3 Reasons to Tweak our Businesses

Around 20% of businesses fail in the first 12 months of opening, a further 10% will fail in the next 2 years and then another 20% in the next 3 years.  It takes enormous, bravery, resilience, hard work and resources to get a business operational so becoming a statistic would be crushing.  It is wise for all business owners/operators to make regular tweaks to their operations to gain market share and improve business resilience.    

 Imagine these scenarios:

1. You are a market leader with good reasonably priced products, your customer service is ok, and your staff don’t complain but you operate with a revolving door of staff in and out.  You’ve come to accept this as the norm. 

What you don’t know is the culture in your business is sick and no one tells you because they have seen others try and fail to get any action.  Bullying goes on right under your nose, but you don’t’ take action because no one’s made a formal complaint so it can’t be that bad.  But no one makes a formal complaint because you don’t take action, so what is the point.

2. You run a reasonably successful business, your employees appear generally happy and your customers are generally satisfied.  You don’t have a high staff turnover, but you notice that they often move on to opportunities that are no better than what they have with you.  You’ve come to accept this. 

What you don’t know is your employees don’t feel secure with you because they don’t know what their KPIs are, they are unclear of the terms of their tenure and different managers give them different instructions and directions.  This is because you haven’t provided Job Descriptions and Policies and management are making up their own rules because they are in the same position as their reports. 

3. You run a small business and your customers love you and talk about you to friends.   Your staff are great with your customers and you have a professional and friendly relationship with them, understanding their personal joys and challenges.  You are constantly reviewing how your business is performing and meeting the needs of your market and you bravely explore new opportunities.  Your team goes the extra mile, and they pull together, welcoming new employees, to support your business vision. 

All this is because you have the business basics in place and your business plan is scalable for market share growth and business resilience. 

These scenarios are accounts of my employee experiences and business 3 is where everyone worked hardest and enjoyed their time the most.  Unsurprisingly the owner made regular tweaks to the business and was proportionately more successful than the others. 

 If you want to explore what tweaks you can make today in your business to grow market share and strengthen your business resilience, we can help you.