Work Hard at Working Smart
In business knowing what to do is critical. Knowing what and how to do — or how to get it done for you — is even more important. Companies live by action, die by the lack of it, and thrive by taking the right actions.
Here are three profit-creating ideas to Work Smart on. Now, step into your smartypants shoes and I’ll guide you toward evaluating just how smart you’re working everyday…
1. Do your goals exceed today’s performance?
2. What is the most common customer complaint turned over to you or staff?
3. How are you next going to be seen in your community — how will your clients, customers, or potential business opportunities next going to see your in their lives?
Let’s get a little smarter by digging a little deeper into each of these points.
WHY YOU MUST SET THE BAR HIGHER
1. The winners keep on winning because they continue to score goals. Here’s the thing: You will take action to strike the ball according to the demands of your goals.
If you are not seeing beyond “I have to work hard and hustle to pay the bills”, your energy will feel used up after you hit that, admittedly important, but very low bar. If you are currently having trouble meeting the income you need to pay your bills and be comfortable, setting such a low goal is also hurting your ability to reach break-even! With a low goal, you aren’t challenged to be your absolute best.
Whether you’re paying and exceeding your basic budgetary needs or you’re striving to get to break-even again, what you will really benefit from is goal setting that will take you above and beyond!
2. Taking care of customers you have brought into the business is essential. Compared to getting a new buyer, its much less expensive to take care of the ones you have. One smart practice is to take every reasonable step you can in order to take care of customer complaints. I’m going to tell you how to evolve you and your staff’s ability to successfully resolve customer complaints. Let’s keep our people happy.
HOW TO SOLVE COMPLAINTS
The first step is to figure out what your customers are complaining about. This works whether you are a solo operator or if you have staff. Make a meeting happen and ensure it won’t be interrupted. You’ll need about 30 minutes. Explain to your staff that resolving customer complaints is critical to having the most happy customers possible, a great reputation in the community, and ensuring the future of the business. Creating more happy customers also means less stress on the job.
Next, give everyone a sheet of paper and something to write with. You’re going get the best information if you ask everyone to write down the complaints they most frequently get from customers.
Tell the staff members you’re going to share these complaints and figure out how to solve them together in just a few minutes, so please put the complaints onto paper and don’t speak of them just yet.
After a few minutes, collect all of the complaints. Now, go through each sheet of paper collected and on a clipboard or whiteboard, preferably where everyone can see, ask how you can solve these complaints. Get ideas from the group and write them down.
You will get better solutions together than you will trying to brainstorm this all alone.
Finally, after the meeting, create a list of things your staff can do to resolve the complaints you were offered.
Doing this will empower your employees, making them happier, resolve more customer complaints, making them happier, and reduce the number of complaints that need to be elevated to a manger, making your manager and you happier. Everyone wins.
TOP-OF-MIND AWARENESS BRINGS YOU SUCCESS
3. Be present among your buyers. Do you reach them with direct mail? Do you email them even when they haven’t been around for a while? Do you show up at trade shows and create an interesting and exciting presence with a themed booth or parties? Can you make calls to past clients to check on how their product is performing? Do you have great signage at your storefront so you’re easy to locate? Are you supporting an upcoming charity event and getting your name out there? Do you have a billboard or five? Are you in the newspaper?
Are you staying in everyone’s awareness — “Hey, I’m here for you! These are the great things I can do for you!” — or are you selling yourself short by staying hidden, being cheap about taking care to be present in the community, and being falsely humble by refusing to promote what you can do for people? Thou Shalt Not Self-Promote is certainly not one of the Ten Commandments!
The three concepts we covered here are worthy of review. Do the Hard Work part of Working Smart and you can multiply your success. Get working on each of these. Delegate what you can, outsource what you need to, and grow your business income today.
Terren Faloh
www.TopDirectMarketing.com - Check out my marketing agency. I’ll serve you with consultation and match your needs to my portfolio leveraging other local providers products include video production, direct mail, online marketing, expert advice and much more.
