BUSINESS POLICY

BEING A BUSINESSMAN IN PRIVATE SECTOR, HOW WILL YOU CHOOSE A STRATEGY TO IMPROVE YOUR BUSINESS, ILLUSTRATE WITH A REAL LIFE SITUATION.

Strategies That May Improve My Business (with real life- situation)

Over the last few years, we have seen some exceptional strategies implemented by some of our portfolio companies and others in the market to give them an advantage over their competition. Following are list of ideas that stood out in my mind that other companies could implement - regardless of the industry focus.

1. Service your competitor's customers when they have problems

Are some of your prospects using the competition, but they struggle to get help when they need it most? Offer your assistance at this pivotal time. Furthermore, tell them to call you anytime. Eventually, they will bring their business to you as they realize that you are readily available and your competition is not.

2. Understand your competitive advantage

Why do your customers do business with you? What attracts new customers? If you don't have these answers, find them out. To gain market share and create a company of long-term value, you need to understand what makes your company different and unique. Once you have the answers, focus on these strengths to attract other customers.

3. Hire smart people

Don't ever wait on this. Hire the smartest people you can find for all positions without delay. The good thing about hiring the best and brightest in your organization is that it snowballs. Smart people hire smart people. One word of caution, hard workers aren't necessarily smart workers.

4. Create a positive image in the community for your company

There are a lot of opportunities to this in the Research Triangle Park area with a growing number of networking events and fundraisers to attach your company's name to. If you don't have the resources for a sponsorship, find a meaningful organization and encourage your employees to volunteer or flood a local networking event with a bunch of people from your company. Making a positive impact like this creates more interest in your organization from potential employees and customers.

5. Understand who your best customers are and shower them with attention. Also learn how your can sell more to this important customer group.

Do you have a few big customers on board, but sales are small? Meet regularly with these organizations and find out how your products or services can address their pain points. They could be looking for something else your company can deliver. You just need to stay close to them to understand their needs.

6. Don't spend a lot of time focusing on raising capital

Many executives spend too much time raising venture capital and during that period ignore running their business. Raising capital can be a huge drain on time. A lot of companies in this market grew frustrated with raising money and instead turned all that attention and energy towards running their business. The good news is they got their company to profitability and are now using that money to fuel future growth.

7. Work with partners, not service providers

Think of all the people you work with: lawyers, accountants, bankers, etc. Are they thinking about just the tasks you give them or are they thinking about you and your company? There is a big difference. A lot of local firms with help make introductions to potential customers, employees, partners and venture capitalists. It helps when they are always thinking about how to grow your company and can offer that kind of assistance and commitment to your company.

8. Spend time with others in the market that have "done it before" and pick their brain

There are a lot of experienced executives in this market and most people don't mind being approached for help. If you're running into a problem, find an experienced executive, take them for lunch and ask for advice. Chances are they have been in a similar situation before and might help your come up with a creative solution.

9. Be obsessed with success

Always think about how to improve your company's performance. Make sure everyone in the company is on the same path together.

10. Offer strong packages to attract and retain your employees

This includes a reasonable base salary, potential for bonuses based on individual and company success, stock options and employee benefits. Also, ask your employees to find out what is important to them. With some employees, you may find stock options are not as important as a higher salary or vice versa. Understanding what your employees want will help you mold a package that is more desirable and keeps them happy.

Other Steps required to Improve Business

Every business venture--whether a one-man operation, large corporation, or business within a business--can follow simple steps to improve. First it is necessary to have a vision or idea of what to improve. Then there are steps to follow, including measurement, organizing, reducing costs and getting more customers.

Improvement

Business improvement means to move forward from the present situation. That could mean to increase profits, reduce losses, get more customers, expand the markets, become more visible in the community, go public or a number of other items deemed desirable.

To improve, you must have a vision of what you want to achieve, where you want to go, and what you want the business to become.

Five improvement steps

If you, as a business leader, have an idea or vision of an area to improve, you can set that process in motion by following five steps.

1. Measure where you are right now,

2. Organize the business operations,

3. Reduce costs,

4. Get more customers and business, and

5. Measure your progress to verify the improvement.

1. Measure where you are

Although you can get a "gut feeling" that your business is improving, the only real way to verify it is by some valid means of measurement. This is done both before and after some improvement effort.

Measurement criteria must be real and hard, based on money or return-on-investment (ROI). Measurements of such things as customer satisfaction are soft measurements and may or may not lead to better profits. That is not to say you should measure such items, but there must be a definite, measurable correlation between it and monetary gain.

2. Organize operations

By organizing or re-organizing your operations and processes, you can make your business a more effective machine. This includes defining your goals, planning, and using the ISO 9000 standards.

Some companies consider making a new organization chart (org chart) a way to re-organize their business. All that really seems to happen is that the same people are doing the same work, but now they have different titles. New organization charts are a standard joke in the business world.

The ISO 9000 philosophy concerns documenting what you do and then doing what you say you do.

3. Reduce costs

By using Total Quality Management (TQM) methods and tools, as well as other similar concepts, you can reduce wasted material, effort, and time in making, selling, and delivering your product. The result is an improvement in the company's bottom line and an increased competitive advantage.

Since TQM became popular in the early 1990s, there have been a number of similar initiatives such as re-engineering, six sigma, and such. Some have been successful and some disastrous. Common sense and good business practice is the most important thing in applying these concepts.

4. Get more customers

By satisfying your customers with high quality products and extra service, you will get repeat business and referrals. Of course, your price must be competitive, and they must have easy access to your product.

Although marketing and advertising are important to get more customers, quality, service and customer satisfaction are what keep a business successful in the long run.

5. Measure again

Measure again to verify your improvement.

Examples

Improvement can be done in all forms of business. Following are some examples.

One-person business

A computer consultant wants to improve his one-person business to get more clients.

He can determine how much he is making per hour of work, how effective his advertising is, and some other measurements of where his business has been.

By organizing his business and how he works, he can be more efficient. This will allow him more time to spend on marketing his services. He can tune his processes to reduce wasted time and errors made.

By concentrating on quality, he can improve customer satisfaction and get referrals. Finally, after a period of time, he can re-measure his criteria to see if his business has improved.

Business within a business

A manager of a department in a large corporation wants to improve the output and reduce employee turnover.

He measures the output, turnover and how it affects the profits for his department. The company is ISO 9000 certified, so he uses the Quality Manual to help solidify his organization. He works on improving work processes and addressing worker issues to reduce costs and losses from workers leaving or making careless mistakes.

His customer base is fixed within the company, so he tries to satisfy them through better communications. Finally, after implementing these changes, he measures his department's effectiveness again to verify the improvement.

In conclusion

You need to know what you consider an improvement before you can start to improve on it. Then you measure it before and after, organize, reduce costs, and satisfy your customers. That is how to improve your business and become a champion in your field.

Apart from above points it is very essential to follow the below mentioned points for improving business.

Customer appreciation is a tool that every business has at its disposal, yet very few choose to utilize it to its full potential. As a business owner in private sector, I believe there is no better investment than to put time and money into sincerely appreciating one’s customers. That “appreciation” can be defined as an increase in monetary value is more than appropriate in this case: it truly is the easiest way to strengthen your business and earn more money.

In my experience, the biggest obstacle to implementing an appreciation system is figuring out exactly how to incorporate it into a greater business plan. Recognizing this, I would set out to expand my current approach, in the process creating a simple plan for integrating appreciation into my business and personal relationships.

Following are the strategies I would use to improve my business :

Saying Thank You – All The Time

The easiest way to begin showing appreciation is to purchase a large box of Thank You cards and immediately send handwritten notes to all of my best customers, thanking them for their support. (A typed note on company letterhead works just as well.) Putting the remainder of the cards out in the open where i can see them. By keeping gratitude within sight and within reach, i will naturally begin to thank people more often.

As a bonus, Thank You’s serve as excellent marketing vehicles: they help to maintain top-of-mind awareness. You never know when a new project will land on the desk of a past client, and a well-timed Thank You may arrive just in time to win a business oppurtunity.

So this strategy would be my first priority to improve my business.

Treating Prospects Like Paying Clients

I would always assume that the prospect contacting me is about to become my next big client. This state of mind will help me treat my prospects as well as i would be my best-paying clients; more often than not, the people inquiring about seemingly insignificant work have huge projects waiting somewhere in the wings.

This strategy might help in long run

Standardizing my Sales Process

Gratitude should be incorporated into each phase of sales process. If you don’t have a standardized sales process, now is a great time to start putting a process checklist together. Whenever I meet with a prospective client for the first time, I go back to the office and drop a Thank You note in the mail so that it arrives the next day. A week later – after I present my job proposal – I put another Thank You in the mail, expressing gratitude to the prospective client for their time and consideration. Finally, when the job is finished I send a letter of thanks out in addition to the invoice for the project. Obviously, I could simply include the Thank You with the invoice for the project, but I feel that it makes a better impression if the Thank You arrives separately; it’s a personal note of thanks, sent to a person to whom I’m grateful.

To really take it up a notch, figure out what your client’s favorite restaurant is during the course of the project and send them a $50 or $100 gift card when the job is finished. (If you’ve planned to do this from day one, the cost of this grand gesture quite possibly may be built right in to your initial proposal.)

This strategy would be one of my priority to improve my business.

Put Gratitude on Calendar

If you know you’ll be as grateful in six months as you are today, why not prepare to show your appreciation in advance? Focus on annual holidays or different seasons of the year and develop your own original gift ideas. Maybe you’d like to drop by with lemonade in July, or send hot cocoa in January; chocolates are great on Valentine’s Day, and anything goes at Christmas time. The point is to figure out your own unique ideas in advance, put them on your calendar, and execute them when the time comes.

Thank not only clients, but also ask clients to refer any friends or associates who might be a good fit for my services.

This strategy might work wonders to improve my business.

Track Ideas with a Gratitude List

Every so often I think of a great gift idea for a certain person. I could be walking through a store, browsing the web, or just talking to the person, when all of a sudden I think of something they would absolutely love to receive. So a few months ago, I started what I call my Gratitude List.

The Gratitude List is simply a three-column spreadsheet where I keep track of the names, specific interests, and possible gift ideas for all the people I care about – both personally and professionally. When I find out that an associate has a specific interest, or when I happen across a great gift idea for someone I know, I simply add it to the list. Not only does the list function as an archive of thoughtful gift ideas, it also serves as a regular reminder to be a thankful and generous person.

This is a great idea to improve business.

Become an Educational Resource

A great way to establish yourself as an expert (and to show clients how much you care about their successes) is to give away valuable professional advice at no cost. Different ways to do this include white papers, newsletters, e-books, blogs, and free seminars. While some people worry that they’ll give away all their trade secrets to the competition or make their contracted services unnecessary, I believe this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Giving away free advice puts your knowledge – and your company – on display, which makes more people want to work with you. A potential client is much more likely to choose the person who has already showcased their expertise versus the person who has said nothing. As for the competition, they can certainly try to mimic your ideas, but if you’re always striving to learn more there’s really no reason to worry about them catching up to you. It’s much more beneficial to put your ideas down on paper and claim ownership over them than it is to remain silent.

Finally, from a marketing perspective, giving away free advice every so often keeps your current audience – as well as others who may be interested in your services in the future – attentive.

Let Your Customers In On The Excitement

Let’s face it: owning your own business is exciting. Sure, it’s also a lot of stress, long hours, and hard work, but that’s not why people decide to do it. People go into business for the thrill of it – the freedom, the fun, and the possibilities. Why not share some of the excitement with your customers?

Everybody loves free stuff. Invest in some T-shirts and fun promotional items to give away to your clients. It works to market your business and helps maintain the “top-of-mind awareness” .Invest in some high-quality stickers and start including them with every item of communication you send out – especially invoices.

If you have an office, throw a “client appreciation” party once or twice a year. Get a bunch of food and drinks and let people have some fun. It could be a pre- or post-party surrounding another big event, or just a small celebration of a recent success. Whatever the reason, your clients are virtually guaranteed to have a good time and appreciate you, in return, for providing that good time to them.

Treat Your Customers Like Royalty

In Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Black Book of Connections, there’s an excellent chapter on wowing customers. A “WOW!” is an extraordinary gesture that pairs value with memorability, and as you might have guessed, makes the customer say “WOW!” Imagine showing up at a client’s office one afternoon with a $100 present for no reason at all, except for the fact that you appreciate their support. The gesture sounds so grand it almost seems unreasonable – until you consider that for a mere $5,200 each year, you can turn 52 new people into your strongest advocates and gain a lifetime of support for your business.

If that weren’t reason enough, consider the fact that well-planned WOW!-ing targets people at the heart of your target market. Think of all the meetings, places, and events where these people will go and express their appreciation of you to other potential clients after you’ve impressed them with your gratitude. I think it reasonable to predict that a $5,200 WOW! budget, once implemented, could generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in new business over the course of just a few years. (Plus, if you also implement the Gratitude List mentioned earlier, you’ll discover priceless gift ideas worth far more to your clients than the $100 or so that you’ll spend on WOW!-ing them.)

That said, I understand that $5,200 can be a substantial sum of money to a business that’s just getting started. If you need to begin with a smaller budget, then do so. But give one big gift every other week (or each month), rather than cutting back on the size of the gifts you’ll be giving. The purpose of a WOW! budget, after all, is to create memorable, lasting impressions – the type of impressions that can only really be achieved with gestures far beyond the ordinary.

Conclusion

Dale Carnegie noted that the craving to be appreciated is “a gnawing and unfaltering human hunger, and the rare individual who honestly satisfies this heart hunger will hold people in the palm of his or her hand, and even the undertaker will be sorry when he dies.”

The benefits of being a grateful person are immeasurable. By successfully incorporating simple, appreciative gestures into your daily life (and daily matters of business), you will begin to generate profound goodwill and support among the people around you. Over time, the consistent application of a gratitude system will effectively bulletproof your personal and business relationships alike, positioning you for a lifetime of wealth and success.

Above are the various Strategies, I would use to improve my Business in Private sector.