Efficiency is fairly important in any kind of work. When running a successful business, which you want to grow and constantly improve, it becomes crucial.
Once you have already established your company and have it running for some time, clients and partners will start demanding more of your product or service, and they will want it faster. This is where you need to start working on your business efficiency a whole lot more.
Efficiency will not only satisfy your existing clients or attract future ones. It will also save you and your employees a lot of time, therefore opening more space for new work, and, of course, much more profit.
If you own just a small business where you are the only or one of the few employees, it makes no huge difference – efficiency will bring you and your clients satisfaction, which will, in time, be heavily rewarded. Also, it will keep your sanity.
This is all possible if you have the right plan. Once you have that well-established, you are on your way to a productive new chapter. Let’s explore some of the moves you can make to improve the efficiency of your business.
1. Have your main team focus only on the important stuff
When you overburden your team and yourself, it’s not only heavily time-consuming but also extremely stressful in the long run. Over time, there will probably be more and more mistakes, which you will need extra time to fix if you don’t want to lose clients. Therefore, you’ll need to sit and weed out all the less important tasks and keep your team working on the crucial ones.
So, what to do with the other stuff? It would be best if you could outsource to people who can finish those, during the hours you do more important things. That way, the time the job needs to be finished will almost be cut in half. If you feel this is an unnecessary expense, think again in a few months when you see your service demand and profit growing.
2. Automate and systemize
When the workload is just too heavy and time is spent on the same routine every day, you may want to leave a part of the tasks to the computers.
Creating templates of documents, e-mails, and forms you frequently use, and developing scripts will save so much time. Schedule auto-responses and schedule e-mails to be sent at a specific time. The same goes for social media updates, which are now usually a normal part of everyday correspondence and marketing.
In addition, replacing an outdated time-off management system using spreadsheets, emails, and a shared vacation calendar with a Leave management tool will save you time and resources by streamlining the application, approval, and tracking of PTO balance in one place.
All of this will, put together, save a few hours of every workday, which could be used for more work and more profit. Maybe even for a small break or two, so the brains are ready for the next workload.
3. Outsource all your marketing tasks
Nowadays, marketing is more important than ever. So much competition, so many places to push your ad to. When you haven’t got a huge firm with billions to spend on thousands of workers, then you probably have the same workers do several smaller tasks. But those small tasks can eventually overburden people and make them slip.
This is why some tasks are better to be outsourced. You can have a few people overlook your marketing activities, but all the rest should be done by reliable workers from outside your company. Hire social media experts to run your profiles. Hire competent firms or freelance workers to do your SEO. This one is definitely important for today’s marketing so seek reputable people to do this task. If your business is in Sydney, for example, hire well-recommended people to do your SEO in Sydney. This way, you can hear the experiences of your partners and be sure you’ll hire the right ones.
4. Hold short company meetings every morning
Sometimes, everyday meetings that gather all of your employees in one spot can seem like a waste of time, but they save a lot of it actually. When you have weekly meetings, sometimes they can drag on for hours, addressing every issue that happened or everything that will have to be done during the upcoming week, along with all the employees’ questions. The other option is to correspond with everybody by e-mail or calls, but that can waste the same amount of time, maybe even more.
If you hold a short, 10-15-minute meeting at the beginning of every workday, you can address everything that should be done, and still be able to maybe congratulate a colleague or two or maybe mention some troubles that need to be solved. After that, everyone goes on with their work, with all the updates in mind.
5. Let everyone have a voice
Sometimes it seems like a time-saver to just give out orders and let the employees do their job as quickly as possible. However, this can sometimes lead to unnecessary troubles, maybe keeping some info unsaid, some workers not satisfied, and some work badly done.
If you let every employee express their concerns during the meetings, it will help the company’s work go more smoothly in the long run. If the communication between management and workers is clear, concise, and informative, your business will grow faster. Everybody will be updated, or maybe praised or corrected, if necessary.
All of these tips are just a few steps, but important ones, in order to do business more efficiently. We hope they help, and we hope you have a good business year.
