3 Often Overlooked Ways to Set Yourself Up for Business Success

Setting up a business is not easy. Any business requires a lot of labyrinthine tasks to establish and persistence to see it flourish. The difference between a good business and a bad business if often whether people take the time to build the infrastructure to set themselves and their venture up for success.

Develop clear workflow

Putting the cart before the horse is an old phrase, but an apt one to describe the common business pitfall of having a clear goal but no clear path to achieve it.

Having a clear vision of an end product is excellent and necessary, but it’s maddening if it’s always in the distance despite how many steps are taken to stumble toward it.

By taking the time and developing a clear workflow, it breaks down what achieving that distant goal looks like on a granular level. What daily work drives the operation forward? How is that achieved? What does success look like at each step and how is it measured?

Answer these questions and you’re well on your way to building a bridge between you and your vision.

Establish firm touchpoints with clients and peers

Communication is everything. How well we communicate impacts not only how we function, but also how we are perceived by our peers and clients.

It’s possible to do incredibly good work but leave employees or clients frustrated. A lack of transparency can mean people don’t know when a win happens, don’t know when hard work is being done or don’t understand how they have contributed or benefitted. 

Also, it’s hard to continue taking steps toward the vision without clear touch-points where goals are shared, steps are explored and measuring success is discussed.

The software makes this easier than ever before. Depending on how constant communication needs to be, there are options that extend beyond emails and phone calls. Software exists that allows for daily chatting, meeting scheduling and teleconferencing all within a single app.

Many of these business solutions fold in functionality and cooperation with other business-centric apps to maximize communication and planning potential.

It’s not possible to overstate how useful the right software can be. Whether a workflow is effective or failing can be broken down at a very granular level. If there is a task that has to be performed dozens of times per day for clients, each step — including every single click — has to be repeated dozens of times. Every second spent on those steps is then multiplied by the number of times it has to be repeated daily, and that number can add up quickly.

Support is key

Once all the infrastructure is in place, it requires steady, effective maintenance to keep the operation on track. Having a solid IT service provider is essential. Modern businesses store data in the cloud, teleconference frequently and include online components in their daily workflow.

One small technical problem can create major bottlenecks in daily workflow, which can cripple productivity. By planning ahead and having a workflow in place for when things go wrong will further set your business up for success by limiting downtime and maximizing efficiency.