At times, being a business owner can be challenging. You need to keep your staff happy, meet revenue targets, juggle the finances, and a whole lot more. Even for experienced managers, it can be very demanding.
When you start to enter this territory, it’s important to adopt new strategies and ideas to avoid falling behind. Doing this will enable you to breathe new life into your business and make some much-needed improvements.
The important question, though, is this: where do you start?
From HR management to sales, there’s a ton of business functions to cover. Therefore, this guide is going to give you an encouraging nudge in the right direction by providing you with 5 budget-friendly tips. Yep, that’s right – you won’t need to splash the cash too much with these tips.
Let’s begin.
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Outsource your HR
Nowadays, most major businesses are outsourcing.
In case you don’t know, outsourcing is when one company hires another company to complete activities for them. Here are some examples of what you can outsource:
- Human resources
- Web design
- Accounting
- Social media marketing
- Shipping and logistics
In terms of priority, HR should be your number one for outsourcing. After all, a whopping 50% of big businesses now outsource their HR functions!
Your HR department is critical to keeping your company safe and your employees satisfied. However, it is often very expensive and complicated, which is why so many businesses (particularly small businesses) struggle to cope with it.
Therefore, it’s a genius idea to remove the stress of HR from your business by outsourcing it to experts. All you need to do is learn more here. All the important boxes will be ticked from employee support to compliance and training!
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Start selling online
If you aren’t already selling your products online, you’re way behind the times.
It’s the 21st century, almost every person on the planet is buying products through the internet.
Want to know some interesting facts?
In 2020, over 2 billion people purchased goods or services online. Plus, e-retail sales surpassed 4.2 trillion U.S. dollars worldwide during the same year. If that doesn’t blow your mind, nothing ever will!
Therefore, it’s time for your business to join in the party and start upping your sales online. Here’s what to do:
- Add an e-commerce platform to your existing website
- Start selling through online retailers such as Amazon and eBay
- Make a Shopify account
- Use social media to promote and sell your products (which you can do via Facebook Marketplace)
Let’s face it; shopping in-person no longer has the pull that it used to have. Nowadays, people want the fun and convenience of shopping in their pajamas from the comfort of their bedrooms instead of having to drive to the mall and walk around each store. Ebay is a great platform to use to promote your product. If you are currently scouting for the trending items to sell, you can use this keyword “eBay Best Sellers” to identify the best products to sell.
So, no matter what type of products or services you sell – whether you’re in the healthcare or telecommunications industry – you need to establish your business online. Otherwise, you’re going to struggle: it’s a fact.
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Use social media influencers
If you’re a modern brand looking to grow your audience, social media influencers are a great tool to use. Naturally, if you’re on a budget, you will need to use a small or micro-influencer, which is an influencer with 3000 to 100,000 followers on Instagram.
By collaborating with a micro-influencer, they will be able to promote your brand to their followers and encourage them to buy your products. They will also include links to your website and other resources through useful call-to-actions.
However, the key is to choose an influencer whose audience your products will appeal to. For example, if you’re a skincare company looking to reach teenagers and young adults, your best option is to hire an influencer with followers matching this demographic.
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Conduct employee appraisals
Employee appraisals are a great way to give your team a boost and push them in the right direction moving forward. In your appraisals (which should be done once or twice a year), you need to summarize each employee’s past and present performances and tell them what you expect in the future. It’s also helpful to set them goals to reach. For example, you could set your sales team certain numbers you want them to reach in the next calendar year.
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Collect customer feedback
Collecting customer feedback is low-cost yet incredibly effective. It sheds light on what you’ve been doing right and what you’ve been doing wrong, enabling you to make smart improvements. You can collect feedback in various ways, such as through your website and social media pages through short surveys.