Map out your current process for delivering your products or services
One of the most common activities for any operations consultant is to develop a baseline. A baseline is the current state of anything you are looking to evaluate. Understanding where you are as a business is an essential part to uncovering where you need to go.
Take time to outline each unique process that you use to deliver on your products and services. Make sure to include:
- A description of the activity
- Who is responsible for each activity in the process
- How the activity is handed off to the each employee in the process
Outline the roles and responsibilities for each position at your organization
Hiring motivated hardworking employees isn’t enough. The best companies are able to separate their employees from the roles that they fill internally within the organization. The better you can define each job function within your company, the better you are able to outline success criteria for the employees who fulfill these roles.
Spend considerable time thinking about each job at your company and determine:
- What the ongoing responsibilities are for the role
- What key traits you look for within the position (ex. attention to detail, financial background)
- What success looks like in this role
Remember if you don’t know what success looks like in one of your job functions, then neither does the employee fulfilling the role.
Define your value propositions
What makes you better than your competitors?
If you can’t answer this question, you need to define your value proposition quickly or you will always struggle to grow your business. No one ever chose a company because they were most like everyone else. People want to work with businesses that bring unique value to their needs.
Think about your clients. What are the reasons they give for choosing your business? This is a great place to start and from here, you can start using these x-factors in your next sales meeting.
Define your target clients, and how you plan to let them know about your business
If you market to everyone, you market to no-one.
Our goal is to find the clients who most need our services and appreciate the additional value we provide. That’s the essence of marketing.
Understanding how your audience can benefit from your product or service should be the foundation of your sales strategy. By better understanding your target clients, you can optimize where to advertise and what message resonates with your audience. This not only saves money but drastically increases conversions.
The better you understand your target customer, the easier sales strategy becomes.
Find out what you’re clients are saying about you
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if you think your business is running efficiently, it’s all about what your customers think. They are the ones that will keep you in business and help you grow your bottom line. This information is important as it can help you adjust elements of your business strategy.
No two clients will have the same experience, so your role is to be curious and search for themes from a larger subset of clients. Did half of your interviewed clients say they love your reordering process? Have you received feedback about a confusing customer service process?
Listen when your customers are talking; they can give you pivotal information about how to help your business be more successful.