Simple Ways To Streamline Your Business And Promote Growth

November 6, 2019

The key to a successful business now is taking streamlining as far as it can go. When it comes to streamlining, though, not everybody knows the best way to do things. 

The entire streamlining process can be complicated if you try to tackle it blind. Today we are going to present a few streamlining ideas you can introduce to your company. Hopefully, one or all of these tips can help your business on its way to the next stage of growth.

Consolidate Your Logistics

There are many ways to streamline your business, but one of the most beneficial things you can do is consolidate your logistics.

Logistic consolidation is far simpler than one may initially think, and for any established business, it is a must. It was shown in 2018 that the average business spends around 10% of its revenue on logistics, but with consolidation, this can be driver down by almost half.

There are a few ways to consolidate your logistics, but among the most popular are pallet companies that can combine a bulk quantity so you can have it centrally distributed, or you can even use a postcode delivery courier system.

The postcode delivery service is simply a matter of waiting for a larger number of distributions to be available in a specific area and instructing a courier to deliver them all in a single run. 

This latter system is employed by companies like Amazon and has shown a considerable reduction in logistics costs in the long term.

Add Automation Where Possible

As we are comfortably in the age of technology now, there is so much available in the way of automation.

Automation is now helping companies all over the world and it many ways. The most popular choice in the automation selection at the moment is automated CRM systems as a part of the order management process.

These systems may appear quite simple, but they are automating the distribution of sales receipts, advertising emails, and even marketing content. The joy of automating processes like this is the amount of money it can save. 

Tedious jobs like this can often steal 2 to 3 staff hours every day, so freeing that time up with automation is saving you money and also allowing you to apply the staff member elsewhere within the business.

Another excellent automation solution is a virtual receptionist. Virtual receptionists are becoming increasingly popular in the business world and give a streamlining option like no other. A virtual receptionist can offer everything that a real-life receptionist can just at an 80% saving on the salary of a receptionist.

Whether you require one to manage emails, voicemail, call direction, or call handling. The applications to your business could streamline and save more than can be imagined. 

Advance Your Marketing 

When it comes to marketing, business owners tend to stay with what they know, in today’s world, this is a huge mistake.

It is crucial when handling the marketing to realize that using the most influential platforms is going to be the best way to get your services out there. Unbelievably, some companies will still use the line “my customers aren’t on social media.” The fact is, they are.

Social media has worldwide 7.7 billion users which is a full pool of fish. Even though social media has so many users, there is a great deal of skill needed to make sure you are hitting the right people.

While Facebook may be one of the most popular sources for paid advertising, Youtube is one platform that is drastically underused when it comes to some free marketing.

YouTube is a brilliant platform to build a story for your brand. When creating a YouTube video, it should be about your service and not the company. Building a simple series of how-to videos will promote your business without being pushy. 

With the new algorithms that YouTube has, you can now incorporate your keywords in speech rather than text and use them more subtly. 

Overall, using YouTube as part of a more extensive advertising campaign is one of the best ways to add a little growth to your business.

Avoid Checkout Abandonment

If you have an online store, you are going to be very familiar with trolley abandonment. If you are unfamiliar with it, we will briefly explain it.

Checkout abandonment is something we are all guilty of when shopping online, and it’s merely adding things to your cart, but before reaching the checkout, we abandon and never return. But why do we do this?

Well, the answer is quite simple, and we can minimize this risk for our businesses by taking a simple step. The reason we abandon the trolley is down to a level of doubt. 

While the internet is a great place, most of us have made a purchase before, and what turned up was not what we ordered. Once this happens, a seed of doubt is planted in our minds regarding any online purchase we make.

This doubt can be minimized by introducing the products you sell in a better way. You can introduce video tours of products or even offer 360-degree virtualization where the customer can drag around the image.

It is also a great idea to add a guarantee to the product. When a product comes with a guarantee, this often gives the customer peace of mind to checkout with confidence.

Outsource Where Possible

While it’s understandable that you may want to have control over every aspect of your business, this is not always the best thing financially.

Outsourcing can be very beneficial to a company when it’s used correctly, and it can also take a lot of pressure from the owner and the staff. 

One of the most plausible sections of your business that should be considered when it comes to outsourcing is the bookkeeping and accounts departments. Both of these departments can put a lot of pressure on the owner to get things right, and there is always a lot of legislation to keep up with.

If you are a new business, outsourcing is one of the best ways of seeing quick growth and allows you to feel more comfortable with the tasks you have at hand.

It is important to remember that often outsourcing can save you a ton of money that you would generally spend on salary. Savings like this can be placed back into the business, and with more accessible finance comes growth.

Reward The Staff

While it may seem like you are bribing the staff, rewarding them is one of the best ways of streamlining your business.

What most bosses do not seem to realize is that treating your staff in a way that makes them feel appreciated can improve productivity in so many ways, and this will always benefit the business.

There is nothing more detrimental to a business that staff turnover being unmanageable. Every time a staff member leaves the business, it costs money. Whether the cost is on advertising the job, interviewing costs, or retraining the new staff member, it’s not a good time for a business.

It’s a widely known fact that if you show staff that you care, they will form a better opinion of you and thus put more effort into their jobs. It’s crucial to remember that when an employee leaves a business, it’s generally the manager they are leaving and not the job.

Taking this, and our other ways to streamline your business into account will surely help you promote a little growth.

Mark Asquith

That British podcast guy, Mark is co-founder of Captivate.fm, the world's only growth-oriented podcast host. A Harvard, TEDx, Podcast Movement and Podfest speaker (amongst many more!), he's a wildly approachable Brit and Star Wars/DC Comics geek.

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