Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
By Rosana Beechum
When running a new small business alone or with only a couple of employees, you must grow the business quickly. Creating initial momentum is necessary to avoid failing to make sufficient progress in the first month or two and losing faith that you’ll succeed. Self-belief is worth more than “faking it until you make it” for getting better results. Here are four tips to boost what you can achieve in the early months.
Put your best tech foot forward
It’s necessary to get help with the technology side of the equation to obtain better outcomes. Otherwise, cobbled together solutions will be inadequate to the task and that will become increasingly obvious. Look to invest in a website that will serve your business well. Take smart advice from a team like the one at webheads.co.uk, who have built sites for companies large and small and still do so today. They can ensure that the site will be a good fit for your customers, and it will manage traffic growth spurts too.
Embrace outsourcing to reduce complexity
The sheer number of tasks to complete in a myriad of areas quickly becomes overwhelming for new businesses. Company owners with limited personnel must select companies to outsource key tasks to. Doing so can help to avoid long-term commitments to additional employees. Also, using freelancers for smaller tasks can contain agency fees for staff when all that’s needed is a short-term requirement.
Bear in mind that outsourcing can also include services that companies provide to you for a fixed fee or a per-user fee. These can save on considerable infrastructure investment and other start-up costs.
Ensure sales staff are good at their job
People often go into sales because they’re not qualified in specific areas and fall into the sales industry. Fortunately, some seem to have a gift of the gab or are natural salespeople. However, that’s not always the case. Sales staff must be proven to deliver results for the business. For offline sales and online agents that talk to prospective buyers via live chat, they must be sufficiently persuasive that they get great sales numbers.
The company must strictly analyse sales results per staff member and compare them between each other and known industry standards. Also, they must assess regional differences and the differences between platforms to avoid comparing apples with oranges when it comes to performance.
Double down on successes
Look for the standout performers – people or products – and give them more to work with. Double down on successes. For instance, when a product is succeeding well but customers are asking for added features, look to provide a premium version or an add-on for an extra cost with enhanced characteristics.
For staff members that are outperforming others, see what support services or other needs they have that are hindering their progress. See how they can be best supported to sustain or increase their performance.
When following the above suggestions, improved business results should flow from there. However, knowing when to outsource to access a different skill set or manage staffing levels is equally important too.
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Rosana Beechum is a business and marketing undergraduate from Nottingham Trent University in the UK; she is attempting to share her knowledge through writing articles for small business owners.
