Lagging? 3 Ways Your Business Might Be Getting Bogged Down

You’ve got the great product or service, the staff, and the office space. You’ve deployed some traditional, guerilla and referral marketing. Your customers love you. So why isn’t your business doing better? Sometimes, businesses got bogged down by things hiding in plain sight. Here are three things that might be bogging yours down.

Lack of Automation

Some tasks need to a custom solution every single time. Other tasks are mindlessly repetitive and predictable, such as data backups and paying bills. Some businesses hold off on automation out of concerns about how it will affect employees or the costs involved. While automation can cost jobs, it’s more likely to free up you and your employees to do more valuable work. After all, is your time better spent securing new business or writing out your 20th identical check to an internet service provider? Is it more valuable to have your IT person doing data backups or working on your new business app?

You Don’t Have Proper Equipment

It’s a common practice in start-ups and small businesses to use the sort of right equipment you have because you think you can’t afford the exact right equipment. It’s like a new owner using hand winches on an older fishing boat when motorized marine winches offered by companies like Shute Upton Engineering would work better. Using the almost-right equipment slows processes down. Employees have to wait because something works slower, or they need to fiddle more to get it to work. While you need to measure it on a case-by-case basis, the productivity boost from using the proper equipment often offsets the costs.

Poor Website Design

Your website will be your first point of contact with potential customers. If they don’t like what they see there, you just lost money. There are many ways to blunder with website design, but let’s look at a couple of the biggest. Site navigation is difficult. If it’s hard to get around the site, people will just leave. Contact information isn’t easy to find. Your email address, phone number, and even physical address should minimally appear on the home page. Use a contact form with the fewest possible required fields. The easier it is to fill out, the more likely a potential customer will do it. If you need inspiration, look at the design of websites you like and mimic shamelessly.

It’s easy for a business to get bogged down by things hiding in plain sight. Websites often get thrown up in a hurry, with little consideration afterward. New equipment only gets judged on cost, not on how much it will improve productivity. Automation sounds expensive, and possibly like it will force you to fire someone, even though it will probably make the business more profitable and help to maximize employee usefulness. If your business is getting bogged down, it may be time to a second look at these issues.