We’re all about giving SMEs a helping hand, here at Amack, and we hope you’ve enjoyed reading our blogs over this past year, which are designed to do just that. Over the last 12 months we’ve offered advice on everything from spring cleaning your SME’s finances to using AI and social media to grow your business.
As our Christmas gift to you, we’ve put together our best 10 tips from across the year’s blogs. Some will help you to save your business money, others to improve efficiency and yet more will help you to grow sales. Have a browse and see which of our favourite tips from 2023 might inspire you to make some changes to your business for the new year.
Encourage work buddies to boost productivity
We all became a little less connected at work during the pandemic so now’s a great time to build work relationships. Ask if anyone would like to buddy up to use their lunchbreaks better. You might go and discover somewhere new with them, share book or TV recommendations or just have a walk and a sandwich together. Even if you all work from home, a 20-minute Zoom with your work buddy while you eat a sandwich and have a mental break from work can ‘reset’ you for the rest of the day.
From our January Blog, ‘Little Habits to Make Your Work Day Better’.
Close your sales deals more effectively
“Don’t just list product features without fully understanding merchant needs,” suggests Jackie Wade. “If you haven’t tailored your pitch to their needs, you might as well not have turned up.”
From our February blog, ‘How Not to Close a Sale’.
Tidy up your outgoings
Giving the bank statements a good bottoming is always a fast way to find some spare cash and clear the decks a bit. You’ll be amazed at the products and services you were still shelling out for that you probably stopped using years ago. Now’s also a good time to assess whether the things you pay for are still good value for money or whether you could find a better deal elsewhere or roll some of those services together to make them cheaper. The fewer outgoings you have the easier they are to keep an eye on.
From our April blog, ‘Spring Clean Your Small Business’.
Celebrate difference to make your workforce more efficient
Recognising differences and finding ways to work with that difference is vital. It could be something as simple as understanding the preferences of each generation when it comes to communication mediums. Perhaps some prefer to email or text than pick up the phone. Others may find face-to-face the most useful way to have a conversation. Simply noticing these differences and helping everyone work with each other’s preferences can go a long way. At Amack, we’ve found that platforms that help everyone work together, but in their own different ways, to be really transformative. We use a platform called Monday.com, which does exactly that, and has everyone working, differently, together.
From our May blog, ‘The Generation Game’.
Run your business like a zebra would (yes, really)
Different species of zebra group together in different ways. Plains zebras, for example, live in small, family groups. Mountain zebras have larger groups with a dominant male leading the activities. Meanwhile, Grevy’s zebra herds change frequently with members of the herd dropping in and out depending on what’s needed. As an SME, it’s sensible to think this way, too. At some points you’ll need to expand your team, at others it’s wiser to simply buy in a bit of temporary support or outsource a specific need.
From our June blog, ‘Ten Things SMEs Have in Common with Zebras’.
Be smart with analytics when surveying staff
Use information from employee surveys thoughtfully; don’t feel you have to find a ‘wellbeing solution’ for every wellbeing problem. Everyone giving one star for happiness in a particular department may paint a depressing picture initially but if they all tell you they are floundering because they’ve been using new software, it might be that some extra training is an easy win - and will be welcomed more warmly than free fruit on Fridays.
From our July blog, ‘Happy Workers, Happy Business’.
Get to know your customers
Social media shouldn’t be a ‘set to output only’ affair. Use it to get to know your potential (and current) clients. Interact with them. Ask questions, invite questions, ask them to share their wins, run competitions. The more interactions your pages receive, the more visible your posts will become to others, too, and the more new leads flood in.
From our August blog, ‘Ten Steps to Using Social Media Well’.
When you get a new lead, nurture it
Build an online community and encourage interaction between your leads, so they have a reason to stay. After all, if they’re both interested in your product, they already have something in common. This could be the start of something beautiful - and could bring you TWO new conversions rather than one!
From our September blog, ‘Taking the Lead’.
Use brand anniversaries to reflect and re-energise
Marking an anniversary is a chance to think about your business’s core values, to consider how you can keep them relevant and fresh and let your potential clients know what’s important to you. It’s also a chance to inject new energy into your business with fresh ideas and projects that send out a message of potential to your prospective clients and build interest in your brand.
From our October blog, ‘Why Brand Anniversaries Matter’.
Harness the benefits of AI
Don’t be scared about AI; it can help you in a multitude of ways, such as creating more upselling opportunities; as well as knowing what your customers want, AI can predict what else they might be persuaded to buy. It can help you sidestep supply chain and logistics problems; you can get AI to help you predict where supply-chain difficulties may arise and find new paths to delivery. It can even increase productivity; with AI taking care of some of the grunt work, your real-life employees are freed up to do what they’re really brilliant at.
From our November blog, ‘AI Tools for SMEs’.
