Running a business presents owners with many different hurdles. From balancing the company’s finances to keeping customers happy, there are a lot of variables that can affect the business’s productivity and dominance in the market.
Regardless of these challenges, it’s essential for business owners to continue to solve problems and direct their business to a path of continuous growth. Profitability keeps the business running, after all, and there are endless approaches CEOs can consider to maximise their gains.
Despite the endless supply of pathways, choosing the tried-and-true approaches to scale businesses is often the best way to increase your chances of success.
From applying digital marketing strategies to freeing up staff’s workload, here are six simple but effective upgrades that can give your business an edge in today’s cut-throat market.
Let’s jump straight into it.
Upgrade to an ETFPOS Financial System
One effective upgrade that can improve your business’s scalability is changing your standard cash register to an ETFPOS system.
An EFTPOS system does more than just secure and store cash; it also performs a slew of other functions that makes it easier for companies and staff to manage the company finances. Learn more about them here.
Essentially, a primary function of an EFTPOS system is its ability to request and calculate orders automatically. With one, your staff doesn’t have to tally orders manually and can instead rely on the ETFPOS system to perform all the tracking. Your staff will also be able to perform more tasks, as the ETFPOS system can operate on its own.
Secondly, an ETFPOS system can be integrated with other tools like inventory management tools to help coordinate resupplying efforts. This makes it easier for you to get perishable goods without stomaching a loss due to staying too long in the shelf.
By upgrading to an EFTPOS system, you can support more customers without having to stretch your staff thin. You can also make your supply chain system more efficient, which can help tremendously when you’re planning to scale and increase your operational capacity.
Get Ahold of Business Phone Numbers
Another way to upgrade your business is by switching to a business phone number. This phone number has a unique set of starting digits (like 1300 or 1800 for Australian-based numbers) that can enhance your brand’s professional reputation—but it does more than just that.
Besides having a memorable number sequence, a business phone number allows customers to inquire about your company from anywhere in the country with local toll rates, which is unlike personal phone numbers.
This incentivises customers throughout the country to reach out to your company to get their inquiry resolved or to learn more about the company. This presents a great opportunity for your company to create a new and loyal customer.
These inbound numbers also allow multiple calls to happen simultaneously. If your business has more calls than you can handle, a business number can be configured to reach multiple open lines handled by any number of agents to process the inquiry.
These perks, in turn, allow your business to reach and accept more customers through this inbound line. This can be useful for enhancing your marketing efforts and improving your customer service experience.
Grow Digital Marketing Efforts
Speaking of marketing, there’s a wide array of digital marketing tools you can get to improve your current marketing efforts.
For example, you can use lead generation tools like Apollo to find, filter, and acquire potential leads for your business. You can then supplement that with an email marketing tool like Instantly to create marketing campaigns to catch these people’s attention.
If you’ve been manually adding social media posts to your business page, you can automate and schedule content with a social media management tool. This helps free up more of your time to perform other productive and pressing matters.
You can also consider boosting your presence in search engines with the help of SEO tools like Ahrefs and SEMRush. These tools can help you audit your website and find keywords to increase the odds of your site reaching the top page of search results on specific keywords.
You can also boost your impressions on Google Ads and social media pages by increasing the amount of capital you’re putting into each segment. In any case, growing your marketing efforts can help you scale and reach a wider audience—upping the chances of you striking a profit in the long term.
Centralise Communication Platforms
To scale your business, you shouldn’t operate as a one-person team. You’ll have to harness the skills and expertise of other competent people and delegate tasks to them accordingly.
With that said, it’s essential for supervisors and executives, especially remote-based business owners, to have a comprehensive communications platform that each staff member has access to from the start.
A centralised communication platform like Slack enables teams to get in touch with one another without having to double or triple-check other communications websites. Furthermore, these tools come with channel customisation to allow multiple team members to chat within a specific group, whether public or private.
If you lack a business communication channel, you’re leaving out the opportunity for you and your staff to enjoy streamlined communications and enhanced productivity. The best thing you can do at this point is to invest in one such platform, even a trial version can help you understand the benefits of this platform..
Iterate and Refine Business Offering
A key strategy to consider when scaling your business is increasing your company’s income floor. When you have a loyal customer base, you’ll have a continuous stream of income that’ll help sustain your business throughout all sorts of economic conditions.
One way to keep your customers close is by refining what you’re offering them. While some products don’t need significant changes, a few industries can benefit from offering new things regularly. Being proactive with refining your offerings can leave a positive and lasting impression on your customers.
And if you’re unsure whether your business needs to innovate, take note: startups can fall if they remain stagnant for too long. To teeter on the side of survival, strive to iterate and test out new products.
For instance, if you own an ice cream parlour, offering different ice cream flavours in a limited timespan can entice your customer base to try them out and keep them coming back for more.
They may even develop an interest in the new flavour, and if demand is high, this can be a great opportunity for your business to introduce new products (or services) to capitalise on this demand. In turn, the refinement of your product lineup can help you capture new and old customers.
Outsource Non-Essential Activities
Another way to upgrade your business operations is by delegating non-core tasks to contracted individuals.
Certain functions, such as human resources, marketing, and finances, can be riddled with tasks that are time-consuming yet able to be delegated.
In such cases, it may be the best option to outsource these tasks to individuals outside your operations. This way, your staff’s time will be freed up, you won’t have to hire new staff (which can be costly), and your workload will generally be handled by other professionals in the field.
By outsourcing your tasks, you can focus your time and mental energy on the tasks that really matter.
