I see people everyday that are operating businesses in Gladstone – some doing extremely well and some not so good. What often confounds business owners is why their efforts aren’t yielding the past good results. Often it’s not the effort that’s the problem – it’s the thinking. People still often believe that yesterday’s strategies will yield tomorrow’s results.
Business’ whose sales are flat lining or tanking need to refresh their tactics otherwise they cannot expect their businesses to grow. Things have changed dramatically and recently I sat down with a long standing Gladstone Business owner and discussed the changes in their business that had kept it going since the mid ‘80’s.
We discussed the fact that selling services today have changed considerably. Once - 85% of his sales came from the yellow pages. This he found had reduced to less the 15% and half of that was “yellow Pages” online. Today customers are buying directly off the website. They are texting his mobile from the website using Smartphone’s; sending emails. He has had to have a constant eye on the emails and be flexible to ring people as soon as possible after they send the email. They request quotes off the internet. The speed of his site is now a priority when updating it. This, from a couple who 12 years ago considered themselves as computer illiterates!
When sales were dropping in the late ‘90’s early 00’s, they started to consider whether they should close their business. They sat down with their advisory team and adopted a completely new bunch of strategies.
They started to look at each area of their business and determine how they could refresh their services. They even timed how long it took to do things; they monitored and rated their customers’ experience. This assisted in fixing issues promptly and improving customer satisfaction levels.
The other major issue they took on was determining what their culture was. They had a “Team Culture” day which helped establish the business’ culture. What it meant to be an employee; what it meant to be respected and what the business meant to their community. The staff immediately improved their output as they felt the owners were listening to their concerns and acting on them. Mind you some employees resigned as well. This was a good thing – it meant the ones who stayed wanted to work there.
Overall business has grown at an average rate of 8% since 1986. Overall they believe that business owners need to consider whether a few small tweaks are required to tune up your business or is it time for a complete makeover?
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