4 Things That Could Make Or Break Your Business

In business there are many strategies that entrepreneurs use to help them with the smooth running of their enterprise. More often than not, once you have found the right techniques you will find that you can stick with them for a great deal of time because nothing else would work as well and make you as much money for your business. However, there are some strategies that if not done properly, could have a lasting negative impact on your business. Luckily there are ways to avoid this happening, so here are 4 things that could make or break your business.

Social media

Social media is used by billions of people every day, and no matter how much we try and avoid using it, it can be super useful for your business. However, if you’re not careful you could find yourself in a position online where a lot of hatred is pointed your way. Here are some tips to stick to when using social media to promote your business and expand your following:

• Have someone manning the social media accounts. When social media is left unattended you will quickly find that your business is forgotten about. The way that most social media platforms work is by showing the latest so that it’s users aren’t shown the same content over and over again. Make sure that your social media accounts are manned as much as possible so that you can make sure you’re in the public eye as much as possible.
• While there are many funny memes and videos posted all over the internet, you must be careful not to offend any of your loyal customers by posting something that could be offensive to a particular group of people. Instead, you could create your own memes for your customers to relate to, enjoy and ultimately, share for their friends and followers to see. If you do (whether it be accidental or not) manage to offend some of your customers then you could give yourself a bad name that will stay with you for a long time. That’s one way in which social media is very powerful.
• As mentioned above, an unattended social media account will soon become forgotten about, and that’s the last thing that you want for your business. However, there are scheduling tools for those times where it’s not possible to have people manning your accounts. Tools like Crowdfire can schedule posts for a time that you choose, and also let you choose the picture to accompany it. It will then share it across all platforms that you have linked to the account and allow you to rest assured that your customers are seeing some content from you.

Procedures with customers

When all is said and done, without your customers your business simply wouldn’t survive. That’s why it’s important to take care of them so that they return and bring new customers with them. Here are some great ways to ensure that your customers will leave satisfied and choose to use you again:

• Accidents happen from time to time, even in the business world. That’s why it’s important to ensure that you have public liability insurance so that if something does happen, you can do your best to repay your customer back and make sure everything is how it should be. Many companies choose not to do this and end up losing customers when they can’t offer them compensation. Learn more about it here and make sure that you’ve got yourself insurance for those unexpected incidents!
• Giving your customers the best service around is important. While you may think that a smile won’t make a difference to a customer’s opinion of the company, it definitely will. People like to feel welcomed where they are shopping and if they aren’t, it’s unlikely that they will return or recommend you to a friend. Treat customers how you’d expect to be treated, and go the extra mile whenever possible to ensure that they return to you and not a competitor business!

Not taking care of yourself

While it’s important to play an active role within your business, not taking enough time to take care of yourself won’t do it any favours either. It’s understandable that it’s hard to juggle the work life and home life balance, especially when you’re a business owner. Try to create some time for yourself each week to unwind, block out work, and feel like a normal person again.
Not doing this could lead you into make bad decisions towards the business which could in turn, affect how well it will run in the future. Making sure that you’re on top of your games at all times at work will guarantee that every decision you make for your business is the right one.

Having uneducated or untrained staff

One of the biggest mistakes that business owners make is by hiring the wrong people for the job. While your roles within the company might not need qualifications as such, it’s important to make sure you’re hiring the right people for the job so that it doesn’t have an adverse effect on the business. Here are some key qualities to look out for when hiring:

• A precise CV. People that have had a plethora of jobs and not lasted long in any of them aren’t likely to perform how you desire. Unless they can give a good reason as to why that’s the case, it might be a good idea to avoid them.
• People who have a lot of extra activities in their lives are usually the most driven people. This isn’t always the case, but keeping an eye out for this on someone’s CV might help you in the long run.
• Anyone that’s had experience in customer service will be able to bring something to the job that isn’t easy to teach. If you’ve experienced it first hand you know how to deal with even the most awkward customers.
  

Take these four things into consideration and make the necessary changes so that nothing is having an adverse effect on your business.