BOB STANKE

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How To Take Business Success Into Your Own Hands

Fed up of feeling as though you’re leaving business success to nothing more than chance?

You aren’t alone! However, it is important that you do not worry. While it may not seem that way, there are plenty of ways in which you can take business success into your own hands, allowing you to grow and flourish!

Spend your money wisely. Running a successful business isn’t only about earning money; it’s about spending it wisely, too. After all, you need to make sure that you’ll receive a positive ROI from any investment you make, whether you’re buying software or office equipment!

The easiest way to ensure that you’re spending your money wisely is to carry out plenty of research before committing to a purchase. On a similar note, it's also worth investing in software and equipment that is specifically built to cater to your industry. For example, if you work in data management or coding, then you could invest in airflow software, which makes it easier than ever to author, schedule, and manage workflows.

Improve workplace productivity. Improving productivity rates within your team is another great way to propel your business toward success, due to the simple fact that it means they’re able to complete more work in a shorter time frame. Fortunately, there are many ways in which you can set about increasing productivity, such as by:

  • Investing in time-management software

  • Encouraging employees to put together weekly to-do lists that help them manage multiple deadlines at once 

  • Creating a comfortable working environment

  • Encouraging your team to cultivate a healthy work-life balance

Learn from your mistakes. Every business owner (and every employee) will, at some point during their career, make a mistake. In fact, you may make several in a row. However, it's important that you respond to these mistakes appropriately - by putting plans in place to ensure this never happens again. Doing so will help you to protect your business from reputational damage and other challenges!

Offer excellent customer service. Perhaps one of the easiest ways in which you can take your business to new heights is by working to improve your customer’s perception of your brand. After all, they are then much more likely to buy products from you again in the future or recommend you to others. While there are many different ways in which you can create a great customer experience, this often starts with great customer service.

Good communication lies at the core of customer service, so you should ensure that anyone within your team who works in a customer-service role has excellent communication skills. Empathy can also prove to be useful, especially when it comes to responding proactively to customer complaints.

However, it is also worthwhile to ensure that your entire time receives thorough customer service training during their routine onboarding training. Doing so ensures that the same (exceptional) level of customer service is maintained throughout all areas of your business so that all consumers will have a similarly positive experience with your brand.

Build a team you can trust. While we’re on the topic of employees, you can set your business up for success by building a team that you can trust. This way, you know that things will continue to run smoothly even in your absence. In addition to this, having a strong sense of trust in your employees means that you’ll have faith in their ideas, even when they are bringing something new to the table.

There are many different qualities that make up a trustworthy employee - so it is important that you’re able to look beyond the standard qualifications and experience they may possess. For example, you may also want to look at the strength of their character or the level of enthusiasm they possess - as both of these qualities can help you to develop a strong working relationship with your colleague.

You should also develop a strong recruitment strategy that will make it easier than ever for you to capture the attention of your ideal employees. For example, you should be sure to build a positive name for yourself as an employer by always prioritising your employee's best interests and ensuring that you’re offering them an attractive salary (with benefits). 

Revamp your marketing. If you’re struggling to gain the kind of traction you feel your business deserves, then you may need to re-think your marketing. For example, it could be that your social media posts aren’t capturing the attention of your customers (or appearing on their feeds whatsoever), resulting in a lacklustre ROI and minimal engagement.

In order to revamp your digital marketing strategy, it's best to start afresh and create a new marketing plan. If you aren’t sure where to get started, start by defining your goals and objectives from social media, whether this means you’re looking to increase sales or simply raise brand awareness. Having a clear objective in mind means that you’re able to ensure that every post helps you work toward this goal.

If social media is something that you’ve never really got to grips with, then you may prefer to hand this work over to a social media manager. After all, they possess the necessary industry insight that will help them manage your social media and ensure that each and every one of your posts performs well.

Ride the waves of change. If you allow your business to stagnate, you’ll notice that you’ll struggle to bring in new customers, and you may lose some of your most loyal customers, too. This is because it is often a sign that you’re failing to adapt to their changing wants and needs, and in doing so, you may as well encourage them to check out your competitor's brand instead of your own.

Fortunately, there are many different ways in which you can ensure you’re able to ride the waves of change, steering your business toward success while doing so. For example, you should start by carrying out market research on a regular basis, paying particularly close attention to consumer behaviors, such as how much money they are spending and what they prefer to spend their money on. This way, you can alter your services accordingly.

You should also ensure that you develop a contingency plan, which details the various things that could go wrong when running your company - and what you will do to resolve this. While this seems like a surefire way to slip into a negative mindset, having a contingency plan in place means that you can resolve any issues that crop up as quickly as possible. After all, it means that you already have a plan in place to respond to these challenges so that you do not have to come up with a solution on the spot.

Final Thoughts. If your business is in the midst of a difficult period, you aren’t alone. In fact, companies appear to be closing at an alarming rate for a wide variety of reasons, from a lack of consumer interest to insufficient funds.

However, it's important that you remain positive and remember that there are plenty of steps you can take to take business success into your own hands. From keeping your finances in good order by ensuring that you are spending your money as wisely as possible to ensuring you’re able to respond proactively to change, you can be sure to put your best foot forward, even during a turbulent time.