WAYS ON HOW TO STOP YOUR BUSINESS FROM LOSING MONEY
- Get organised
Time is money, and there’s no bigger drain on your time than being disorganised. By investing a few hours into developing systems and processes for your business, you’ll save substantial time and avoid potentially losing money in the long run.
Ideas include document templates for paperwork, consistent guidelines for subcontractors, spreadsheets to track expenses and a system to capture receipts (even if it’s a different shoebox for each month).
“Automate everything where possible and have clear standard operating procedures (SOPS),” says Anna Jonak, founder of The Elevatory business coaching. “And I’d probably consider outsourcing some tasks depending on how much time they take up. This could be locally or overseas depending on the task.”
- Provide amazing customer service
Losing customers over time is unavoidable, but losing customers because of poor service is not. Reception and some sales roles can be among the lowest-paid in small businesses, even though the people in these roles are creating and maintaining your business’s relationships with customers. Consider what it’s really worth to have the right people in those roles, and mentor and train those people when you find them.
Pay close attention to the quality of your customer service, from the customers’ own point of view.
“Small business owners need to be constantly surveying their customers for feedback on performance and clarity on what else they might like to see from the business,” says Anna.
Recordings of your service and sales team members’ customer calls can also be a powerful training tool, enabling you to clearly outline service expectations and facilitating discussions about ways to improve sales skills and customer approaches, with relevant examples.
And don’t lose sight of the importance of customer retention.
“Product-based businesses can consider looking after their current customer base with discounts, loyalty and reward programs, VIP offers, and new launches,” says Anna. “For service-based businesses, think about check-in points, automated emails, releasing new content, referral schemes and a clear ascension model through your programs.”