Opinions expressed by entrepreneurs’ colleagues are their very own.
Large technology corporations and small corporations encounter the same basic problems. They each have to know their clients, manage costs and watch competitors. However, technology corporations deal with these challenges processes that most small corporations never implement.
I spent years to know each worlds and I promise you: these five technical practices are price stolen. They do not require fancy software or a huge team. Only consistency.
Understanding your client’s personality and “work-done”
Technology and successful corporations are trying to know their clients well. It is much more refined than “we serve young professionals” or “people in this area.”
Let’s take an example of Starbucks. They not only sell coffee with “coffee”. They have separate customer personalities: hurried morning commuting to work Who values speed above all, a distant camping worker for many hours (who should probably pay rent, truthfully) and a crowd of social meetings Treating a cafe as a meeting place. Each character drives different decisions about how their stores are configured and served.
The key is to know the work to which your clients “employ”. Nobody buys a quarter of all exercises because they need a quarter of all. They want a quarter of a whole hole. Maybe for the first time the owners of the house who hang the shelves. Maybe they are hobbyists of wood processing building a bird house. Both are different (*5*)Tasks to be performedStandard industry framework Clayton M. Christensen.
That is why Apple does not sell “smartphones with good cameras”. They sell the possibility of capturing the child’s first steps in stunning brightness. The task to perform is “own technology”. It’s “keep memories.”
What work does your client employ? Think about it and you’ll see the possibilities that competitors are completely missing.
You run to customers and you do not even know it
Product managers and technology corporations are obsessed with retention. If your customers do not come back, they probably do not think that your product is useful and the company has no adaptation to the product market. Even if you purchase many customers now, you’ll finally lose them and go through the market to forget.
You don’t need fancy systems for this. Just make a spreadsheet and start following. How many customers from last yr still buy from you today? If this number makes it curves, you have a problem with resignation.
Your spreadsheet can track the history of shopping for all customers. When do customers often disappear? Three months? After five shopping? Now try to know the reason behind this. Did they stop like a product or service, found a cheaper alternative or just forgot? If you send e -mail or call a few people to ask, you’ll receive an answer.
Your current customers believed in you adequate to offer you a probability. Understand their problems and make them loyal fans.
Learn your costs
Individual economics is a magical mathematics that allows corporations to grow and turn into profitable. What does business cost for every item sold? Small corporations often follow general expenses, but forget to assign them to individual products and services.
Let’s think about your neighborhood sandwich store. If the bakery supplying the prices raised by 10%, what does this mean for the margins of every sandwich in the menu? Are they still profitable and how much?
Detailed tracking costs can be difficult and tedious. These are not only materials, but also labor costs, transactions, packaging fees and so on. However, the lack of importance of detailed costs is at best a lost opportunity, and in the worst dangerous. You can lose money on some items while others subsidize it. Or, worse, your apparent “bestseller” can bleed you dry, while the modest side offering quietly provides all real profits.
Create a spreadsheet today. Replace each product and service. Assign all costs and make sure that all the things is included. Update it when your costs change. I guarantee that you will see that surprises that change what you sell or how much you sell it.
Learn from the competition
Go down the street and try the competition. In the New Town? Go to the store in the same business as you. Yes, actually pay for something. What works? What is frustrating? How’s the service? How does he compare it?
This introduces to latest approaches to doing things. You can learn from what others do well and avoid your mistakes.
Keep the document in which your team can usually add insights. Make this a part of your culture, not the occasional response of panic if sales fall.
Your Personal Council of Directors
Startups from the Silicon Valley Installation of the Advisory Committee with the participation of industry veterans, subjects’ experts and entrepreneurs were there. Owners of small businesses often try to come back up with all the things, sometimes consulting an accountant who juggles 200 other clients.
Your advisers mustn’t be just friends who confirm your ideas. You need individuals who challenge your pondering, discover dead places and connect you with the possibilities. You need specialist knowledge you do not have.
You don’t have to supply capital like technology corporations. Many professionals will advise you on reasonable fees. Sometimes retired or later veterans in the company will lead you simply for the mental challenge of the latest problem. Remember to formalize the relationship and confer with them usually.
All these practices have one quality: they complement the intestinal feelings with systematic processes. Your instincts still matter because you know your company strictly – but these systems catch instincts.
As the owner of a small company, you are more agile than large corporations. Add their systematic processes to your operation and you’ll turn into really dangerous.