What’s Stopping You From Improving Your Business?

It’s time to have a hard conversation.

As a business owner, manager, or even as an employee taking the reins on their career; there are things you can do to make significant improvements to your business.

But you don’t.

It’s holding you back. Let’s fix that, today.

This blog post is going to be a little different than most of the others. If you are busy right now, I recommend you bookmark it, email it to yourself, or use the QR code on the side to load it up on your phone for later. You’ll be glad you did.

Excuses and the Circle of Influence

Have you ever heard of the Circle of Influence?

It was developed by a guy named Stephen Covey, who authored a really great book called “7 Habits of Highly Successful People.” In a world full of a lot of hokey self-help and get-rich-quick books, 7 Habits is one that stands out. It’s worth a read.

The idea of the Circle of Influence is that any individual, and in the grander scheme of things, any organization, has a limited amount of things they have influence over. 

For instance, most individuals probably can’t call up In-N-Out and change the price of a Double-Double. That’s outside of your Circle of Influence. You can, however, make other decisions on where to get lunch.

The reasoning behind all of this is that there are things you can’t control, but a whole lot of things you can control. Covey then describes the Circle of Concern. This circle embodies what you actually care about and put lots of thought and effort into. If your Circle of Concern is massively larger than your Circle of Influence, you are probably worried about the wrong things, or at least spreading yourself too thin.

By making your Circle of Concern smaller, you start to realize that you have a lot of power to make changes. No, you can’t change taxes, the weather, or the price of a Double-Double, but you can put the energy you had being concerned about those things into aspects of your life you actually do control.

You weren’t expecting a philosophy lesson from an IT guy, were you?

So what is the point I’m attempting to make here?

All of us, myself included, make decisions and little tiny excuses for ourselves every single day that are all based on things we don’t really have control over. We expend energy thinking about things that we can’t actually do anything about.

The biggest elephant in the room when it comes to this stuff is politics, but there are countless other scenarios where this applies. In business, you have an endless amount of things you can’t really manipulate, such as the cost of doing business, your competition, the needs and demands of your customers, regulations, and other things like that. You also have a wide range of things you have control over, such as:

• The cost and quality of your products and services
• The level of care you provide your customers
• Your reputation in the industry and local community
• The perceived value of your products and services
• The effectiveness of your work
• The level at which you communicate with colleagues, prospects, and customers
• How much effort you put into securing your business and ensuring its longevity
• How much effort you put into growing your business

…and so much more.

When you focus on what you can actually influence, it’s a lot harder to make excuses for yourself, which brings us to the meat of today’s topic.

Why Aren’t You Improving and Securing Your Business?

Take a critical look at the things you tell yourself every day. This is especially important for business owners, and believe me, you aren’t alone in this. This happens to every single one of us from time to time. We all make little excuses that hold us and our organizations back.

The human mind is very good at making excuses, it’s almost therapeutic. I can’t do ____ because of ____ and ____. I will start my diet on Monday. I will take the truck in to get the check engine light looked at when gas prices go down. I’ll finally hire an HR person after we get through the holidays.

It’s not easy nor flattering to admit to oneself that this happens with regular frequency, but for many of us, it does.

This is your wake-up call to stop.

There are so many ways that you can improve your business. Sometimes, it doesn’t even require a major investment, it just requires you to be invested.

Since I am a techno-geek, let’s just take a look at some ways you can improve your business through technology.

Develop a Business Continuity Plan

Let’s start small and simple. Think of this as a warmup. 

A business continuity plan is a detailed roadmap to use when your business suffers from some sort of disaster. That disaster could be anything, from a medical emergency for a key person on your staff to a storm that knocks out power for two weeks. A good business continuity plan would be well documented, include emergency contact information and communication plans, and involve things like the redundancy of data and critical systems. For example, ensuring that all of your data is securely backed up and easily restorable, and auditing mission-critical applications to make sure they are backed up and have redundancies. This is something that an IT consultant like those of us at Capstone Works can sit down and help you with.

Go Paperless with Digital Documents and Digital Signatures

Digital documents are the way forward. They reduce paper waste and improve organization.

Plus, they're accessible from anywhere. That's efficiency and convenience rolled into one. There will always be the occasional client or prospect who would rather go old-school, but offering a simple way to accept and sign agreements and share documents digitally tends to speed up the process and is seen as a huge convenience to most.

Enhance Teamwork through Collaboration Platforms

Collaboration platforms are game-changers. They enhance team communication and project management.

With them, everyone stays in the loop. That's teamwork made easy and efficient. Most importantly, you probably already have software that does this, and you just aren’t using it, or you aren’t encouraging your staff to use it properly.

Microsoft 365 has a lot of these features built-in, allowing your users to collaborate on documents, communicate over Teams, and work more effectively when remote or on the road.

Using AI to Streamline the Work You Do

AI is not just a buzzword. It's a tool that can provide a lot of value. While AI isn’t going to fill the seat of the typical worker any time soon, it can help augment your team. Use AI to help you create more advanced spreadsheets, or to clean up meeting notes, or help you word emails when you have writer's block. Just make sure you are using AI securely and responsibly.

Scaling Resources via Cloud Computing

Cloud computing has fundamentally shifted how and where work can be done. It offers scalable resources for businesses of all sizes. It facilitates remote work and often gives small businesses the capabilities that used to only be reserved for larger companies with bigger budgets. 

Best of all, when it comes time for your business to grow and expand, the cloud can scale along with you.

Tracking Customer Engagement with CRM Systems

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are a boon for businesses. They help track customer interactions and improve sales strategies.

With CRM, you can understand your customers better. And that's key to business success.

We can help you implement a CRM platform. You’ll find the biggest investment is the time it takes to learn how to use it effectively and the time it takes to get in the habit of using it. This could take months to even years before your organization fully takes advantage of the power of these types of tools, but it can pay you back exponentially.

Real-time Monitoring and Optimization with IoT Devices

Internet of Things (IoT) devices can monitor your business operations. They provide real-time data for optimization.

With IoT, you can make immediate adjustments. This leads to more efficient operations.

This applies to nearly any industry, from agriculture to manufacturing, logistics to the typical office. This ties in well with other technologies such as access control and physical security, allowing you to protect your assets while understanding who and when things are accessed.

The key is to make sure you work with a trusted IT professional who can implement them securely.

Creating Immersive Experiences with VR and AR

Virtual and augmented reality are game-changers. They can create immersive training and marketing experiences. Granted, it’s not the fastest-growing field in the tech industry, but it has consistently increased in popularity year after year.

These technologies can make your business stand out. They offer unique ways to engage with customers. Architects and real estate developers can use it for demonstrations, engineers can use it to showcase products before they are mass-produced. The possibilities are nearly endless.

Improving Customer Service and Communication with Chatbots

Chatbots are a great tool for customer service. They can handle inquiries efficiently, improving service availability.

With chatbots, your customers get instant responses. This leads to higher customer satisfaction.

It doesn’t replace customer service staff, but your current customer service people can utilize chatbots and monitor them, allowing for faster, more effective communication.

Modern Technology is Just One of Many Tools to Improve Your Business

I don’t want you to feel like this post is just about investing in technology—it’s not. Most of the technologies mentioned above are just one-off things. While I’d love to help you implement any and all of them, Capstone Works is more focused on being your long-term IT partner.

The point is, that you can make real, significant, meaningful change to your organization at any time if you just invest yourself into it, and don’t wait for the stars to align (they won’t!).

The same goes for your marketing, your sales, your customer satisfaction, and virtually any other part of your business—I’m just attacking this as a techno-geek.

If you would like your friendly neighborhood techno-geek to help you out, we’re here for you. Give us a call at (512) 343-8891 to get started (and I promise we’ll keep the techno-geek speak to a minimum!).