Business Growth – Velocity Media

16 June 2015

The Danger In Burning Bridges

There comes a point in business when relationships end. It could be due to wrongdoing or simply outgrowing. Sometimes it’s because you end it and sometimes it’s because someone else does. How it ends though, can make all of the difference, not only to your reputation, but your bottom line, future connections, and business opportunities.

While it can be tempting (and let’s face it in some cases completely justified) to say exactly what you feel and burn bridges behind you, if you are wise, you will try to end every relationship as amicably as possible. By leaving the bridge intact, even if a little rocky, you at least still have the option to pass by again in the future if you ever need to.

In case you’re not convinced, here are some of the dangers you can face when burning bridges – regardless of whether you are in the right or the wrong.

1. The business world is small

While it can often seem as though you are dealing with a person or business in isolation, it is rarely true. The business world is small, and it’s made even smaller with online communities.

People are well connected and often with people you least expect. You never know who knows who and what influence the person you are dealing with may have over their connections now or further down the track. You also never know what future opportunities could be missed or tainted because of a strained relationship or conflict.

2. Everyone talks to someone

Everyone has at least one confidant, a sounding board who helps them work through their challenges. If you are lucky, then it is only one person, but if the situation is heated or interesting enough, it can spread like wildfire. Suddenly a lot of people know – or think they know – what has happened before you’ve even had a chance to share your side.

The trouble with conflict, bad news and scandals is that it’s juicy, it spreads wide and fast, and can take longer to die down than good news. When you decide to burn bridges and react instead of respond, you never know who is behind the person you are having challenges with. Whose ear they are whispering in, what they are saying or increasingly, what they will write on social media.

3. What you do and say can be held against you

When you are angry or upset, it can be easy to say things you either don’t mean or would normally leave unsaid. But a moment really can change everything. You never know who may be watching, listening or reading and what opinion they can form of you based on that one experience with you or impression of you.

While it is important to keep things in writing, be mindful that your tone, emphasis, and intent can and will often be misconstrued. Before you send anything ask yourself, is this a good representation of my character and what I stand for? Could this have legal ramifications? Would I be happy for this to be made public?

4. Who you burn on the way up, can burn you on the way down

In business, there are never any guarantees. You can have a booming business one day and the next, due to circumstances that may or may not be in your control, end up right back where you started.

You never know when you will need a relationship or connection again, this is why it is so important to maintain relationships at all levels of your business journey.

Yes, relationships will end, and you will outgrow suppliers, associates, and even customers. Just make sure it is done without ego or high emotion, because if you do fall, you normally see or need to lean on the same people as you climb back up.

There is no question that in business, there will be times where you will have to stand up to injustice, defend your position and point or view, and even burn a bridge or two. When you do though, do it with the full knowledge of how it will affect you and your business now, and how it could affect you in the future.

Amanda

10 March 2015

Five tips for managing and increasing your capacity

When it comes to growing a business, there are a number of areas you need to manage and monitor closely. While most businesses watch their competitors, customers, and cash flow proactively, there is one area often forgotten until reached – capacity.

It’s a familiar story; a business owner focuses on sales to increase cash flow but has not thought about how or when they can deliver all of the new work sourced. As a result, the quality of products or services can be lower or the turnaround longer, affecting their reputation.

To ensure you don’t play the lead role in this tale, here are five tips to help you manage and increase your capacity.

1. Know how much work you can handle

The first step in working out your capacity is to know how much time it takes for you or your staff to produce and deliver the products or services you provide. Then you need to work out how much time you have designated to fulfilling customer work or orders in addition to all of the other operational tasks that keep your business running as usual each working day.

Also look at your current workload, are you servicing all of your clients successfully and meeting their expectations? What is your turnaround time like, are you meeting or stretching deadlines? Are you getting the feedback you normally do or want to? If your answer is no to any of these questions, or if you are already busy, stressed and not coping with the workload, chances are you are at or very close to your capacity.

2. Find ways to streamline

You still need to continue to bring in income so the first step is to look at how you can minimise the time spent in existing tasks. This starts by identifying ways you can streamline and systemise your processes and utilise your current team more effectively.

Also, look at how you can take on new business at your current capacity. It could be a matter of scheduling work a week or two in advance when your capacity has increased or giving a more realistic timeframe on turnaround and delivery to your customers.

3. Revisit your numbers

When you know your what your capacity is, it pays to revisit your numbers. If you are saying yes to work because you need the money, despite not having the time or ability to service expectations, then it could be time to overhaul your pricing and minimise your expenses.

While you may lose some price-focused customers by increasing your prices, you will at least have increased your income at the same capacity. This may also free up additional funds to increase your capacity by hiring more staff or outsourcing.

3. Build a flexible team

Staffing costs can be a massive expense to business owners, and for smaller businesses, a cost they can’t always afford to sustain. With this in mind, look at developing a flexible team that can help you increase capacity through busy times.

Having a trusted group of outsourced professionals on call when you need them, can help you meet your workload and increase your capacity when you need it, without ongoing staffing expenses.

4. Hire smartly

When it comes to hiring staff, give careful consideration to what positions you need to fill first and their roles. While you may need ‘doers’ to increase your capacity immediately, you will also need ‘business generators’ to cover your growing costs and fill your new capacity.

It’s at this point where you need to decide how big and fast you grow and continue to go back through the steps as you discover your new levels of capacity.

Amanda

3 February 2015

How to manage fast growth and maintain your reputation

For many entrepreneurs starting a business comes with the dream of creating a fast growing company that customers love. But as demand grows and sales soar you can suddenly be faced with some very real and different challenges that you may not have planned for in your start-up.

Sometimes all takes is one big customer, one media opportunity or one photo, status or campaign to go viral and you can be faced with a flood of enquiries and sales. To ensure you handle your growth effectively and maintain your reputation along the way here are five points to keep in mind.

1. Streamline

The more you systemise and streamline each task the quicker it will be to complete and the easier it will be to outsource or delegate to new and existing team members as your business grows.

Ideally you want to be systemising from start-up while still keeping your processes fluid enough to grow with you. This will ensure you can grow easily with minimal disruption to your business operations.

2. Delegate

When you are experiencing high growth your time needs to be spent as productively and profitably as possible. Be ruthless with your to-do list and make sure any tasks that aren’t a good use of your time is delegated to another team member or outsourced professional.

3. Manage your cash flow

Staffing and other growth expenses can put significant strain on your cash flow, and if not managed effectively can cost you your business even despite its popularity.

To prevent this, ensure you are receiving regular financial reports so you can prioritise expenses and plan around periods of low cash flow. Also be careful about the staff roles you look to fill first. While you will need support staff to get the tasks done, you will also need sales people to bring in new business to cover your growing expenses.

4. Keep marketing

While stopping your marketing may seem like a good idea during high growth periods, it can drastically affect your cash flow. With increased expenses you need to ensure you have consistent income coming in.

If you are considering stopping or slowing your marketing down, make these decisions based around your sales figures and budget forecast. Know where your leads are coming from as well as your slow periods, lead time and conversion rate.

5. Watch your capacity

To maintain your reputation you need to grow your capacity as your business grows. Make sure you can comfortably service all of your existing customers and exceed their expectations as well as any new customers you bring on board. Your existing customer base really is your gold mine; they are the best source of new business so it is important not to burn them.

Before you bring in new business or say yes to a project, ask yourself “Can I service this customer effectively and provide real value?” if the answer is yes, go for it, if the answer is no, be honest. If the answer is yes but not yet, then book the work in at a later date. While you may lose a sale, think about how much more you could lose if you can’t deliver and they tell people about their bad experience.

How do you manage your business growth?

Amanda

9 June 2014

How to become a market leader (not a competitor follower)

In business it can be easy to get distracted by what your competitors are doing. When they bring out new products or services, branch out into new markets or change their course of action you can be tempted to do the same.

But when you change the way you do business or take an alternate course of action because of what your competitors are doing, they become the leader and you become the follower and you’ll always be one step behind.

So to prevent you from taking actions you may not have taken if it wasn’t for feeling threatened, here are three tips to ensure you remain a leader in your own business not a follower of someone else’s.

1. Stay focused on your customers, not your competitors

The best and quickest way to grow your business and expand your market share is to stay focused on your customer not your competitors.

The more you can get inside your customers head, the more relevant and targeted you can make your products, services and marketing. Give your customers what they want and they will not only keep coming back, they will also refer more people to you.

So be a leader, find opportunities to be different, stay focused on what your customer wants and continually value-add and innovate to give it to them. Do this and you won’t have to worry about your competitors. They on the other hand will have a lot to worry about with you!

2. Anticipate needs and trends

A true market leader will not just meet current customer needs and wants, they’ll also anticipate future needs, wants and trends.

Look for patterns that are forming, frustrations that are growing, trends and technology that are going to impact how you provide and deliver your products and services or how you customer will use them, and watch for what no one else is doing. Most importantly listen to what your customers are saying – and not saying.

If you are taking these market-leading actions yourself, you’ll have no reason to follow what your competitors are doing, you’ll already be on it.

3. Play on your strengths

Each business has it’s own strengths. It could be your knowledge, specialist staff, results, your high quality products and services, your level of customer service and follow up, your creativity and ideas, your industry experience, your client base, your large budget, your size and infrastructure, your available resources, your website and quality of content, your entrepreneurial thinking, or your agility.

Whatever your strengths are, use them to your best advantage. Too often we focus on other peoples strengths and our weaknesses. But for a competitive advantage in business you need to be focused on your competitors’ weaknesses and developing your strengths.

How do you ensure you are leading not following?