Running a successful business is never a result of a single good business decision. There are a lot of good things that help set your business on the right path, and you need the patience to see this path through to the end. Still, what are these “good” business decisions? Well, they arise every day, new and unique. Still, some major decisions might help you out quite a bit.
Here are the top 7 business decisions worth keeping in mind:
1. Let people work from home
Just think about what you’re gaining by making people work from an office. Let’s face it: you have no reliable way of ensuring people work. You can either trust them or measure their results.
This means that you don’t have to have people in the office, and you don’t have to have people work fixed hours. You can’t just stand behind their back and watch over their shoulder at their monitor. This is intrusive, builds up their anxiety (making them less productive), and you can only look at one monitor at a time.
In other words, you have no choice but to trust your staff. They need to want to work; if they don’t, you can only figure it out (eventually) and replace them with someone else. Productivity is always a personal choice, regardless of the conditions you provide it with.
However, letting them work from home will make it more convenient for them and reduce the talent abandonment rate.
2. Get CRM software
Now that we’ve discussed improving relationships with your staff, let’s delve into the second crucial aspect of your business – making customer relationships a priority in your business decisions. The best way to do so is via CRM software. There are many popular CRM apps; you only have to pick one that meets your enterprise’s needs.
The CRM gathers all the data regarding your customers, but it goes even further than that. It centralizes them and makes them all available to you on demand. Imagine making informed business decisions while having all the notes about your customers’ personalities, profiles, and histories, as well as a list of their preferences. How much easier would that process become? Well, using CRM for this purpose is just that.
This is a method that marketers, salespeople, and strategists have already used; it’s simpler, more accessible, and more effective. Data analysis and reporting are also a lot easier, which makes it simpler to streamline all these processes.
3. Outsource all that you can
Outsourcing is always a good idea. First, it’s a concept that allows you to focus on one main task and avoid making your business structure more complicated than it should be.
Second, outsourcing saves time. To start your department, you must hire, onboard, train, organize, equip, and wait for the department to start working as a team. Even then, their productivity won’t be as high as that of a professional agency. Sure, it will eventually get there, but do you have the time to wait? With outsourcing, you make an arrangement, and the work starts immediately.
You should especially outsource high-skill tasks, like web development since these departments will be even more difficult (and costlier) to establish.
Also, remember that outsourcing is quite scalable. You can switch to a more expensive plan or expand your deal when your business grows. When you grow your team, things get more complicated. You must consider finding the right specialist with the right cultural fit. Overall, it’s a lot of trouble that you can just skip.
4. Set a bigger marketing budget
In most guides, tips like “set aside 10% of your average annual revenue for marketing are included.” The problem is that 10% is an arbitrary number. It’s more of an average number. The thing is, you want a bigger marketing budget if your field is more competitive. In some fields, even 20–50% of the average annual revenue is not too much for marketing.
You can make social media posts for free, but advertising is much more effective.
There are so many great DIY SEO things you could try out on paper. Still, the results will never be even close to what they are with a professional SEO, not to mention the importance of PPC and how it can improve your digital marketing (and even your SEO).
Quality video marketing is a costly affair. Still, it will drive your sales, traffic, and every relevant metric.
Then, you may want to sponsor a local event or engage in some other similar activity. This requires an investment, and a hefty budget is the way to go.
5. Diversify your revenue
There’s a massive fallacy among investors: they regret not committing more resources to their best-seller or their most profitable investment. The problem with this theory lies in the facts that:
- You don’t know the outcomes in advance
- Things are not over yet
Your best-selling product could eventually become completely outdated, impacting not only your revenue but also your overall business decisions. If you don’t believe this could happen, just think about some incredibly lucrative items that are no longer factors in our lives. Manufacturers of typewriters must have drowned in cash at one point, but the evolution of technology made their business decisions crucial. So did the manufacturers of CDs, whose downfall emphasized the need for strategic business decisions to adapt to changing times.
The key to resilience lies in your diversification and your ability to pivot in response to market shifts. For instance, Wilkinson Sword, initially a famous swordmaker in the 18th century, made the strategic business decision to pivot to razors, ensuring the company’s continued thriving presence. While you may think it’s still early for you to pivot, considering the impact of changing trends on business decisions is vital as, eventually, it may be your only way out to ensure sustained success.
6. Continuously assess, measure, and test
The worst thing you can do is assume that just because things are going great, they will continue this way indefinitely. Nothing could be further from the truth. This would be like assuming your relationship is ironclad because the first few weeks are perfect.
In reality, things usually work… until they don’t. The sooner you notice this, the better. Ensure you measure everything, analyze available data (you have amazing AI-powered tools), and keep track of everything happening. Keep historical data and assess how well things have been going for your enterprise.
Also, even if things are working fine, you’ll still have to introduce some changes from time to time. This is why it’s so important that you practice A/B testing in whatever you do. This way, you’ll always get a better answer to your questions.
Tracking and adjusting to change is a big part of the answer to why some businesses make it and others don’t.
7. Reduce your workload
You are the most important person in your enterprise, but you can’t do much if you are burned out. So, how do you stop yourself from burning out? There are a few things you should try. First, you need to start delegating. Hire an assistant or a virtual assistant to help you out and give your employees more autonomy/responsibility.
Second, you must consider how far technology (especially AI-powered tools) has advanced. Perhaps the solution to your problem lies in automation.
Most importantly, you need to learn how to say no. Sure, rejecting new clients sounds like a bad business practice, but accepting projects you know you can’t complete (at least not successfully) is even worse. You’ll already make a world of difference by just learning how to say no.
8. Always look at the bigger picture
When making important business decisions, much like painting a landscape, you never begin with the details. Instead, you start by creating the horizon, meadow, treeline, and creek – the foundational elements. Afterward, you enhance each of these segments. Similarly, by prioritizing your employees, customers, and yourself, you’ll effectively address your business’s most crucial human aspects. Once these are in place, the next step involves diversifying your revenue streams and ensuring your business is well-prepared for whatever challenges and opportunities lie ahead. These seven tips can assist you in achieving these goals.
