Business doesn’t wait. Neither should you.

Business is more competitive and cutthroat than ever…

Small businesses need every possible advantage against their competitors. Starting a business drops you into a bloody battlefield where the winners take home wealth and freedom and the sidelines are strewn with the remnants of failed businesses.

Most of us can’t afford to struggle for 5 years before making their business profitable. Having a great idea isn’t enough. You need to execute it quickly and effectively.

You do have a game plan, right? I’ve worked with many clients who didn’t have a concrete strategy for developing their business and it set them back years. When I consult with new clients I ask them a few questions and don’t move forward until they give me answers.

It goes something like this, “So tell me about your business plan. Who are your clients, how will you reach them and how will you effectively manage your entire business?”

Cue a blank look and crickets chirping. Ouch…

How about you? What are your answers?

1. Who are your clients? (‘Everybody’ is usually not an acceptable answer.)

2. How will you reach them?

3. How will you manage your business?

This article will focus primarily on effectively managing your business. Specifically, strategies to create an agile, responsive, highly profitable small business with fiercely loyal customers.

Why should business management be a priority?

1. Most small businesses have limited resources and by streamlining their operations and making their business as efficient as possible they make the most of what they have and give themselves strong competitive advantages.

2. Most customers are willing to pay more for better service. On the other hand, if your customer feels neglected or dissatisfied with the quality of your services your competitors are a click or call away.

3. To avoid floundering, you need the information to create fast, informed business decisions. When you go on a trip you use a map or GPS so why wouldn’t you do that with your business with infinitely more at stake?

4. A well designed business management system includes risk mitigation tools to protect your business and ensure that unforeseen disasters don’t put you out of business.

Business happens fast. Don’t get left behind.

By integrating all of your crucial business systems into one platform that shares information between components, Affinity saves time, provides more relevant data and streamlines repetitive tasks and data entry.

Microsoft Office isn’t enough for running your business. It’s slow, inefficient and makes your business vulnerable to data loss, theft, viruses and other unexpected disasters.

Is your entire business process a smooth, integrated cycle? Or do you have to import/export data between applications?

Winning Customer Loyalty

Customers want to be loyal. After choosing to do business with you they don’t want to waste time looking for someone to replace you. Most satisfied customers won’t jump ship just because a competitor offers a slightly lower price.

The problem is when your customers aren’t happy. Do you follow up with your customers and gather their feedback so you can gauge the quality of service your company is providing? You should.

Honestly, the easiest way to manage your customers is to implement a customer relationship management system and strategy. It doesn’t matter who the vendor is so long as it’s a moderately capable system that gives you the information that you need.

A Faster, More Efficient Way to do Business

ERP or Enterprise Resource Planning is an umbrella term for an integrated collection of tools that interact and share data with each other. Typically it has been the type of system that only larger companies benefit from with price being incredibly prohibitive for smaller organizations, but that’s been changing in the last few years.

Some vendors are creating streamlined systems that are focused on the needs of small businesses and providing cloud based business management platforms that are affordable and extremely powerful, giving small businesses a convenient way to manage most of their needs in one place.

This type of integrated system offers significant benefits to nearly every part of your business including divisions like management, sales, marketing and intangibles like disaster prevention and security.

ERP systems are no longer out of reach for small businesses.