Success, as an entrepreneur and business owner, hinges on your ability to maximize your efficiency and make doing business with you easy. Unfortunately, there are a number of entrepreneurs and small business owners who make life painful for themselves due to lack of business tools. They also make doing business with them painful for potential clients.
We explored five major operational areas that every entrepreneur should incorporate in (Part 1) Entrepreneurs: How to Systemize Your Business.
The following is a continuation of the key areas every entrepreneur needs to incorporate and systemize:
6. Online Appointment System (service-based businesses) – Do you enjoy calling and pursuing every lead you receive? What if you were able to reduce your effort by 25%? Try incorporating an automated process flow with an option to book appointments with you using an online application. Imagine waking up tomorrow morning with notifications of newly booked appointments that occurred while you were asleep?
There are potential customers who are savvy and comfortable with perusing your website or sales page, obtaining the information they desire, and making the decision to book an appointment with you. Options like TimeTrade and AppointmentCore can assist you with automating your appointment set up.
7. E-commerce Software – Similar to the online appointment service, you can eliminate a measurable percentage of your labor by offering customers the option to do unassisted business with you online. The days of manually taking all of your orders should be in the past. There are entrepreneurs all over the world who are making a living by selling products and services online. E-commerce software allows you to sell products and services online using your website, sales pages or other virtual alternatives.
E-commerce software offers your customers the ability to do business with you 24-7. Imagine receiving an after-hours notification that someone has made a purchase on your website? It is one of the most exciting business experiences an entrepreneur will have. I remember my first online notification for $79. It changed my perspective on how business can and should be done.
There are a number of e-commerce options to consider for selling products/services online including Ecwid, WooCommerce, Infusionsoft, and Selz, along with a host of others.
8. Online/Mobile Payment Solution – In today’s business environment, being able to accept payments online and on-the-go is an absolute necessity. I attended an event where a company was present, but was only able to accept cash payments. Unfortunately, today’s customers are shying away from cash and using debt/credit cards to make purchases. I witnessed countless individuals walking away from their booth without making purchases. This could have easily been alleviated by using today’s available technology.
PayPal and Square offer cost-effective solutions for accepting payments on the go. You’ll notice quite a few restaurants, cafes, beauty salons, barbers and clothing stores
using these to manage debit/credit card payments. For those of you who do a large number of transactions and want to minimize the transaction fees, investigate merchant accounts like First Data.Don’t miss out on sales because you aren’t properly set up to conduct business with your customers.
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9. Accounting Software – Gone are the days of manual record keeping. If you have aspirations of expanding your business, maintaining great financial records is a key element for doing so. Not only will it assist you when applying for business loans or lines of credit, Â it will be a life-saver when tax time rolls around.
You don’t need an expensive CPA on your payroll when you’re first starting out. You can leverage software like Freshbooks or Quickbooks to manage your expenses and invoices. Freshbooks and Quickbooks provide you with solid reporting and tools to evaluate your business. As a friendly reminder, never co-mingle your personal and business funds.
10. Project Management Software – For those of you who manage multiple people or larger teams, tracking various tasks can be a nightmare without a system in place. Not only does project management allow you to coordinate efforts between multiple parties, you can also organize big projects into smaller components.
Gone are the days of super-complex project management systems only relevant to large companies. Basecamp, Trello and Asana offer options for startups and established businesses alike.
Do you have any tools that have helped you systemize your business? Please feel free to share.
Kenny Pugh is a Life & Business Strategist, Speaker, media personality, sought-after speaker on finances, business, relationships and life. You can find more information about Kenny at www.kennypugh.com. He is also the visionary behind KTP Financial, LLC. Also, follow him on Facebook at www.kennypughfanpage.com, on Twitter @mrkennypugh and on Instagram/YouTube at Kenny Pugh.