Share what you know with millions of people
Focus is the best place to turn what you know into remarkable content
0
Given the economic environment, where should we invest to improve business performance?
We are having trouble locating the best place to improve business performance. Where are the places you have found the most success in given the current economic environment?
Events
- Dos and Don'ts of Small Business Marketing May 29 @ 11 am PT
- Lead Nurturing 202: The Next Generation May 31 @ 11 am PT
- The Tricks to Paid Media June 6 @ 11 am PT
- Display Advertising for Brand Awareness June 20 @ 11 am PT
Related Activity
2 Answers
Perhaps the most useful first investment you can make is in tools and processes that help you to identify, document and prioritize current business performance characteristics and challenges. After all, knowing where the current problems are is a key first step in eliminating them -- you can't manage what you can't measure, and you can't measure what you aren't yet seeing or knowing in detail.
Another useful early investment is in the "marketing," "sales" and "evangelism" necessary to get all employees to see and value their individual roles in improving (or degrading) overall business performance. Such outreach can go a long way towards gaining "buy-in" from those affected, and can even generate suggestions and ideas those primarily responsible for improving business performance may not have come up with themselves. Good luck with your efforts!
Hailey,
Business performance is a broad church - this may mean internal (operations, costs, processes, etc) or external (clients, sales marketing, etc). If I understand your question correctly (and I may not), we focus on 4 Key Results Areas in each business to start with:
1. Sales & Marketing (Think how you get your product/service to the market)
2. Operations (Think how you operate internally)
3. Customer Experience (Think customer 'perception' of you, your products and services and how they are delivered)
4. Financials (A derivative of the other 3 but (rightly or wrongly) often the starting point whenthings are going badly)
A good analysis of these 'high' - level areas is always our initial starting point. Naturally, more indepth work is often required but if you improve business performance in any, some or all of these areas and things will start looking up quickly.
Hope this helps.
Answer This Question