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Strategies to Transform Your Small Business into A Large One

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Strategies to Transform Your Small Business into A Large One

Small businesses play a large role in the world’s vibrant economies, as they employ many people and drive innovation and competitiveness. According to the US Small Business Administration (SBA), small businesses constitute 44% of the country’s economic activity. However, every small business owner’s primary goal is to have a company that expands and eventually becomes large and profitable. So which smart strategies can help turn your small business into a large one? Here are four points to consider:

1. Extend your market reach

Making your products or services available to new customers is a great way to expand your small business into a large one. New markets represent new customers, who also represent fresh opportunities for increased earnings. You should open stores in new areas to introduce your business to new customers. Experts also recommend targeting new groups in your locality who could use your products and services, aside from your regular customers. Finding and promoting new uses for your product also encourages existing customers to purchase more from you. Therefore, it would be advantageous if you extended your market reach to increase sales and transform your business into a more stable model. Over time, this stability will only lead to increased earnings that will transform your business into a large one.

2. Introduce new products and services

Many business experts agree that the business world is in constant flux, and as such new products and services are crucial to the survival of companies. Consider introducing new products and services that attract new customers and encourage your existing ones to buy more. Accomplishing this can be quite tricky, but with research and flawless execution, you could be on your way to bigger things. First of all, you must identify a pressing need through customer interaction, employee brainstorming, and personal research. Then, you must develop and test a product concept that meets this urgent need. Developing a good prototype is essential here, so reach out to experts to find out how it works and how best you can bring your ideas to life to permeate new markets.

3. Consider franchising

Research reveals that 80% of McDonald’s locations are franchises. Franchising is a useful tool that you can also leverage to transform your small business into a big company. As your small business begins to experience success, consider licensing your branding, business model, and processes to others who will market your products under your brand name. Franchising has many benefits that should make it a vital consideration in your business expansion plans. Firstly, it can substitute capital acquisition as a less risky and more cost-effective way of business expansion. Franchising also gives you more motivated unit managers because your franchisees are business owners themselves with a vested interest in your business’ success. It facilitates faster growth because you team up with already successful companies, which catapults you to a market leadership position within your industry ahead of your competitors. You should see franchising as a way to increase your business’ profitability, penetrate new markets, and transform your small business into a large company.

Six Ways A Small Business Can Use Outsourcing

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | <img class=As your business grows, you will find yourself tackling problems that are possibly further away from your core skillset, this is completely normal, and often when the business starts to utilize outsourcing more.

These tasks are the tasks that take you away from your core skills and require you to spend more time than you need on learning new skills that are only linked to a limited amount of functions. For example bookkeeping or payroll. These are functions that are a necessity, however, unless you have experience in these areas you may spend valuable time away from aiding your business to grow.

It’s essential for you to outsource tasks such as these to people such as Digital Goliath Marketing who are able to manage your work efficiently, leaving you with less stress and hassle to have to do it yourself. There are many occasions where it is more sensible and worthwhile to outsource. In fact, it’s not realistic to handle everything in-house for a modern business.

Bear in mind that whilst outsourcing is efficient and necessary, you should always keep your core business functions in-house. That means that you don’t need to outsource anything that your skillset covers already/

Let’s have a look below at some of the areas you may want to think about outsourcing:

Legal Requirements

Every business will have legal requirements, and this is usually the first area that gets outsourced. Hiring an in-house lawyer can be extremely expensive, and there is often no need to have one employed all the time. Most businesses can’t afford to have their own legal department, so you need to outsource. There are many ways you can source legal services such as:

  • Find one lawyer to deal with all your legal requirements.
  • Use a freelance lawyer or solicitor.
  • Use different lawyers or solicitors for each aspect of your legal needs.

Administrative Duties

Did you know that your employees could be spending around 40% of their working ay just on administrative tasks? This means that a huge portion of their day is spent completing repetitive and time-consuming tasks that are easy to outsource and train people on. It is a sensible choice to outsource these tasks to someone who would possibly charge less for their time than yours or your employee’s costs. Especially if they are highly-skilled staff members.

Remember you shouldn’t be outsourcing your core business functions, however, you can outsource parts of your core functions like the admin. Build processes and systems to ensure that the outsourcer can support you well.

  • Some of the outsource administration you could consider are:
  • Surveying, polling, and focus group tests.
  • Data collection and research
  • Travel arrangements
  • Compiling reports
  • Virtual assistant
  • Document management and organization
  • Calendar management and organization
  • Customer service emails
  • Social media posting/management
  • Preparing and taking notes
  • Transcribing audio or video
  • Personal errands (so you can spend more time working)
  • Editing/proofreading

Financial Management and Bookkeeping

It’s far wiser to keep your account organized as you go rather than leaving them until the end of the year. If you don’t keep an eye on your finances, then you could be making an expensive mistake. You could use cloud-based accounting software to track it yourself, however, working with a bookkeeper is probably easier. All you need to do is send your bookkeeper all your data and they will organize it for you. They also send you back whatever types of reports you like.

It can also be handy to have a contact for any questions you may have about the business finances, based on your circumstances. It certainly never hurts to have a financial expert that you can contact and work with. When it comes to completing your taxes at the end of the year, a bookkeeper will eliminate that stress. All you need to do is give your account access to your accounting firm and they will deal with the rest. If they require any information from you they will just ask for it.

Lead Generation and Marketing

Marketing can be challenging for small businesses. It can be easy to market yourself when you are slow, however, if your business picks up, marketing can get left behind. This can’t happen, your business will only slow down again if you neglect the marketing of your business and brand. Marketing is how you are going to grow your business, therefore, you need to ensure you have the time to make a commitment to it. Even if you outsource your marketing, though, you still need to ensure you have heavy involvement in it. You could choose to use a complete marketing service that deals with the management and social media or you could choose to outsource to several different freelancers, it’s really down to what works best for your business.

For example, you may prefer to have someone in-house dealing with the articles and information that is allowed on your website, but you are happy to outsource content creation to a content marketing agency. If you would prefer to manage your own marketing strategy you could choose to use consultants or freelancers to complete bulk work but oversee it yourself.

IT Services and Technology

Regardless of whether you are tech-savvy or not, it is usually simpler to let someone else deal with your technology needs.

Many technology duties come tagged with a steep learning curve. Therefore it may not be worth your time to learn how to web develop, code an app, migrate your information to the cloud, optimize your website, or implement two-factor authorization for your data. The cost it would take with regards to your time to handle your own IT needs is probably more expensive than if you hired an outsourcer to do this for you.

For example, you could choose to manage your own website, but do you know how to safely move your files around your host? Backup your site? No jow to migrate to a new host? Or, Set up cybersecurity? They are most certainly all doable, however, they could cost you a huge amount of time. If your skill doesn’t lye in this area, then you may be better off outsourcing your IT needs. Yes, you will pay more than just hosting space, but your time is valuable and it could save you money in the long run.

Before you opt to outsource certain IT tasks though, you should also have a look to see if there are any tools that could do it for you rather than paying an outsourcer or in0house team.

Human Resources

Human Resources suits can definitely take up a lot of time, especially as your business and team grow. Each time you recruit a new person, the obligations in the human resources department only grow. On top of this, if you mishandle any human resources such as payroll, firing, ot hiring a poor employee, it can cost you money, create an array of issues, and even see you facing a lawsuit.

Depending on your businesses needed, you may choose to outsource your human resources to one provider or several smaller ones. For example, you may use recruitment agencies for any talent searching, a payroll company to ensure your staff is paid correctly and on time, and a PEO to manage any benefits. As well as this you may also want to make sure you have access to legal advice relating to anything involved with human resources.

These are six areas that you may want to consider outsourcing as a small business. Is there anything that you already outsource? Please share some of them in the comments section.

Technology Adaptations for Your Business

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Technology Adaptations for Your Business | Business Technology

Managing a business is hard to do, but this year has been especially hard. With the normal tasks of creating a social media strategy, managing employees, and tracking data and finances, there have been a lot of upheavals and needed adaptations. A business may have needed to be done remotely or adapted to fit safety protocols. A lot of the needed adaptations needed require technology updates and fixes. Here are a few ways you can adapt your business using technology to keep up with the changing world.

Working Remotely

There has been a greater need to have employees work from home where possible. This can be better facilitated through technology like laptops, communication software, and other software that allows employees to access their work files and documents from home.

Another important aspect of working remotely is finding a good way to still hold necessary meetings. There are many different platforms that allow for video conferencing meetings. Some companies that have some employees working in the office and others working at home use Zoom Room Equipment to set up a designated room to use for online meetings with their remote workers. This helps to cut down on time needed to set up for meetings and other technical issues that can delay schedules.

Project Management

When everyone is working in different locations, it can be difficult to ensure that tasks are completed on time. You may have problems with people duplicating work or tasks getting forgotten due to a lack of good communication.

Project management software like Asana or other options can help you set up tasks, due dates, and assignments all in one place. Giving everyone access to the projects they work on will help the entire team be informed of the current status of the project and what needs to happen next to reach the goal.

Cybersecurity

Remote working is great for many reasons, but it can also open up the door for cyber attacks on your company if you are not careful. Employees may rely on public internet connections, or online storage solutions may be utilized to help gain access to important documents from different locations.

It is easier to provide security to an office location because you can lock the physical office that contains the servers and use closed networks with added layers of security. These are not possible when you have remote workers.

Investing in increased cybersecurity measures is crucial if you are going to keep your business safe. Virtual private networks (VPNs) and data backups are both essential for remote working. You should also stack up against your security by using multi-factor authentication, real-time security monitoring, and cybersecurity software.

Performance Tools

It can be hard to manage employees when they are working remotely, and that can make performance reviews unsubstantiated and flimsy. Using performance tools can help to give your employees concrete expectations and goals they can follow, and it can also give you usable data to help increase engagement and provide targeted training and feedback.

Keeping Your Business Data Up to Date

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Keeping Your Business Data Up to Date

Collecting valuable data for your business is essential, but keeping it up to date is just as important. If you have data that is no longer relevant, it won’t be much use to your business. How long your information is useful for will depend on exactly what it is, so staying up to data can take some work. There are a few things that you can make sure you’re doing if you want to have accurate and useful data at all times. Take a look at some of the steps that you can take to keep your business data up to date.

Bring in Fresh Data Regularly

Collecting business data isn’t something that you just do once and then never again. You should be bringing in new data regularly so that you always have the freshest information. How often you collect new data will depend on what sort of data you’re collecting, where it comes from, and what you can afford. You might constantly be collecting data on who is visiting your website and how they behave. On the other hand, you might only collect information about your competitors every few months or years. When you collect new data, you can ensure it’s accurate and up to date.

Have Your Data Reviewed

Going over your existing data can be time-consuming. If you want to save time, outsourcing the review and auditing of your data will help. You can use a service to comb over your debt collections contact details or your customer demographics data. By finding the right service to help you, you can ensure that your data is reviewed and stays up to date while saving time so you can work on other things. Some services can both review your current data and help you to find more up to date and accurate information for your records.

Remove Data You No Longer Need

You should get rid of data that are no longer useful for your business. For one thing, it will help to free up digital space so that you can store new data instead. It will also mean that outdated and irrelevant data is no longer used, even accidentally, and you can replace any old data with new and more relevant information. Data that are no longer relevant could be useless and best and even dangerous at worst, depending on what it is.

Pay Attention to Regulations and Compliance

It’s important to be aware of the regulations and laws concerning data. You should know what you’re allowed to collect and record, and what you’re not allowed to keep. You also need to know what rights individuals have to know about the information that you hold about them and to ask you to remove it. The regulations can change at any time, so it’s essential to stay up to date with the latest laws and how they affect your business.

Keep your business data up to date if you want it to be useful for your company. If it’s out of date, it could cause problems.

How to Run a Successful Janitorial Business

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Efficiently and successfully running a janitorial business takes time, strategy, and consistency. Due to the ways that janitorial businesses can differ from other companies, there are very specific steps that are most advisable for success.

As a business that focuses on meeting the maintenance, repair, and cleaning needs of others, it’s important for everyone to be on the same page. In order for this to happen, workers, managers, and business owners must effectively do their jobs.

This is where adhering to the following steps comes in handy.

1. Use Time Tracking Software

Time tracking software is a valuable tool for any company; however, janitorial businesses can especially benefit from using this tool.

Janitorial Time tracking software allows you to not only know when your employees are working, but also where they’re working and which tasks are underway. If you employ remote workers or freelancers, then time tracking software can especially come in handy.

Additional benefits of using time tracking software to run a successful janitorial business include the following: knowing where company funds are going, tracking task productivity, and saving time from manual data entry into timesheets.

2. Maintain Contact with Your Clients

Clients are the lifeblood of any business, including janitorial ones. Staying in contact with your clients ultimately helps ensure that your business is meeting their needs.

If the janitorial business is checking all necessary boxes, then having that confirmation is advantageous; if there are areas in need of improvement, then catching this sooner rather than later (and acting accordingly) is always the best protocol.

When communicating with your clients, be open to feedback, suggestions, and even complaints. In the long run, this can only benefit your janitorial business and enable its success.

3. Market Strategically

Strategic marketing is another imperative measure for successfully running a janitorial business. In order for your business to thrive, the free market needs to know about it. Contrary to certain beliefs, the importance of a marketing plan doesn’t disappear when clients arrive.

Even as your janitorial business thrives and grows, marketing will remain a necessity. Keeping your business before the eyes of consumers allows for room to increase your profits; it also puts you and your janitorial staff in the position to remain afloat (and profitable) even if certain clients go elsewhere for whatever reasons.

Running a successful janitorial business is not an overnight process; although, with the best time tracking software, communication with your clients, and strategic marketing, you can successfully run a janitorial business one step at a time.

About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Raya KhashabRaya Khashab is the CEO and co-founder of ezClocker, a time tracking and scheduling software for small businesses. She is passionate about customers and building products that change the way people run their business. S