Uncertain times can cause stressful situations for business owners. Re-thinking job roles, scaling down and closing offices to maintain working from home can mean a reduction in overheads and staff costs. When businesses think about their ROI they think about productivity and success, needing resources and bodies to achieve this.
You may think to grow a business and brand, hiring extra staff as resources is essential, however with the right processes in place backed by technology, current staff will become more productive and can stretch their workload.
“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!” – Benjamin Franklin
1. Minimise communication.
Communication is vital to the success of a business, however, hours are spent responding to emails, setting up meetings, sending documentation, and chatting with others.
67% of workers say spending too much time on meetings and calls is preventing them from doing their best work.- Korn Ferry survey
Most meetings are not always necessary or run over and emails could be managed in a different way, through automation. There are so many different communication channels that could be optimized to work smarter. Making this change is vital to focusing on the correct area of work and minimizing lost time.
“It takes workers approximately 23 minutes to refocus on a task after they get distracted.” –Gloria Mark
Setting up longer weekly meetings instead of daily meetings will increase the productivity of staff as there are fewer distractions. Outsourcing your calls to a telephone answering service will also result in fewer interruptions, as only important or vital calls will be dealt with. And setting up automation for email replies and campaigns will save on administrative time spent manually sending responses and materials to prospective clients or customers.
Carleton University’s survey found that, on average, out of a 47.2 hour week, 17 of those hours are spent on email.
2. Outsource where you can
Outsourcing can really benefit a business as you can save on overheads, setting up a retainer, or simply outsourcing as needed, get access to expert knowledge, and freeing time of current employees so they can focus on improving upon their current job role.
A study by (Deloitte, 2016) showed the most common reason for outsourcing.
59% – Reduce or control costs
57% – Focus on core functions
47% – Solve capacity issues
31% – Improve service
28% – Gain access to expert talent and knowledge
17% – Manage business environment
17% – Accelerate organisational transformation
3. Invest in Technology
Investing in technology that will benefit the business, increase productivity and cut costs sounds too good to be true, however using a platform that can automate your emails, manage your prospect journey and nurture all when your employees are asleep is going to make your employees more productive, face fewer distractions and benefit the business.
Landed a sales-orientated B2B company that provides software for in-house teams did just that. With the help of Zymplify’s marketing automation platform, they were able to do the work for 20 employees with the help of just 5.
Read the case study here to see how Landed’s investment in Technology helped them grow their business, not their payroll.
