Hi Simon,
What advice do you have for young businesses to get past the early snowball stage when every order is expensive from time management to advertising?
Thanks
Tough stage for sure. Understand your business economics. Where are you now, where do you need to be to turn a profit, when can you start to pay yourself etc. Early stage everything is expensive. Until you hit a certain scale for your product, you won’t see pricing breaks on your raw materials etc. Buy more, save more works on the manufacturing side as well as the retail side. I recommend trying to be efficient w your time. Do things once and follow-up by writing a standard operating procedure SOP (build a file management structure to save these to) and consider if there is a way to automate processes. This will help you scale as you add staff.
You mention customer trust - attention to detail, good communication, be honest, own any mistakes and make it right, deliver on your service promise, hand-written notes with orders, etc. Ultimately though, everyone is busy so if someone pays you for a product, show gratitude and get them their order quickly and correctly. Avoid giving customers reasons to reach out to you and you’re doing well.