Three Small Biz Tips You Can Digest In Three Minutes
My advice after three years in small business
The first time I wrote a piece on small business was three years ago, so I thought it timely and useful to congest what I’ve learned during that period into an easy-to-read Instant Ramen version of a guide article. Here are three important things to keep in mind as a small business owner and/or employee, digestible within three minutes!
1) Sweat the small stuff.
Success is in the details, and if you’re overlooking the minutiae of your business then you could be hurting your bottom line. “The little things” are oftentimes what customers notice, so do your best not to skimp out on that quality touch when you can afford it.
For instance, product price tags go a long way in helping (and persuading) your visitors save time while they shop. This applies both in-person and online; someone who needs to go the extra mile to inquire about pricing may decide to pass altogether.
Instead, YOU go the extra mile. Tag your merch and save your customers the trouble—the happier they are, the happier you are. Brainstorm other small things you might be ignoring and polish them up!
2) Scale smartly… and with CAUTION.
Any optimistic business, no matter the size, should always be looking to scale. Whether it’s expanding your business as a whole or focusing on the small picture and scaling specific individual components, McSupersizing your endeavor will increase profit… right?
Well, not exactly. The bigger something is—the harder it falls, so the saying goes. Remember that growing your operation also inflates the costs of running it!
Opening a new pop-up location in the corner of the neighborhood-warehouse-turned-permanent-flea-market to complement your lucrative online store? Think it over, run the numbers, carry out market research and think on it once more.
That potential top-line growth you’ve been yearning for could pull the rug out from underneath you and add cumbersome kinks in your master plan.
3) Don’t force improvements—reward them!
This one needs somewhat of a backstory: here at the art gallery where I currently work, our team is tasked with deliberating and fulfilling “minor improvements” which would contribute to the betterment of the overall business.
For example, installing cord organizers to keep our desk areas tidy qualifies as an improvement (I seem to have a penchant for velcro). Each team member contributes their own ideas and follows through to implementation; it’s a neat workplace system, but it doesn’t come without its hiccups…
Before we refined it, our minor improvement system ran on a mandatory daily schedule. It was only a matter of time before we ran out of things to fix, and at that point the team began to dilly-dally, effectively wasting time rather than saving it. To improve our improvement system, we improvised: the team switched from daily enhancements to weekly ones, and now they’re even less frequent.
But when any one of us is struck with a new idea, we’ll bring it forward and collaborate on realizing the improvement (hey boss: if you’re reading this, rewards for actualized applications would be a fun bonus).
When your team isn’t forced to provide results—but rather incentivized to perform well with the possibility of reward—overall morale in the workspace can experience a boost in attitude, energy and motivation.
There you have it. Three years, three tips, three minutes. Insert obligatory hashtag here: #ShopSmall
