The Do’s and Don’ts of Running a Business
Running a business can be extremely trying. Knowing what to do and what not to do can sometimes be marred in grey.
In this piece, we’ll take a look at a few of the things you should DO, and a few of the main things you DON’T do when running your business.
DO: Give Yourself a Hands-Off Approach to Customer Service
Anyone who delves into the ecommerce space knows how frustrating and time-consuming customer service can be. For every 10 orders that go out the door, there are several that come back with some sort of problem or complaint—it’s just the nature of the beast. You can visit this eCommerce Helpdesk in this regard.
Perhaps you or your employees can end up spending up to 50 percent or more of the day just handling customer concerns. This can prohibit growth and can cause employee burn out, increasing turnover.
Some of the top performing ecommerce and retail brands have fixed this problem with outsourced customer service ecommerce. This moves all of your phone time, communication with customers, returns, and refunds away from your team and into the hands of a third party who can focus solely on customer service.
The benefits of this are wide-ranging. First and foremost, you’ll spend less time dealing with the headaches of the day-to-day operations of customer care, allowing you spend time on making sound decisions for scaling your business.
Second, your team can utilize work sharing programs like Notion and will be able to focus on fulfillment, sales, and upkeep allowing them to be more productive instead of spending the bulk of their day responding to customer inquiries.
The benefits far outweigh the cons when you can find a trustworthy partner to outsource your customer service to. It’s a surefire way to keep your ratings high and material flowing out the door.
DON’T: Overextend your Finances
While growth is a positive thing, you absolutely cannot overextend yourself financially in attempt to speed up or increase growth at a faster pace. The death toll rings for many businesses who try to grow too fast and end up with cash going out the door faster than its coming in.
Sound finances are the key to any business owner’s livelihood, which might seem obvious, but often the allure of further growth can tempt entrepreneurs into stretching themselves too thin.
Knowing how to balance velocity with financial acumen is the key to maintaining a solid core at the center of your business. One way to assure this is to use bridge loans for rapid capital generation while seeking long-term financial backing. Vaster Capital is one of the companies at the leading edge of partnering with growing companies and helping them realize their dreams.
Another key to maintaining sound finances is to manage cash flow closely and learning how to scale effectively. Soliciting consultation of experts like Kevin Miller can do wonders for strategizing the best methods for managing finances, while maintaining growth. They are the extra set of eyes you need to scale in the correct manner.
While it can be tempting to try and maintain fast growth, it’s never a good idea to overextend yourself without sound strategy behind managing cash flow and finances. Make smart decisions and the growth will come.
DO: Develop a Strong Social Media Presence
It’s no secret that in today’s world, social media is running the show. Consumers use social media more than any other method when researching brands and to influence their buying decisions. Social media is also a powerful marketing tool for businesses looking at an easy way to increase revenue.
This is why it is absolutely paramount to develop a strong social media presence when building your brand. Social media is one of the most cost effective and powerful marketing tools that we have at our disposal. There are several main platforms that you’ll need to have a presence on, each a little different.
Without getting into too much detail, the four main platforms you should be using are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. For sake of time, we won’t get into what each one does, but each do have a niche that they fill for businesses.
The best part about it is that you don’t necessarily need a robust marketing team in order to capture the benefits of social media marketing. Simply making daily posts, running interactive polls, and posting product images and videos to your pages will drive sales and impressions.
Using Instagram messaging to directly market to and interact with your customer base is another way to increase your sales. This builds a friendly rapport with your customer base and allows you to chat directly with them when it comes to their concerns.
Using social media to interact with potential customers is another great way to generate leads. People can leave reviews, ask questions, and inquire about your product or services with ease. This is a great way to showcase your business through pictures, links, videos and articles as well.
Developing a strong presence on social media is nearly a must in today’s world where people are glued to their phones– use it to your advantage and convert leads to sales. Most social accounts are able to be opened for free, with paywalls behind advanced features like promoted and sponsored posts for even more customization.
DON’T: Make Uninformed Financing Decisions
When it’s time to go to your lender and secure funding for capital expenses, you do not want to show up without having your ducks in a row. Lenders will ask tough questions, usually ask for well-developed business plans, and will look into your credit history.
The best lenders will guide you through the lending process with kid gloves if needed, but you’ll want to be up to speed on the whole process yourself beforehand. Make sure you are getting a loan term, interest rate, and payoff date that is realistic and not biting off more than you can chew.
Obtaining a copy of your credit score API prior to going to the lender is probably a good idea. This score is a combination of data from all three of major credit reporting bureaus, the Equifax, Transunion, and Experian. This is helpful because you’ll have a good idea of what type of loan you will qualify for, and also help you understand and budget for the interest rate you’ll likely be offered.
Finally, you’ll want to consider all of the factors of the financial decision like the total capital investment required, the return on investment, and any external factors that could impact that return. You absolutely DO NOT want to get caught with your pants down on anything when it comes to your finances.
Consider all the factors and maybe even look at outside help when making your decision. Getting a fresh pair of eyes on your situation is sometimes needed to uncover pros and cons that you may have missed.
Conclusion
Running your business can be confusing sometimes as well as scary. Big decisions are always clouded with what-ifs and doubt, but often can be the more rewarding when it comes to measurable growth.
Next time you’re looking into improving the way you run your business, keep in mind these do’s and don’ts.
