— August 3, 2018
Every business is unique in its vision even if some of the products or services are similar to others. But certain elements of running a business stay the same no matter what kind of business it is.
As examples, all businesses must provide good service and value to their customers. They also need to generate some type of sales invoices or receipts.
Obviously, there are lots of other important parts of running a business as well. Some of them go virtually unnoticed because they are performed behind the scenes.
Organization is one of those elements. If it’s missing, your company is bound to have troubles. In fact, there are many ways being organized helps your business.
1. Good Business Presentation
Naturally, the success of any business depends on the patronage of its customers. That is true regardless of whether the company has a storefront or not.
Lots of customers are turned off by establishments and websites that are messy and chaotic. Therefore, your business must maintain a good business presentation. Being organized helps your business achieve that.
In a storefront business setting, racks, displays, and shelves must be neat, organized, and clean. That requires periodic cleaning, stocking, and inventory counts by you or your staff.
Of course, websites are a little different. When first creating your business website you probably tried to include everything that was needed. But as time passes and your business evolves, your website must change evolve as well.
2. Smooth Operations
Being organized also helps your business run smoothly. There are a couple of tools that can help with smooth business operations through organization.
Shared Calendar
With a small business, using a shared calendar keeps everyone on track when work schedules differ. All staff members know when they are working and who is covering certain shifts.
Being organized with a shared calendar prevents gaps where the business has no coverage. This is crucial when everyone leads full, busy lives.
It reduces the need to call or text each other about upcoming shifts. Everyone can see the calendar for themselves through a mobile app.
Scheduling System
Your business can also use a scheduling system. This tool helps your business keep track of projects and tasks so everything important gets done.
Deadlines can be assigned and all team members working on group projects can easily see the status of them.
3. Happier Employees
Many people who work closely together don’t work well amongst chaos. They become flustered and unproductive as they look for things they can’t find.
So, creating a pleasant, organized business environment makes for happier employees. Staff members who are happy in their jobs work harder and are more loyal to their employers.
4. Teamwork
Any business that includes teamwork has to be organized. Without it, your staff will be like football players with no coach. They won’t know which plays to run or where their end zone is.
If employees are to know what is expected of them they must have some direction. This is another way being organized helps your business. It allows you, the “coach”, to direct certain employees, or “players”, in what needs to be done.
5. Lower Expenses
When your business is organized it can lower expenses and increase profits. Rather than searching for stuff you have, but can’t find, you’ll easily be able to locate it.
This can eliminate wasted time you could be using for something else more productive. Not only that, but it prevents you from having to buy things you already have but can’t find.
6. Better Productivity
An additional way being organized helps your business is through increased productivity. As touched on above, through organization you can limit wasted time looking for things.
But there are lots of ways organization helps your company have better productivity. One is by getting rid of distractions that interrupt certain tasks.
For example, if your business is large enough you may need to organize a call center. This allows one person to accept calls, transfer them appropriately, and take messages. Such an organizational move prevents the interruptions other staff experience.
7. Faster Customer Service
In a competitive market, customer service can make or break your business. That’s why to provide fast, excellent customer service your business needs to be organized.
You can do this through simple organization on your website or in a storefront. You can also do it through the use of tools and apps that utilize organization.
For instance, if you have enough volume in your business you might consider the use of a chatbot. Chatbots can answer questions for your customers and increase their overall satisfaction. They use preprogramed, organized information and answers.
Their use can greatly speed up response times for your customers. Chatbots could even keep them coming back to your business instead of someone else’s to fulfill their needs.
8. Training
Any good training or cross-training program in a business has to be well organized. Otherwise, they will be less effective.
Staff will find it difficult to learn when the training is poorly planned and executed. In turn, if they are not trained well, your business could suffer in the long run.
At worst they won’t be able to perform their jobs at all. The best case scenario with poor training is that they will perform but at a lower level than expected.
9. Inventory Tracking
Working in a company that uses inventory tracking requires organization. Even if most of it is handled through automation, a true count is sometimes done to reconcile the two.
Additionally, initial implementation requires an extreme amount of organization. Nevertheless, the result helps your business by leaps and bounds.
10. Quicker Meetings
It’s a waste of time to have meetings drag on and on unnecessarily. You can keep that from happening by being organized before they even start.
Begin by making sure you actually need to have a meeting. If the issues that need to be addressed can be handled in an email, send the email and move on.
Next, to ensure meetings are kept to a reasonable length, create meeting agendas ahead of time. Always start on time so that attendees come to expect that from you.
Finally, ask for feedback to make sure the meetings are not a waste of everyone’s time. While you may hear some harsh truths, at least you’ll know what to change to make them better.
11. Finishing Projects
If you have some projects you’ve put on the back burner, being organized can help. Make a list of stuff not done that needs to be finished.
Try to tackle one project at a time while keeping up with your regular work load. As you complete a task choose another until you catch up on your backlog.
12. Future Planning
To enable easier future planning for your business, get organized first. After all, how can you plan for tomorrow when you’re too busy putting out fires today?
Start by getting into a routine and planning each day. Then move on to planning for the next week by the end of the current week.
Use your goals to help you create a loose plan for the coming months. Additionally, you should look a few years down the road and make plans accordingly.
Clearly, there are lots of ways being organized helps your business. If you have a bad habit of not staying organized, start today and you’ll enjoy these benefits and more.
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