Whilst there are still two polarised views about the economy, many people I speak to are seeing a pick up in their business. Let’s face it, most small businesses have had a tough time over the past year and any sign of improvement is very welcome. For many companies an upturn sees a wave of pent up demand heading their way – the customer always needed your product but was unwilling or unable to pay for it.
To ride this wave you have you have three choices:
- Carry on as you are but paddle faster – sooner or later you will fall off the wave. Or worse, it will overtake you..
- Get another person to paddle with you – who wants to recruit right now when there are so many pessimists predicting a ‘w’ recession.
- Work on improving your technique – match investment with income and build a better platform for the future.
Now is the time to look at how you are working and question if it is the most efficient way. This covers both what you are doing and how you do it.
In the HR world it is a good time to review how your organisation manages admin heavy processes. Is there away to automate tasks, leaving you to manage the people not the paperwork? HR professionals need to be out there building confidence in their teams rather than doing admin.
Sales and marketing people can always improve processes. We sales people hate to be tied down to a system but grudgingly admit that things work best when we are. I for one need to go through my sales pipeline to remove those deals that never seem to close – it was worth chasing them when I had the time but now I’ve got enough ‘winners’ to work on.
