Small Business Strategy For b2b and b2c
50% Increase In Operational Efficiencies Leads To Net Revenue Growth
Client Objective: Hired for Small Business Strategy Services to build a strategic plan that would allow the company to double revenue over the next 3-5 years. The owner wanted to be more involved with sales and less involved with the day to day operations. Part of the process was creating a new structure that gave key employees more responsibility and input on how to manage the operation and grow the company revenue. The plan was built with a sales and marketing focus but first looked at staffing and operational areas to make sure the company was built on a strong foundation. In four months the amount of time the owner was spending on operational issues had dropped from 60% of his time to 40% of his time.
The Process: Below is part of the ongoing Small Business Strategy and process that has been created to take the business to the next level by effectively managing organizational change through Small Business Consulting.
Our Small Business Strategy:
- Interviewed all employees and asked 3 questions. What are your duties and responsibilities? What should you do here? and If you owned this business what would you do differently (How would you improve things)? Answers had a dramatic impact on the new direction of the company.
- Worked with the executive team to evaluate all employee’s strengths and weaknesses. Then matched their skills to jobs within the organization. Where we were deficient in company needs we repositioned current employees or looked to hire from the outside.
- Responsible for the training and developing of the new customer experience manager. Worked with him to create systems, processes and a road map to create a more efficient and customer focused operation.
- Worked with the executive team to create job descriptions for each employee. The job descriptions brought clarity and accountability to each person’s responsibilities.
- An organization chart was built to set up accountability and chain of command structure.
- Opened up internal communication by instituting weekly department head meeting for all key personnel. Actively participated and coached team members on what should be covered in the meeting each week. All meeting members share important information during the meeting. Attendance to these meetings is mandatory.
- Created greater company efficiencies and better customer experience by instituting a daily meeting for the customer experience manager, field supervisor, shop manager and estimator to review daily customer and company related issues and opportunities.
- Input received from the daily meeting was used to build a process that ensures that all additional work done on jobs was properly reported to the company and invoiced back to the customer. This is having dramatic impact on increasing company profit margins.
- Coached all employees on how to interact with each other to create a great team environment.
- Increased gross margin by setting up an inventory reconciliation system and process. Work was being done but additional time and materials were not being billed to the customer.
- Created a streamlined communication process so that multiple people weren’t being called about the same issue or opportunity. This process is increasing the efficiency of the operation by increasing the productivity of each person and creating a more organized and a faster response to the customer needs.
- Coached new managers on how to properly communicate with and manage their staff.
- Coaching the owner on how to deal with his employees during the transition process of doubling his company size over the next 5 years.
- Sales and Marketing
- Instituted a weekly sales meeting to review all sales information, including lead generation, sales closed, average job size, closing percentage, sales technique and a weekly review of communication from sales to operations on all jobs.
- Coaching and training estimators on how to sell.
- Defined targets for various company revenue streams.
- Designed a customer/prospect follow-up system for the Customer Satisfaction Department. This consisted of three emails that are strategically sent out during the sales process.
- Increased use of email and Blackberry’s for better communication
- Worked with marketing company to design and execute marketing program to past customers and prospects through the use of Constant Contact and Act contact management software.
- Designed company branding and positioning statement to be used in all sales presentations.
- Created system and taught staff how to use their Act database to track customer relationships and prospects through the sales funnel.
- Using Constant Contact to communicate better with previous and potential new customers.
- Built sales plan to monitor proposals written, follow up on proposals, email from customer service person on job starts and job close.
- Designed scripts for sales people and customer service reps to use when talking with potential customers.
- Created form for customer information gathering and scripting to gather detailed customer information for better customer communication and for future sales opportunities.
- Screened new sales/estimator candidates then interviewed with owner if second meeting was warranted.
- Designed new sales compensation structure to reward better sales performance.
- Instituted sales budgets for staff
If you would like more information on Small Business Strategy Services for b2c, b2b or b2g fill out out the form below or call us at 301-337-8135 or send email to info@btgmedia.com
