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What challenges do you face running a small business? So you’ve owned your business for some time. And you may sometimes feel as if you are falling behind. But other companies make it look so easy, don’t they? Well, prepare for some good news. Don’t worry about keeping up with the competition. Because you can easily learn how. Just make sure you are continually tweaking your business. And find ways to make your team more effective.

How to Improve Your Small Business

Always look for ways to make your organization run more efficiently. Innovation is key if you want to succeed. This post will provide you with some practical tips that will make it easier to improve how your business functions.

Make Sure Your Workers Are Happy

It’s one of many questions the Global Council for Happiness and Wellbeing (GCHW) set out to answer in the Global Happiness and Wellbeing Policy report 2019, released on the International Day of Happiness.

The council, which is made up of a global network of leading happiness and well-being scientists, collected multiple studies from over the last several years and looked at the findings in aggregate. “Taken together, the evidence very much suggests the answer to the overarching question is “yes” – there is a strong business case for promoting the well-being of workers,” the report found.

Not stopping there, the authors also found a positive correlation between employee well-being and productivity, with evidence suggesting that “a meaningful increase in well-being yields, on average, an increase in productivity of about 10%.”

As you might expect, employee satisfaction has a substantial positive correlation with customer loyalty and a substantial negative correlation with staff turnover, both of which are also reflected in higher profitability.

Drawing on the findings from a case study, the authors found that, at the end of a nine-month experiment with a Chinese firm of 16,000 employees, call center agents who were working from home experienced fewer negative and more positive emotions, less exhaustion, and reported a higher overall life satisfaction compared to call center agents who were working in the office.

Importantly, working from home also led to a 13% increase in performance, of which 9% was due to working more minutes per shift (attributed to fewer breaks and sick days) and 4% due to taking more calls per minute. At the same time, staff turn-over halved.

Become A Master Presenter

A powerful business presentation can help improve your small business’ performance. Start by learning the essentials of a memorable business presentation. These can include delivering an unexpected little pearl of wisdom to captivate your audience. Think Steve Jobs. Much of the success of Apple can be attributed to his ability to present their products in a way that excited consumers.

Being a master presenter can help you forge relationships with other companies, and even woo potential investors. It is also helpful when you need to explain complex concepts to your employees.

Learn How To Sell

A high-return area for business improvement is the sales function. Whether you’re a one-person operation or managing a sales team, you must focus on improving your sales ability. This might be scary for entrepreneurs who do not have a background in sales, but it isn’t as difficult as you might think.

Competent selling involves honing your persuasion abilities over time and learning how to effectively communicate the benefits of your product or service. It also involves knowing who your ideal customer is and how you can solve their problems. When you determine areas where you excel and who needs what you do, you will have a greater sense of vision and purpose.

Learn to Automate

Whether it be sending out pay stubs to employees or sending receipts to vendors, automate whatever you can. “Business automation is not just a luxury; it is a necessity in today’s competitive environment,” says Sathvik Tantry of FormSwift. “Automating monotonous tasks saves your employees time and allows them to do more productive tasks that require critical thinking or a human touch.”

Automation is a handy way to save time and even money because it allows you to focus on other areas of running your business. With today’s technology, there are tons of different functions that can be automated using software. Automate as many tasks as possible – the more you automate, the more time you will have to invest in other areas of your business.

Use Task Management Software

“Email isn’t an ideal method of communication or collaboration on teams,” says Dave Nevogt of Hubstaff. “We use task management software like Trello so that our communication and work progress is all in one place.”

A task management software for designated teams can help everyone work together more efficiently, track progress, and stay on task. “It saves everyone the time of having to go back and forth on emails, and it also lets us track progress more efficiently,” says David.

There are plenty of other task management programs out there; it’s just a matter of making sure you know which one fits your business best. This software provides a central hub where your team can communicate and collaborate on various tasks that must be completed. Using these programs will make it easier to complete your projects and move your company forward.

Always Be Improving

Being a small business owner means always finding novel ways to enhance your business. The companies that fail are the ones that become stagnant, relying on methods that can become dated. Eventually, as their competition becomes more efficient, they leave these businesses behind. Don’t let that happen to you. Use the tips in this article to ensure that you remain ahead of your competition.

Image: Depositphotos.com

This article, “Keeping Up with the Competition Doesn’t Have to Be Hard, Read These 5 Tips” was first published on Small Business Trends