Running your own business is nothing short of a great adventure. You learn so many things about people, money, and self-discipline that you automatically become the kind of person that others aspire to be—that is if you’re successful. Growing your business will require making smart moves and investments to ensure your company expands smartly. Approaching your company’s expansion haphazardly will not only cause your company to fail in its efforts, but it could also cause your company to collapse altogether.
Growing your business will require the entirety of your focus and resources. You don’t want to outgrow your customers, your demand, or your resources, nor do you want to miss out on the opportunity to grow with them either. You have to scale your supply, customer service infrastructure, and finances to make a successful transition to the next plateau. Continue reading to get some tips to help you grow your business while optimizing your operations.
1. Customer Service Infrastructure
Business gurus will tell you that the customer experience is the most critical indicator of a company’s success. If you want your small business to grow, you need to find ways to outperform your competition regarding customer satisfaction. Let’s be honest—there probably isn’t much separating the quality of your products and services from that of your closest competitors, and that’s why you’re so close in your race. The one area where you have absolute control of your business operations is the experience you provide your customers.
The best way to optimize your customer service infrastructure is to talk directly to your customers to see what they expect from their favorite brands. The best tool you have at your disposal to get direct insight from your customers is called “voice of the customer” (VoC) enterprise software. With VoC, you get surveys and other tools like customer review platforms and even tools that highlight negative feedback to allow you to respond or identify them as false or spam. Using customer feedback to optimize your customer service is a great step towards growing your company.
Contact center software is another integral part of your customer support framework. It shortens the time it takes to reach the right agent via phone lines, boasts robust CRM capabilities, and avoids the need for an on-premise call center. With the power of automation and the advanced features of contact center solutions, you can ensure that you never miss an opportunity to connect with a customer again.
With tools like live chat and chatbots, you can prompt conversations with potential customers and convert them into buying ones. A support team member can start an online engagement and switch over to the phone systems seamlessly. With contact center software solutions from Bright Pattern, your customers can go from a live chat to a smartphone voice call and instantly reconnect with the right agent.
2. Supply Chain Management
When trying to grow your company, one of the things you have to consider most is how to manage your supply. You need to get your products and raw materials from companies that can meet the level of demand you’re striving for. The key is to find a supplier capable of managing where you’re going in the future rather than where you are right now.
If you already have a demand for your products that’s difficult to meet, that’s both good and bad. It’s great that your company is performing beyond your expectations, but terrible in the sense that not being able to meet your products’ demand will eventually hurt your bottom line and your reputation.
If you’re looking for a company to handle your CBD distribution needs, you need a company with proven experience in that industry that can demonstrate how they’ve helped other growing companies. Whether you need packaging materials or someone to package and distribute your CBD products for you, the point is you need a supplier who will be a partner and not merely another link in the supply chain.
It’s important to make sure you and your supplier share at least some of the same core values to ensure you’re on the same page regarding products, services, and modes of distribution. If you make oils for vape pens and are concerned with your customers’ health and the environment, Cool Jarz is an excellent partner. They bottle cannabidiol and put it in custom vape pens, and their containers are made from 50% less plastic than their competitors, which is better for you and Mother Earth.
3. The Right Personnel
Even if you started your business alone and built it from the ground up, growing will require you to find people you can plug into important positions to fulfill key functions. However, with so many job seekers in the United States, it’s hard to know which ones are serious, qualified, and the best fit for your company. Trying to find the right candidates for your small business could lead to early graying, but the good news is there are programs and online tools that make the hiring process much simpler.
COVID-19 has changed the way companies handle a lot of essential functions, including job interviews. To protect your company and potential hires from COVID-19 while still finding ways to grow has forced companies to get creative about how they use tech, and you would be wise to follow suit.
One of the best ways to find the right person for every role in your company is with GoodTime virtual interview software, which allows you to hold video interviews with potential hires. This virtual interview software employs great new features like analytics to help you weed out unqualified applicants and recruit quality candidates. It even has tools to train you to conduct the interview process and important questions for interviewees, making things a whole lot easier for talent acquisition and hiring teams.
4. Investment Proposal
As you can see, between updating your customer service infrastructure, optimizing your supply chain, and hiring the right people, you’re going to have to invest in growing your company. You don’t have to try to do everything at once, but you need to build up a war chest for your company’s growing process.
One of the best ways to get the funds you need is to put together an investment proposal and start shopping it around to investors. If you’re able to impress them with your business model, realistic future projections, and plans to recoup their investments, you’ll find people who are willing to open their wallets to fund your company’s growth.
