Today, we have a guest post from Selena Narayanasamy, a fellow UCF alum and lover of everything technology, productivity, blogging, and social media related. You can find her blogging on her site, Esvienne, or you can follow her on Twitter – @SelenaVidya.
So You’re Passed the Start-up Phase! Now What!?
Starting a new business requires time and attention to details to get things set up to operate. You have to pretty much promise your life, soul and unborn child to your newly budding business. The initial phase of getting administrative operations in order can vary widely for each business, but once things are in place, the business is officially ready to open and begin making a profit.
You can (almost) breathe a sigh of relief at this point, but in order to ensure the business runs without incident, it’s good to have a few safeguard systems in place to keep things organized.
Sales and Marketing
A solid plan for sales and marketing is necessary because it can make or break any business- no matter how new or established you are. Implementing a good marketing system or CRM for the business helps ensure you make contacts and follow leads. You also need to make sure you’re adapting and changing as new technologies come out. Some companies have been denying themselves the social media boat and have been suffering miserably trying to get back on track because they don’t know how to utilize it or understand why they should monitor social metrics.
A sales and marketing team can consist of one person or twenty people. If there is a solid marketing and sales plan installed during or right after the startup phase, the business has a guideline to go by to ensure the staff follow the plan for success and not failure.
Guard Confidential Materials
During the start-up phase of a business, there are contracts and agreements to review and sign. These may contain confidential information about the company’s operations. Contracts and other sensitive information outline payment agreements, financial arrangements between parties, and other things that are relative to the business’ setup. Since initial business setups can change multiple times, you need to properly remove irrelevant material from the business’ files.
This information in the wrong hands can be detrimental; therefore, it’s important to safely discard anything you won’t use again. To do this, the business can use encrypted documents and file shredders to ensure confidentiality in the unlikely event that some shady person dips their hands in your security pot.
Secure Email Systems
Most companies use the Internet for at least a small portion of their businesses. If the right systems aren’t in place, it leaves room for hackers and other shady people to infiltrate and steal files and emails. Having a good email hosting system can help avoid this and ensure the software and updates are current. Email services vary in the benefits and features offered to customers. To ensure the business is getting exactly what it needs to operate, it needs to review what works best for the company and have the email hosting service implement the procedures that will directly benefit the company.
Efficient Human Resources
Having a knowledgeable and skilled staff is… well…. you can’t really have a business with them. You need to have each department of the business adequately staffed with people who can efficiently and effectively run each phase of business- from administration to sales.
Whether the staff is on-site or virtual, it’s important to have the right employees to make sure things operate smoothly. There will likely be employee carry-overs from the start-up phase, so adding to this core group of people will help to ensure a solid pool of qualified individuals that can handle whatever is thrown their way.
After you pass the start-up phase in a business, it’s time to implement the things that will help your company operate productively so you can (hopefully) focus on making it profitable. The above things will help to make sure success happens by helping you manage all areas of the business without wanting to throw yourself off a cliff.
Selena Narayanasamy loves everything technology, productivity, blogging, social media, caffeine and being sarcastic. You can find her blogging on her social/tech site, Esvienne, or listen to her musings on Twitter – @SelenaVidya.