Here’s
dilemma: You spend sixty hours a week or more working on and in your business. You know you have good employees. You know you have a good location. You advertise regularly. You know there is a need for your service or product. But, your business is still floundering. You may be making one or two critical mistakes.Many businesses make these mistakes. Some succeed in spite of mistakes. Most close their doors after a few years. Correct both of these mistakes and your business will flourish. Your profits will increase.
You must realize that both of these mistakes are dependent on each other. You cannot correct one and expect success. You must correct both of them! If both of these problems are not corrected, business will continue to flounder. The two mistakes are:
1.Improper organization of business 2.Improper marketing strategies.
1) Improper Organization: As your business grows, you add more personnel to take care of certain areas of responsibility. Everyone working in a given area reports to person “in charge” of their area. That sounds very good on surface, but from an operational standpoint, it is a major mistake. This mistake is only compounded as business continues to grow. It causes reduced efficiency, duplication of effort and poor communication.
How to resolve: First, business should look at its organizational structure. It should identify all processes that are currently being used. Each process should be thoroughly documented and evaluated. Then, relationship between various processes should be examined. The business must then identify what process must be done first, second, third, etc. Areas of duplication should be eliminated. Non-productive processes should be eliminated. Organizational structure should be reassigned according to business processes.
The best way to identify and resolve organizational processes of a business is through use of a committee. This committee should be composed of employees from different areas of business. It may be two employees for small businesses or it may be ten for large businesses. It will require some extra time on employee’s part, but potential benefits far outweigh additional responsibilities.
