Negosentro|5 Things Small Businesses Can Learn From Big Ones|Whether you are a startup or an experienced small business owner, there are a few lessons you can learn from bigger businesses and corporations to help you grow and be more successful. If you can start your company with these things already in your business plan, then there will be less work to incorporate them, but making the switch later on can be easier than you think.
Employee Focus and Training
Big businesses invest in their employees by focusing on recruiting the best talent and bringing in specialists to train them. When you bring in a sales coach, for example, you can help your employees refine their techniques and double the amount of sales you bring in. You can also encourage a healthy work-life balance and create a company culture which celebrates your employees. These things will help you find and keep a talented and motivated workforce as you grow.
Company Culture and Branding
Your company culture should be written down as a set of goals and ideals that you want your brand and employees to present to the public. This can include friendly customer service, quality products and even a witty social media presence. Once you know what you want your company culture to be, you can incorporate those things into your branding. For instance, if your company culture includes a dedication to going green, then you can choose to make branded reusable shopping bags, company uniforms from sustainable sources or even offer a water bottle refill station instead of selling plastic water bottles in your stores.
Technology Integration and Innovation
Big businesses routinely invest in new technological innovations and are usually the first to integrate them into the various industries. When you first start your company, you will need to get your processes and policies ironed out, there is tech available to help with this through both hardware and software. There are also software solutions designed to streamline those processes as you grow, giving you more time to focus on the core proficiencies of your company and bring in more profit.
Lean Practices and Sustainability
One thing that big businesses and corporations are good at is incorporating lean practices in their processes and policies. These practices eliminate or reduce all kinds of waste in the value chain from initial concept to the customer’s use of the product or service. For instance, adding a point-of-sale system which integrates with both inventory and accounting software can help reduce the number of hours people spend searching for items, the amount of time you spend on inventory and the stack of paperwork your accountant has to add to spreadsheets and files.
Part of this value chain streamlining is sustainability. Eliminating waste by moving more processes from paper to digital can save you the cost of supplies and make your brand greener. You can also reduce waste by stocking employee break rooms with reusable dishes and cutlery instead of paper or plastic products and encouraging customers to bring their own shopping bags instead of providing them with plastic ones.
Service Mentality and Marketing
Even if your company is not in the service industry, adopting a service mentality can help bring in sales and market your brand. By determining which value-add services your customers are looking for, and then providing those services, you can have more positive reviews and a bigger base of dedicated buyers. Extending this service mentality to your marketing campaigns can give you even more of a boost by allowing customers to contact your business through social media, the people on their friends lists will see those interactions and can be encouraged to shop at your store.
By looking at some of the things that big businesses do to be successful, you can help get your startup going on the right foot or improve the way that your small business functions. You can find examples in your own industry or in different ones by reading online blogs or through networking with these big companies. Many of these solutions can be easily incorporated into your company with a bit of time and tweaking of your business plan and processes.
