You have done everything within your reach, but the business is still plummeting. You keep re-investing the little finances you are left with, but the business is not making any headway. Bills are piling up, customers are complaining, you keep paying your staff, but you are not making any profit. Something drastic has to be done.
Whether your business is currently vibrant, or you are experiencing what the first paragraph describes, you need to read and keep this article for the sake of reference . The following steps are necessary if you are still interested in doing the same business.
Identify The Problems
No matter how skilled a fighter you are, it is difficult or impossible for you to fight in the darkness especially when your opponent is seeing you. As you engage in the fight and struggle to revive your dying business, you need to get out of the darkness and see what the the problem is. When you identify the things plaguing your business, you will be able to take steps to solve the problem.
Such problems could either be internal or external. It could be as a result of customer dissatisfaction because some of the staff are carefree in the way they talk to and treat them. It could also be because of governmental regulations that may be strangling life out of your business. What is more, the problem could be because your competition is working more to improve on their product and services while you and your teams are sleeping.
Whatever the problem is, do a scientific research to be sure and take steps to tackle the problem accordingly. While some problems are so obvious that you may not need a scientific research before determining their cause, it is important to adopt the scientific method so that you will not be treating headache when sore throat is actually the problem. Scientific research will not just tell you the problem, it will tell you the cause of the problem and recommend ways through which such problems can be tackled scientifically.
Strategise to Beat Competition
In the background, try to be as stealthy as possible to see what competition, or others are doing to maximize profit for their organization. Here you may need to bend, (not break) the rules of ethics and dig deep to get information beyond what is obtainable on the streets. Even if it means talking to an employee working with such opponent after assuring him or her of confidentiality.
It may surprise you that what they are doing is commonplace, it is what you can simply need to apply to get your business going. Are they using advert copy that people identify with easily? Use yours too. Is their product relatively cheaper? Is their customer service and after sales service better? Is the pricing okay and cheaper? Is their distribution network effective and better than yours? As you find answers to these questions, your aim is not just answering them so that you can do what they are doing, your aim is to do better to beat them.
Solve the CCC
CCC here stands for Consistent Customer Complaints. Now that you have done scientific research, you will be able to identify a thread running across the responses given by your customers. It is the most common and general complaints they give about your products and services. Such complaints may be more than one, but it consists of what most of your customers will like you to do away with if you still want to get their patronage and loyalty eventually.
If you have not identified this or these complaints, you are not ready to revive your business. If you have been able to pinpoint the problems however, take drastic steps to find solutions to them. Even if it means getting additional loan to get the problems resolved, get the loan. If you do not, you may end up losing your means livelihood and respect.
Reshuffle or Change Staff
Here, you are supposed to do away with sentiments as emotions will not put food on your table. Many times, poor performance on the part of your employee and bad customer relations has contributed to loss of customers and loss of revenue for you. There are staff too who have started well as dedicated, but eventually, their zeal wanes and they get to do shoddy work, thus killing your business slowly. To revive your business, it is time you identify such ones and replace them.
Sometimes, all that is expected of you is to reshuffle and swap your staff from one department to the other. Some have become less productive because they have been doing the same thing over and over. Such ones may prove to be more productive when they go to other departments.
Introduce a Better Offer
As noted earlier, many factors could be responsible for your losing customer and sales. If there is one major move that can make them running back to you however, it is offering a better offer than that of competition. This is not limited to one thing. It could be a better price, a better delivery system, a better after sales service. It could also be a temporary offer such as a bonus for every one or two purchases. It could be a sales bonanza that will make them run to you because of the other things that they stand to win when they buy from you.
Introducing a better offer will not only make them forgive you, it will make them forget what you have done to err them initially. While they attach importance to quality production, customers can sometimes throw loyalty to the wind if they see another competitor offering something better. The profit you will accrue may not be much, but the turnover will be high and the lost customers will be regained.
Re-brand
Re-branding involves giving your work and that of your organization a totally different outlook. The steps we have explained above will go a long way to help you re-brand the image and name of your organization, but you also need physical re-branding too to complement the image re-branding. You can overhaul the outlook of your organization by redesigning your logo, by changing your corporate color, and by repainting your office or offices.
Such re-branding should be made visible in all you do; the documents you use, your company's vehicles, and if your staff wear uniform, it should be made obvious there too. After doing this you must also make advertisement via the mass media to inform the world that you have not just changed your outlook, you have changed your way of service as well. That you have become more committed.
Irrespective of the amount spent re-branding, introducing a better offer, changing staff, solving customer complaints, or strategising to beat competition, it will be worth the effort as you watch your business renewed and get stronger.
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