At diamond, we’re all about Shared Success.
We do what we do because we care about our clients. When you grow, we grow – happy days. But it’s not just really great service that we offer, we share our tips on running a successful business to help you progress. See our four facts for success:
Inside your business:
- Responsibility and accountability
In an SME, there may only be two or three of you! You don’t have a load of directors, managers, or operatives; it’s just you and perhaps one or two others. The danger in the scenario, particularly when it’s all new and everyone is enthusiastic, is that everyone does a bit of everything and you all end up just doing the bits you like and kind of hope that one of the others will do the bits you don’t like so much.
Let me make this very clear right now, this is the perfect recipe for disaster.
Even if there’s only two or three of you, you will need to start as you mean to carry on. You’re building a company based on roles and tasks – not just the people that you have in your company right now and what they like doing. The need to maps out who your company needs to be a success. Then you need to fill in who is responsible for what, and who is accountable to who. Seeing as there are more roles than you currently have people in your business, it means that most of you will have multiple hats to wear – welcome to the wonderful world of the SME!
- What’s your USP?
For diamond, it’s our unique three services offering: diamondsameday, diamondovernight&international and diamondfulfillment.
We also cater for the growing eCommerce industry and are the only franchise that does that. That’s huge. It works because we looked at the wider opportunity. You need to do the same for your business. Your USP is essential because that gives the ‘fact’ as to why customers should come to you, over your competitors. Think about your business niche. It’s helpful to imagine it in ‘real terms’. For diamond, we think about a three-legged milking stool, if one of the services weren’t there it’ll be totally useless. You need to apply that same concept to what you are offering. Is everything essential? Are there bits that don’t actually fit? It’s a good way to think.
Outside of your business:
- Lead Sourcing
Your business success depends all importantly on winning and maintaining clients. So a concentrated effort of lead sourcing is SO important. There are two types: proactive and reactive.
Proactive means that you initiate contact, i.e. by making a cold call. Reactive means they react to something they’ve seen about you and they initiate contact i.e. they call or email you.
The key to success is a combination. Making sure you do the hard stuff and are getting in front of people. But also, that your brand has an identity and that people actually WANT to talk to you. Because, after all, you know that you’re great. It’s just a matter of getting other people to see it in the same way.
Which is better, proactive or reactive? Whilst it is not necessarily a case of only taking one or the other approach, in our experience the effectiveness of something is generally proportionate to the amount of effort involved. Which means for example that it’s really easy to put a message in front of 10,000 people by putting an advert in the paper (reactive) and wait for the phone to ring, however the reality is that you’ll be waiting an awfully long time! Conversely, picking the phone up 10,000 times (proactive) and calling the list, asking them whether or not they use the service you provide is a lot more effort, but you’ll be immediately rewarded by initiating many more dialogues. The more people you speak to, the more sales you make.
At diamond we LOVE reaching out to potential clients in fun ways. We like to think outside the box. About what new clients want and how they will respond to our messaging. A little goes a long way when it comes to marketing.
- Qualify your customer
Your time is precious. Don’t ever forget that. You work hard for your business to run successfully. And that means that you probably hate time wasters. When you get in front of a customer, it’s great. But are they RIGHT for you? Before you kick off your sales approach, think about some key qualifiers. Think about whether you have a client requirement. Are you talking to the right person? Your leads need to be strong, there is no use speaking to someone that’s not the decision maker. You cannot rely on them doing the sale for you. You need to show off to the correct person.
At diamond, we’re all about mutually beneficial partnerships and that’s why we are so invested in our clients’ success. Keep checking back on our blogs for more useful tips on running a business. And in the meantime, don’t forget that you can use any three of our services: sameday, overnight&international and fulfilment.
