Small but Substantial Tweaks to Your Business Model

If you’re in a position where your business is gaining momentum and you’re starting to think about implementing some changes that can take you to the next level, difficult choices will likely have to be made. It’s easy to think about these choices on a large scale – big decisions with each one having similarly large and easily perceptible outcomes. That’s not always the case, however. Small decisions that you might brush off or otherwise delegate to your employees can have enormously impactful outcomes.

To make matters more difficult, it’s not always easy to identify these either, but having some idea can allow you to redefine what kind of brand you want to be.

Who You Work With

When you’re looking to hire professionals for any given job or service or perhaps build lasting partnerships that can cement one arm of your business, it’s easy to feel the pressure. This is a decision that you likely don’t take lightly; therefore, it probably wouldn’t classify it as a small decision. However, when it comes to how you think about how this reflects on the quality of your own product or service, you might not rate it as highly as you potentially should.

An example of this could be the delivery company that you work with. If your business is one that ships a product to the doors of your consumers, their ability to enjoy what you provide is going to be affected by poor shipping – be it a late arrival, no arrival, or the product turning up with substantial damage. Obviously, mistakes are bound to happen, and you simply have to have a policy in place for when this kind of damage does occur, but that’s within the boundaries of acceptable losses. What isn’t acceptable is if you find yourself having to have this discussion over and over again due to the regularity of these incidents. That’s something that could negatively impact your brand and prevent people from wanting your business again. Therefore, it’s important that you think carefully about every aspect of the customer experience, including overnight delivery services and other options that you can provide them with.

Other times, who you work with might be more of an internal matter, such as when maintenance or other work is required in your place of business. As always, the option to spend less is one that will likely hold a certain level of appeal, but recognizing the importance of spending more for a quality result is simply something that will likely prevent you from having to spend more in the future. Identifying when these costs are worth paying is a skill that will carry a lot of mileage.

Attitude Towards Employees

Again, when it comes to big-picture thinking, it’s easy to get into a state of mind where you’re dealing solely with the largest possible entities. Think about:

• What’s best for your business?
• What should save you the most money?
• What are the industry trends?

These kinds of questions can wash away some of the intricacies that you might deem unimportant if they don’t sway the overall result one way or another. However, over time, these smaller details can accumulate to have that kind of power. A prime example of this is how you treat your staff. Employees who are happier in their environment have been shown to be more productive, develop more trust with their employer, and potentially be happier to stay. Even just with this, there are multiple benefits for you to think about. The productivity is obviously going to be appealing, but employee retention means that you avoid a high staff turnover, and the staff that you do have is going to be qualified and experienced in their roles. To take that point even further, offering your staff opportunities for training might not seem worthwhile if you only need them to operate within the role that they find themselves, but it’s something that will make them much happier and more comfortable in their position, as well as once again giving you a more qualified workforce.

You can begin to see how the happiness of your employees often links directly to the quality of your staff, and it’s something that can be expressed outwards. One of the reasons that a high staff turnover can be so damaging is that once enough employees have left and you find yourself in need of replacements, word of that turnover prevents prospective employees from wanting to apply with you in the first place. This kind of damage can be difficult to undo, meaning that retaining a positive work environment both physically and emotionally might be more integral to your business than you initially suspect based on quantifiable results.

How You Engage with Customers

On the face of it, the kind of interaction that might matter most to you when it comes to your customers is the transactional one. If you can get to that point, all is well. However, even just looking at that alone unveils a new dynamic: customer service. While the interaction can be serviceable and still provide the customer with the product and you with the money, that might not be enough to bring them back to repeat the experience. Therefore, finessing your customer service to be helpful and friendly without being overbearing is something that can be very substantial for improving this experience.

These are far from the only times that you interact with your customers, though, and choosing how you go about engaging them at these times can have a huge impact on the perception of your brand. For example, throughout your social media marketing, there will be opportunities for you to reply to comments or talk to people in a forum-like setting. This is a great chance for your identity to shine through and cultivate that dynamic bond between you, but there are also risks to avoid, as you’ll be under a lot of scrutiny, and the wrong step will be remembered. Being careful and strategic while making it look natural is a lot to ask, but it might be what you need to do.