My hack to figuring out what processes, technology, and people you need in your business is to map out your client journey. From awareness (someone seeing your marketing) to them inquiring about your offer to your follow-up system to get them to buy to their purchase to your servicing the offer to offboarding them from the offer.
What does it take to transition from one step to the next? Also, what does it take to complete each step before going to the next step?
To be successful is to take the friction out of your processes. Keep them from being slow, keep them from having unnecessary steps, keep them from costing too much money, keep them from being unnecessarily hard, etc… The well-oiled machine that is big busy creates a gap that small businesses are not always equipped to close. They have more capital to fun problems, processes, and people. What stands in that gap is technology. However, if you aren’t in the know of what technology is out there to fill the gap then that digital divide could cost you the health and growth of your small business. Let’s talk solutions.
All-in-one vs Best in Class. Small business budgets run point on the decisions for what technology is used. This leads to the purchase of a lot of all-in-one technology (technology that has more than one key function). However, there are considerations to be sure the money you are saving is an actual savings. It doesn’t matter that you pay less for one tech that does a lot of things. If the functions aren’t user friendly or the tech doesn’t do all of the things well, then you are paying less only to get less than you need. Whatever the limitations are, should not be counted as a value add. Consider what is the flagship function or what is the company know for doing well and use it for that. Never forget to check the price of using all of the best-in-class versions of what you need. Years ago, I used GetResponse just because for $49 a month I got unlimited landing pages, CRM/email marketing, and webinars. However, my landing pages never connected to the email marketing smoothly. I lost time and always ended up needing customer service. When I switched to Active Campaign, Lead Pages, and Zoom; each were best in class for what they were known for and I had a better user experience for not much more than the cost of GetResponse as an all-in-one.
Web-based + App-based. There are a lot of web-based platforms that have the convenience of the availability of an app version. Such a convenience allows you to work key components of your business in a portable or remote fashion. You can run your business from a phone or tablet. It also allows your clients the same convenience. Such examples are CoachSimple (coaching platform), SuiteDash (onboarding and other functions), Slack (communication), PMS (Asana, Trello, BaseCamp, etc…), and more.
Project Plans. With PMS or project management systems you can lean into better organization to get more things done. You can create a board for managing tasks. This is great for list makers and the forgetful alike. For your linear processes, use the columns of the board to list the tasks for each step of the process. For more complex projects, you can plan the execution of events, marketing campaigns, social media management, etc… The fewer team members that you have, the more structure and process you should have. This is what allows small businesses to do bigger things.
Tech Trends. Stay in the know of technology innovation. Because technology is the great equalizer for small and larger businesses is technology. There are always things being developed that can solve problems and make your business function better and be more competitive but it can’t help if you don’t know it exists. Search and review the year in tech reports from past year. Search and review the tech trends being predicted for the next year. And all through out the year, consult different tech trend sources such as journals, newsletters, and podcasts.
If you would like to explore about tech and your particular business, let’s talk. ShaCannon.info/talk