Developing your business

Where to start? No matter what your service or product, you’re going to need an online presence. You may have already budgeted for new signage, updated branding or signed up to exhibit your wares later on this year? Maybe, you’ve installed ‘Covid-Safe’ work areas for staff and clear signage for customers to feel safe? However, the lack of proper attention to your online offering is like flying a plane with only one engine and acting like there’s no possible way that things could be better.

It might have crossed your mind to outsource help or employ extra staff. Designers, programmers, writers etc? This might be a start, but you need to start thinking more medium term. No matter how new your business, you need to prepare for the future and how you plan for the next level.

Marketing agency support that delivers

You may not have the budget to hire an in-house marketing team with years of experience and bags of knowledge on how to sell your business. Even if you do have the budget, maintaining an in-house team has the potential to become a foolishly costly expense. What you need is a marketing agency. In exchange for a monthly fee, expert marketing staff will deliver unbeatable results in terms of driving traffic and revenue. Except, what if they don’t? Perhaps you’ve tried a marketing agency previously and found the outcomes to be little more than a drain on your budget.

How to choose the right agency for your business? Consider the following points so you can navigate the options with huge rewards:

What is the agency’s process?
Has the agency researched your competition?
Has the agency gathered evidence in support of the costed proposal?
Can the agency demonstrate processes and outcomes through past results?
Are the rates fair in comparison to competitors that demonstrate similar results?
Have you made enough capital allowances to invest to meet the targets you are setting?

Invest in your staff

Your staff doesn’t become complacent at performing all tasks they were hired to do. They become pigeonholed. They become so specialised and irreplaceable at performing certain tasks within your business processes that it no longer makes sense to waste their time on anything but a few high-value tasks that they know how to do so well. The only problem is that this stagnates the workforce, preventing innovation. Investing in your workforce remains engaged with working practices, helping to develop new and possibly money-saving strategies that can be taught to new employees – which also gives an incentive for industry professionals to seek employment with your company.

Pay attention to the 20/60/20 rule

You may have heard of the 20/60/20 rule before, but if you have failed to implement the benefits of how the rule applies to your workforce, you are missing a trick. You see, the rule simply states that 20% of the workforce will support you, 60% are indifferent, and 20% are against your business direction. Each cross-section of your workforce must be handled appropriately in order to develop a fledgling business into a workplace that retains staff, instead of falling into the hire and fire spiral of despair. Take the time to understand the 20/60/20 rule and reap the benefits of appropriate employee management.

If you need help with taking your business to another level or just a chat about getting back to business through these difficult times, give us a call on 01422 254312 or visit www.fivetalents.co.uk