Regardless of the size of the business, any manager wants to improve profitability and this can be possible without making expensive investments or overhauling your current system. Whether you run a small print on demand drop shipping business on a popular e-commerce selling platform like Shopify or own a major corporation with multiple branches around the world, managing a business comes with daunting challenges that will require you to think quickly and strategically.
Sometimes, making small adjustments to your present operations can yield big rewards. Pay attention to these four seemingly minor details in your business, and you may just make significant savings and boost profitability.
Promote Your Brand Online
Internet technology has ushered in an exciting new era where a significant portion of interactions between businesses and clients takes place online. This interaction can range from raising awareness via online ads to after-sales support through email exchange.
The bottom line is that a lot of people spend their time online. In fact, in 2015, it was reported that there are 3.2 billion internet users in the world, according to the International Telecommunication Union.
Business owners should tap into the significant potential of the internet. If you haven’t already, you need to set up social media pages for your business so it becomes easily accessible to your customers.
Online marketing is often more cost-effective than traditional marketing is, plus compared to traditional ads like print ads, online campaigns are easier to track and manage. Case in point, many email marketing platforms let you determine how many times your email promotions were opened and how many of those opened emails converted to clicks.
Conduct Regular Team-Building Activities
Businesses around the world are facing a serious employment-engagement crisis. According to a 2015 survey by Gallup, only 13 percent of employees report being engaged or enthusiastic and committed to the organization they work in.
Low employee engagement can have devastating effects on your business, like decreased productivity, job dissatisfaction, and high turnover. One solution to this is to have team-building programs in place. By conducting team-building activities, you can improve employee morale, establish rapport, and promote a culture of unity and teamwork.
If you have the time and manpower, you can have an in-house team assigned to create and implement various programs to promote employee engagement. On the other hand, you can also opt to hire an external human resource firm that offers team-building programs. Either way, the important thing is you identify what goals you want to achieve with the activity and come up with the most effective strategies to achieve them.
Invest in the Right People
Business magnate, best-selling author, and philanthropist Richard Branson wisely said, “Take care of your employees and your employees will take care of your business.” You will not be able to effectively take care of your workers if you do not hire the right people in the first place.
When you hire the right people, you are investing your hard-earned capital on a workforce that is willing to stay with you for the long term. On the other hand, if you cut corners and hire unqualified candidates, you may end up with an inefficient team or disloyal employees who have a high risk of leaving your company even if you haven’t maximized the training and resources you invested on them.
There are a number of ways to make sure that you get the right people. One is to fine-tune your hiring process by making job descriptions as specific as possible. Identify the tasks you need to get done, and match them up with the appropriate core skills.
Second, make sure you have screening procedures that will gauge an employee’s competence and qualification. Depending on the nature of the job, these can range from basic drug tests to complex psychological interviews.
Make Immediate Special Offers during Sales
Make cross-selling and upselling a language of your sales team. Upselling happens when customers are encouraged to purchase a product that is comparable to and more valuable than the one that they were previously interested in. An example would be a car salesman promoting a newer car model with more sophisticated features to a shopper showing interest in an older car.
Meanwhile, cross-selling involves promoting a product that will complement the item that the customer is planning to purchase, like offering phone cases and accessories to someone purchasing a new mobile phone.
These two sales strategies offer mutual benefits for you and the customer. The trick is to find a way to seamlessly integrate them into your current sales funnel. For instance, if you run an online store, you can implement this strategy by making special upsell or cross-sell offers before the checkout process.
For brick-and-mortar stores, staff should undergo comprehensive training not just to improve their knowledge of your different products and services but also their understanding of customer behavior and needs.
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