In the pantheon of small and medium-sized business (SMB) buzzwords, “organization” is near the bottom of the list.
It doesn’t sound cool, it won’t sell many books, and it’s unlikely to trend on TikTok. In the digital world, “organization” sounds more like the subject of a lecture than a shortcut to SMB success.
Despite their prevalence, these misconceptions could not be further from the truth. For small business success, organization is everything.
In today’s article, we’re going to flip the script on the SMB conversation and show you why organization matters more than you think.
In fact, we’re going to provide some small business tips and unpack a powerful secret: the businesses that prioritize organization enjoy greater efficiency, faster growth, and more longevity than their disorganized competition.
Why Being Organized Matters
Successful business owners never rely on luck.
Sure, they might trend on social media, trigger a surge in FOMO spending, and beat revenue projections for a quarter or two.
That’s an ideal scenario, but such fortune is fleeting—as all business owners know.
Indeed, successful entrepreneurs understand that luck is a low-mileage fuel in a fast-paced economy. More importantly, they realize their business demands a proper cosmos— Greek for order and harmony—rather than its destructive evil twin: chaos.
Organization is the wall that separates the dual outcomes of every SMB’s future. It’s what divides the evergreen from the ephemeral.
Speaking of evergreens, if a small business organization resembled a tree, then its bountiful fruit would include:
- Increased productivity.
- Reduced stress levels.
- Enhanced operations.
- Bolstered teamwork.
- Strengthened customer relationships.
How can one virtue be so enriching?
Sound organizational skills promote consistency across every corner of a business. It leaves nothing to chance, as it provides a way to set and track goals (based on reliable data) that position the company for ongoing success.
Conversely, companies that roll the dice on their destiny face impossible odds. After all, nearly one in four businesses fail within the first year, while over 52% of all businesses shutter after six years of operations.
Benjamin Franklin said it best: “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.”
Sadly, many major companies—including household names like Peloton and Blue Apron—are now intimately familiar with this admonition.
With Peloton, a bit of luck entered the picture as the global pandemic made home exercise equipment essential. As public gyms closed, Peloton stock skyrocketed, rising from $27 a share to $167 a share (and a total market cap of $45 billion).
The days of wine and roses were fleeting.
Over the last two years, Peloton shares have bottomed out while mass layoffs and corporate restructuring attempt to band-aid a leaking business.
What brought Peloton down?
Disorganization on multiple fronts, including a maelstrom of faulty engineering, supply chain troubles, and nearsighted economic forecasting.
In other words, Peloton executives organized their company around the assumption that the remote economy of Q2 2020 was permanent. When the pandemic ended and life returned to “normal,” Peloton proved unable to adapt.
Such stories are commonplace. Blue Apron—the ingredient-and-recipe meal kit startup—encountered similar setbacks shortly after its ascendancy in 2012.
Once valued at nearly $2 billion, Blue Apron’s systems and processes were sufficient in the early days of the company. After being tested on the national stage, however, Blue Apron’s foundation proved unable to stand.
In his honest post-mortem, former Blue Apron CEO Matt Salzberg admitted:
“I would describe a lot of the problems as upstream supply chain planning because we
had not yet developed all those systems. And we were managing the complexity without robust systems to manage labor planning in our call centers, upstream
supply, purchasing, and more. A lot of it was done manually through intuition and
spreadsheets.”
In this striking confession, Salzburg revealed that systemic disorganization upended his company. Though it’s hard to imagine, his multi-billion dollar business simply relied on “intuition and spreadsheets,” rather than trusted systems, processes, and software.
Are there casualties in big and small businesses?
Every day, but here’s the good news: the digital economy has made SMB organization—and small business success—easier than ever.
You just have to know where to start.
Getting Organized: 5 Strategies for Small Business Success
In the business world, “organization” has myriad meanings.
Today, we’re going to focus on its five primary applications, starting with the necessity of sound financial management.
Because no two businesses are alike, we have intentionally kept these strategies open to your individual interpretation.
While some small business tips may apply directly to your business, others may seem less pertinent. In either case, please note that all of these strategies are designed to work in tandem, not in isolation.
True organization is a synergy across departments—a firm with solid cash flow but shoddy customer relationship management will struggle to survive.
1. Focus on Financial Management
The longevity of an organization depends on sound financial management; the lifeblood of every business. Even if you’re not a professional financial planner, these small business tips could help you stay in the fast lane.
Identify Regular Expenses
From real estate costs and business insurance, to payroll and marketing bills, take time to list your recurring expenses.
By identifying your outgoing cash flow, you’ll be better equipped to reduce overhead costs.
Plus, as a bonus, you’ll find opportunities to stagger the way you pay your bills—rather than draining your funds at the same time every month.
Update Financial Statements
Budgeting is important—but you already know that.
What’s even more vital are your income statement, cash flow statement, and balance sheet: the documents that open the door to small business optimization.
While managing these three documents may sound like homework, think of it more like an investment in your small business.
Check out our financial documents guide to learn more about statements, and to access free online templates.
Leverage Funding Options
As a small business owner, you have broader access to working capital than you might think.
If your profit margins are down (or if you’re looking to finance new equipment), be sure to investigate all available funding avenues, including:
- Applying to a CDFI.
- Opening a business line of credit.
- Applying for secured credit cards.
- Pursuing Small Business Administration (SBA) loans.
When it comes to funding, the sky’s the limit.
One more thing: if you don’t have time to adequately manage your SMB finances, consider delegating them to a trusted employee. Better yet, if you have the resources to do so, hire a professional accountant or money manager to streamline your finances.
Let’s face it: as a business owner, you have countless responsibilities to oversee. Delegating your firm’s bookkeeping responsibilities will liberate you to focus on what matters most.
2. Optimize Your Operations
What is business process optimization (BPO)?
In short, it’s the discipline of identifying inefficient workflows and replacing them with improved processes that help achieve business goals.
Small business optimization often includes eliminating redundancies, streamlining workflows, and automating essential tasks.
While there are many ways to implement an effective BPO, the following outline provides a starting point:
- Identify inefficiencies: start by analyzing your in-house metrics to find areas for improvement, including available customer feedback, cycle time, and error rate.
- Parse your processes: check what’s causing problems, by carefully analyzing—and walking through—each step of your current standard operating procedures (SOPs).
- Rebuild the processes: after learning what needs improvement, you can redesign the process accordingly—you may need to eliminate redundancies, change event sequencing, or automate tasks to reduce human error.
- Test the updated processes: before you greenlight the revised processes, it’s important to beta test them with the same rigor you applied to the original SOPs.
- Monitor the processes: once the new processes are live within your organization, assign a team to track metrics and collect feedback across each vertical, such as quality control, customer satisfaction, and productivity.
Note: there will always be room for improvement, and your ongoing efforts to review and improve processes will pay short and long-term dividends for your firm.
By following this structure—and customizing it to your unique needs—you will find opportunities to eliminate bottlenecks, reduce overall risk, and improve collaboration with your employees and customer base.
3. Enhance Your Personnel
Organization relies on your processes, but it revolves around your people.
After all, a motivated workforce creates a high-performance business culture. As you optimize your operations, be sure to inspire your personnel with the following strategies.
Create Professional Development Plans
Development plans help your team maximize their potential.
When you provide hands-on coaching and collaboration, you directly increase employee trust, efficiency, and retention. Find out what your team members want to achieve, then chart a plan to help them get there.
Promote Transparent Communication Channels
Healthy, honest communication should ensure that everyone’s voice is heard.
In the era of distributed teams, the art of interpersonal communication is under siege. To counteract the lonely limitations of remote work, leverage digital platforms to increase engagement.
This might include hosting digital town hall meetings, “coffee break” Zoom hangouts, or even circulating a bi-monthly form to hear anonymous feedback.
Prioritize Meaningful Recognition
When employees excel at their jobs, actively engage in recognizing it.
While you work hard to run a business, your employees strive to deliver value day in and out. When they go above and beyond the call of duty, take a moment to celebrate their achievements.
Though a simple shout-out can be empowering, a personalized note or gift can do wonders for boosting an employee’s confidence.
Ultimately, it’s easy to forget that employees are people. That’s why a lack of appreciation is listed as the #1 reason employees quit their jobs.
Remember: when you build up your employees, you build up your business.
4. Solidify Customer Relationships
Trusted customer relationships aren’t born overnight.
They’re the fruit of a lengthy journey between a dedicated business and a loyal buyer. When loyalty is won, it pays big dividends.
In fact, when customers have a good experience with a company, they spend 140% more than customers who reported a less satisfactory experience.
Once gained, a trusted customer is hard to lose—especially when you incorporate these small business tips.
Invest in CRM Software
Where pencil-and-paper tracking systems fall short, customer relationship management (CRM) software ensures that nothing falls through the cracks.
By incorporating advanced CRM tools, you can automate tasks, centralize customer information, segment customers based on key factors, and leverage granular analytics to gain insights into customer behaviors and sales trends.
As a result, you will be able to build more targeted marketing campaigns/sales strategies and ultimately increase revenue growth.
Hold on to Your Humanity
While CRM software is ideal for automation, it’s important to maintain a human element throughout your communications.
Wherever possible, emphasize in-person customer service (rather than 1-800 numbers). And if your business uses social media, consider hiring an account manager who has a sense of humor and is willing to directly engage with customers and prospects.
Generally speaking, people can tell the difference between a self-serving social media account and one that participates authentically online.
Finally, it’s always smart to protect your customer relationships by going the extra mile with them, especially after they complete a transaction.
Provide a follow-up phone call the day after a purchase, send them a handwritten thank you note, or offer them a significant discount on their next purchase.
Listen to What Your Customers Say
Want to know how your business can improve?
Ask your customers—they’ll tell you.
To learn from your customer base, ask them what’s working and what’s not. Send them incentivized email surveys, SMS text messaging polls, or open a dialogue on social media to gain public-facing feedback.
Even if you absorb some negative or critical responses, you’re still winning.
Why? Because you’re demonstrating that you actually listen to your customers, that you want to improve your services and product offerings, and that you value their experience more than your pride.
Like Maya Angelou said: “At the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.”
Amid your efforts to organize and optimize, remember that the customer experience is paramount.
5. Fortify Your Future
While competing to be the best today, entrepreneurs must also fix their eyes on tomorrow.
Economies change overnight, after all, and businesses must be ready to adapt.
However, while preparing for the future, entrepreneurs must occasionally return to their roots. In other words, they must revisit their founding mission—the burning vision that inspired them to build their business in the first place.
When you have time, ask yourself these questions about your corporate identity:
- Have we fulfilled our original goals?
- Have we shifted away from our values?
- Who are we now? Who do we want to be tomorrow?
- Who are our customers now? Who do we want to serve tomorrow?
Though these are exploratory questions, they can provide incredible insight into the state of your business (and of your entrepreneurial spirit).
More importantly, they can light the fuse in your next chapter.
Welcome to uLink
“Organization” may not be a buzzword, but it’s the key to small business success.
It’s the master key that unlocks the doors of customer relationships, employee retention, and financial solvency. Most importantly, it’s what fuels a business long into the future.
At uLinkbusiness, we embrace organization in every way.
In fact, that’s why we’re able to make international B2B payments as seamless as possible.
With uLinkbusiness, you can pay invoices and suppliers for purchases from countries abroad, process international payroll, buy inventory, and pay international service providers.
Want to learn more? Reach out to get started.
