20 Break the whole selling process down and make it better
Be your own auditor. And not a stuffy, overpaid financial auditor
who looks at your books every year and tries to find out if you’ve
been helping yourself to a little “cash”, or suspects you of boasting
to your friends about what a great wee business you have, patting
your back pocket in the process.
Nope – we mean a business auditor. Someone who applies the same
level of detail as your accountant, but also scrutinises all the other
operational aspects of your business. Do it slowly and methodically but
start with the customer buying process. Look at all the aspects of how a
customer might view your shop when they first come in. What will they
see, is it inviting, are you upselling them, showing them something
interesting? Are your menus clear, is your stock well displayed, is it
logically displayed? What do your staff say? How efficiently are they
charged? Look at the whole processand try to make every single
stage just a little bit better for you, the customer and your staff.
Get employees involved. Ask your regular customers what frustrates
them. Watch and observe to see where any delays or glitches occur.
What you’re trying to do is find out what parts of the business just aren’t
working properly. Maybe it’s customer flow, maybe your till system is
clumsy and slow, maybe your kitchen design is all wrong and creates
too much work. Maybe you have too many people doing the ordering
and no system to show what has been ordered if one person falls sick.
Whatever the problems are, find them and fix them.
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