest hurdles to success we face as people in business. Furthermore, gaining an edge in business can be a challenge.
Likewise, as you pursue success, there are many things competing for your time, energy, money, and attention. Thus, you may get too distracted to pay complete attention to any one thing. Whether you’re running a sole-proprietorship, LLC, or some other entity, getting organized and focused is crucial. Therefore, you need to do all you can to gain an edge in the market and over your competitors.
Imagine having more time to devote to what you care about as you pursue success in your business! Similarly, how about having more energy throughout the workday and increasing your sales…without overspending leads and client acquisition?
These ideas may seem like a fantasy, but achieving growth in your business requires time and dedicated focus. When distracted, it’s evident to friends, family, and casual passersby. But a distracted company can quickly lose customers without even knowing why sales are slumping.
1. Consider a workflow audit.
Think about an understaffed restaurant. The kitchen can’t keep up with the orders. People get turned away. The tables are a mess, and the staff is all running around like chickens without their heads.
For a one-time occasion, this level of chaos can be forgivable. But if this is an everyday occurrence, eventually, people will recognize this as a defining characteristic of the restaurant.
If that’s the case, the food better be mighty impressive to attract recurring customers. Otherwise, the restaurant is in for some difficulties down the road.
So taking a look at your workflow and organization can reveal holes in your business. There are some simple steps to getting your business more organized and streamlined.
That way, your customers have fewer hurdles with their transactions, and your logistics are simpler to achieve. You can do five foundational things to simplify your process and make your business engine purr.
2. Create an organization chart.
In every organization, there are roles that people take. You need people for everything from the direction and execution to finding new customers and providing goods and services.
Create a clear organizational chart that defines the roles, details responsibilities, and explains cross-over scenarios. As a result, this chart will make each job more accessible and productive.
It becomes easier to handle tasks and conflicts that may arise when the definition of who runs those becomes clearer.
A by-product of having clearly defined expectations and parameters on which your team needs to focus is increased productivity.
The power of an organization chart is that it will clearly define each role within your business. It will also exemplify how those roles interact and provide an understanding of who can assist them with questions.
For the Mom-and-Pop sole-proprietorship, this organization chart is simple for the decision-making side of the administration.
Of course, the final decider is you, but it can be overwhelming to execute actions. In this instance, hiring outside help, from bookkeepers to marketing, is crucial. Outsourcing for small businesses can include:
- bookkeeping and accounting;
- lead generation and marketing;
- human resources, payroll, and legal;
- customer service; and
- logistics and order fulfillment.
Outsourcing is an excellent strategy for startups and developing a long-term plan to scale operations with your business. This plan should reflect these organizational values you’ve established.
You may have fewer roles to delegate and define if you’re running an online business or blog.
3. Declutter your space.
Once you organize your operations, the next is to turn your attention to managing your physical space.
A clean physical room is symptomatic of your org chart’s message that every operation detail is purposeful and thought out. The idea of “everything in its place and a place for everything” should be the mantra of your company.
Every office worker knows how frustrating it is to look for copier paper or find a needed file.
The more organized your office is, the easier people will complete the small tasks. The easier it is to complete the small tasks, the less time detracts from productivity.
4. Improve your workspace for better productivity.
Hand-in-hand with your physical workspace getting decluttered is thinking about the best way to improve your workspace for better productivity.
Creating a workspace that supports the vision of growing your business contributes powerfully to its success.
Little things such as adding plants to the office can increase overall happiness in the space. Overall, happiness is a solid predictor of productivity.
5. Go paperless.
So much time in business gets dedicated to shuffling, organizing, and processing paperwork.
This tactic alone is a significant time suck that can drive productivity into a deep spiral in other areas. For greater success, consider going paperless with almost, if not all, of your documents.
Consider creating a centralized document on your cloud service and having a service such as DocuSign handle contracts.
As a result, this improvement will make finding, organizing, and sharing files easier and help maintain the declutter of your workspace.
Emphasizing Customer Service
With everything you have going on, it’s easy to lose sight of an essential aspect of your business: customer service.
As organizations become more streamlined, they lose the front-facing personality of their customer service operations. Most customers want to be greeted and handled by familiar and friendly personalities. It’s a cornerstone of why some companies have such ardent followers.
Imagine two breweries that offer regular loyalty programs and low staff turnover, making the customer experience an event. One is a welcoming place. Some patrons and team members become friends outside of the workplace, either real or social media. Customer service has created a sense of community.
Alternatively, the other brewery is a wide-open space with over 32 beers on tap for tasting. There is no food or other amenities, but the beer is award-winning. Which is more appealing to you as a consumer: the warm, friendly brewery or the solely product-focused one?
Another benefit of emphasizing customer service is to mitigate any issues and to help foster better brand loyalty.
These aspects are a linchpin to repeat sales and long-term success. Organizing your small business has many upsides, from making your operations smoother and more efficient to becoming more customer-friendly. As a result, you’ll be able to expand your brand and grow more brand loyalty in time.
