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Management Practices & Procedures |
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Tuesday, 18 March 2008 |
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Make sure you address each of the following key areas as your business grows, otherwise it will become extremely difficult to manage once you have staff, more customers to manage, higher revenue and profit targets, and more priorities to manage and set. Sales - A top priority for any business in growth mode. Face to face selling, telemarketing, sales through agents or distributors will build your network, generate leads, and ultimately result in revenue. Sell, sell, sell!
- If you don’t feel comfortable selling, then pair up with someone who does. It may be a business partner, or commission agent, contract salesperson, or telesales organisation.
- Track your sales efforts and follow up. If people are interested in your products or services, or want more information, or are expecting you to call them back, then do so. A lost opportunity is just that, but it is also bad for your reputation as a professional.
- Make sure you can deliver.
- Use templates for your database, for tracking sales, doing forecasts, and reporting weekly sales activity for a team. If it’s organised it’s easier to manage.
Marketing - Refer to point 1 of this article.
- Use templates, record your marketing activities, record outcomes to measure effectiveness.
- Use document templates where you can, and develop a schedule of activities for the year ahead.
- Have a well thought through plan. Prioritise and stay focused!
Goals & planning - Know what your big picture is.
- Have a vision of where you’re going and where you want to be.
- Set realistic, memorable and achievable goals
- Break down the big picture into achievable components – the next week, month etc
- Follow up and track your performance – if you don’t achieve your goals, what are you doing?
People management - Get it right from the beginning.
- Recruitment is critical in attracting and retaining the right people. Pay attention to the process.
- Have an induction program for new people. Don’t just let them try and work it all out for themselves. Help them become productive quickly. That makes everyone happy.
- Manage their performance and their development. Provide performance reviews, and appropriate development training when required. Provide feedback. Encourage and support.
Systems & Processes - Document your processes wherever possible.
- This doesn’t happen overnight but it is an extremely worthwhile exercise. It helps organise the business, makes it operate more efficiently, and makes it easier for you to start removing yourself from day to day operations as the business grows.
- Start anywhere, such as HR for example – how you recruit, induct, review and manage your staff can all be systemised and documented for easy reference by you and by your staff.
- A well-organised business has more value to potential buyers, investors, business partners. It’s also easier to work in!
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Last Updated ( Monday, 30 June 2008 )
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