It might seem odd to suggest you shrink the size of your business down, but it isn’t really. Small businesses are more flexible to market changes and thus far more competitive. They are also likely to whether a storm on the market, be it from a new competitor or a reduced demand for their products. So, how do you shrink the size of your business? Well, there’s lots of ways to start thinking smaller and believe it or not, they will all help your business. Let’s start by thinking about the possibility of getting rid of your office altogether.
Saying Goodbye To The Office
There are some businesses that need offices to function. A law firm would be an example of this type of company, and it’s not that difficult to understand why. For a law firm, face to face meetings will be part of the job. So, it makes sense to work somewhere that these meetings can take place and that clients will understand that they are being handled professionally. That’s a difficult idea to convey if you ask them around to your home for a spot of tea while you handle their harassment case.
However, for other businesses, it’s slightly different. You might be running an ecommerce company online. With an ecommerce company, there is quite frankly no need for any face to face meetings whatsoever. Instead, everything can be handled online or over the phone, and you’ll find that most of your clients are more than happy to do this. You might lose a few by not having a main headquarters for your company. Though of course, these days, you can have your cake and eat it too.
You can run your business from home and still have a main point of focus for your business that clients will see as the home point of your company. We’re talking about a virtual business address. The address can be used as a service. An official place to send a male or to place on marketing but very little else. In some cases, if you have a major client or customer, you should be able to use the office to meet them in the professional type of environment. For the most part, though, it’s just an illusion of grandeur, and that means it’s quite cheap.
Although, this isn’t the only area of your company that will be costing you a fortune.
Handling The Staff
Large businesses often have larger teams of staff which is understandable. There’s more to do and more clients or customers to take care off. But think about how much that large team of staff is adding to your company costs. The short answer is a lot, and a full team could add a sizable amount to your business budget. So, what’s the answer for dealing with this problem? Well, you need to cut your staff numbers right down without losing the quality.
Indeed, some business owners work as solopreneurs. This means that they are the only members of their team and it’s a business model ideally suited for anyone running a company entirely online. You’re probably wondering how they manage to run an entire business by themselves. The answer is quite simple. It’s outsourcing and you can find out more by researching the idea online. The idea behind outsourcing is that you use other companies and teams to complete jobs in your business that you would otherwise hire staff for. Outsourcing is mainly used in expensive areas of the business model. For instance, rather than hiring an HR team, you instead use an HR company. By doing this, you can get the same service without the typically heavy costs of hiring fully trained legal staff.
Of course, outsourcing isn’t the only way you can reduce your staff numbers and shrink down your company. You can also think about automation. Rather than hiring staff, you can use software to complete the same job for a fraction of the cost. The wonders of technology are that rather than hiring an account to complete invoicing for your business, you can get software that will do the job for you. That’s just one example of how some members of your business team have become completely unnecessary.
Assess Your Success
Bigger businesses typically sell a lot of different products and offer various services on the market. You would think that this boosts profit levels dramatically. Though typically, that’s not what happens. Instead, it’s usually found that businesses actually lose money because some products and services are successful and popular while others are not. As such, it isn’t always wise to sell as many different types of product as possible. Instead, you should looking at your business carefully, examining the successes and failures. If you do this, you should find that by focusing on successful areas of your company and reducing production, you actually boost profits. It’s another reason why thinking bigger isn’t always going to be the best answer.
Once you discover what products are successful and desirable to customers you will be honing in on your key target market and demographics that are interested in your company. Once you recognise these key individuals, you should be able to sell to them directly. As you do this, you will discover more about what they want from your company, introducing new products and services that will be successful.
Simple Marketing Can Be Effective.
Finally, it’s worth considering how you’re promoting your business. Large companies tend to go all out with marketing. They will look for ways to send their marketing viral, and that’s useful if you’re selling to an international audience. Small companies have a very specific customer base, often situated in a certain geographical area. As such, viral promotion isn’t as important and going viral is always going to be expensive. There’s no such thing as free marketing, no matter what people might tell you. There is, however, such a thing as cheap marketing and that’s what you should be focusing on. Example? How about promoting your company by interacting with clients through social media. Marketing costs will be low, but if you take the right steps, the results will speak for themselves.
