The five biggest time wasters in your business

By

Shaa Wasmund

As business owners, we often talk about how busy we are, to the point where if someone tells us that we’re wasting time with our business it feels almost like a personal insult! But the hard truth is, there’s a huge difference between just being busy and being busy doing the right things. The even harder truth is that it can be hard to see that difference when you’re already in the middle of doing things. So let me clear a few things up -- here are five of the biggest time wasters in your business:


1: Unlimited connection
I absolutely get that you’ve got to be connected to run a business — but what so often gets overlooked is the need to disconnect regularly, as in, as part of a daily practice. If your phone is constantly pinging with updates, you’re going to be constantly reacting and your plans are going to go out the window. Likewise, I know how easy it is to fall down a Facebook hole (believe me, it’s my Achilles heel!) but even if you tell yourself that you’re networking or doing it for business, you know deep down that’s not what’s going on.


2: Doing it all yourself
 There’s a reason that businesses — and humans in general — work best when there’s a team involved. When you try to do it all yourself, you end up spending so much time on the things that aren’t your strengths that it really takes away from the great work you do when you play your strengths. I say this at every single event I attend: outsource, outsource, outsource.


3: Unfocused professional development
AKA, just one more course syndrome. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of thinking that if you know more, then your business will do better. And while I’ll never advocate trying to go it alone or diving into something without a plan, there’s a time when you have to just go for it if you ever want to make progress. So go to courses, learn from the best, but do it strategically. If you don’t have a specific, measurable result that you want to get out of the course, ebook, or free download, then you should skip it, at least for now.


4: Poor boundary setting
This one often stems from really good intentions. For instance, you may try to be really generous with your time or your skills, which is a lovely thing, but if you let it get out of hand then it will suck the life out of your business. You know what I’m talking about: giving away long free consults, talking to potential clients for hours on end or through email after email, doing “just that one more little thing” that your client asks you for when you know there’s something else you could be doing … bottom line, getting your boundaries in place is key for your business. It also keeps you from getting resentful (which will absolutely happen if you let people roll over your boundaries over and over again) and will allow you the flexibility to practice generosity on your terms, not as a default.


5: Perfectionism
How many times have you sat on an email for an hour because you’re just not quite sure it’s right yet? How many times have you delayed a launch because you want to keep tweaking things just for one more week? Perfectionism is a huge time waster, and it’s really common in entrepreneurial businesses because most entrepreneurs are naturally high performing, give-the-best type of people, which can make it hard to ship. So just remember, done is better than perfect — and you can always go back later to change something or make it better IF you get feedback that merits it.


So how about it — do you see yourself in any of these? And what are you going to do today to change that?

How to Put the Customer First Online

All businesses share at least one thing in common: They’re nothing without customers.

Image from toprankblog

It’s easy to get lost in the day-to-day tasks of running a business and forget about what’s really important: the people buying your products. And who can blame you when there’s the retail outlet to maintain and the online business to run? Have you ticked off every task needed to keep your shop open? Is the warehouse working properly? Are all the listings live on eBay and Amazon and Rakuten and Tesco? You get the idea.

Each channel you sell on relies 100% on customers. They need to have the best product at the best price using the easiest and quickest method to get their purchase to them at home. But what about the post-sale experience? Would you expect your customer to leave a glowing review about your product and your service? If not, why not?

Customer feedback can make or break your business. You need to have customers positively and voluntarily advertise your business (for free). If they walk into your shop, do they feel welcome? Are they confident that they’re getting the best service? Do your employees really care? Would that customer come back and bring their friends? If not, why not?

Make the Most of Feedback
Online customer feedback is even harder to manage. Customers are more likely to leave a negative comment online, knowing that they don’t have to brave walking into your shop to do so. Online customers can pick holes in everything. Make sure your shipping time is better than promised and that your packaging is appropriate. If a customer had an issue, did you go above and beyond their expectations to resolve it? If not, why not?

Online marketplaces base how your products are displayed to customers partly on your account health and seller rating. Can you afford to have less visibility? Can you afford to have pages of poor reviews about your service and products?

Be sure to educate your buyers as they progress through the purchase and post-sale processes about how they can leave feedback and how they can contact you if there are any issues. Write a brief piece that explains how important feedback and five-star ratings are to you and that encourages customers to contact you first if they have any issues. You could instil this message in the following places:

• Listing template
• Checkout notification
• Dispatch notification
• Feedback request notification

By educating your customers on the steps to take to contacting you or leaving feedback, you are minimising the risk that buyers will leave feedback without contacting you first, which is frustrating for sellers that want the chance to rectify a situation as soon as possible. For positive transactions, you are reinforcing how important good reviews are to you and your business.

Sadly, even the most diligent seller will receive negative feedback at some point. The difference you can make here is how you handle it. It’s essential to always respond to negative feedback — publicly if you can. A simple apology and some genuine proof that you rectified the issue will go a long way towards winning back that customer. Also, potential customers are far more likely to give you a chance and understand that the poor feedback was unjust if you handle it correctly. If you get defensive or ignore feedback, you’re effectively turning your own customers away at the door.

All feedback, whether good or bad, is useful for your company. Any positive feedback reinforces what you do well, while any negative feedback sheds a light on aspects of the sales process that may need to be improved. Take the time to review all feedback and action it where necessary!

If you need help with boosting your feedback on eBay, check out our Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Feedback on EBay eBook.

Socialise with Your Audience
Moving away from post-sale feedback, you should also dedicate time and resources to both acquiring new customers and enticing repeat customers. How do you do this? Channels such as email marketing still hold value if they’re timed and targeted correctly, but it’s also time to embrace social media. If your business doesn’t have active Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+ and Instagram accounts, then you need to start now. There are far more social networking sites than this list suggests, as well as additional subsets that focus on specific age or interest groups. You need to know where your potential customers are networking and put yourself in front of them.

To do this, you need to add the international mix. Facebook is still hugely popular in the UK, but is it as popular in every country? The answer is no. If you’re selling in China, you need to be looking to channels such as Tencent. The lesson is that if you’re selling to an international region, know your customers.

At home, consider what new channels might be successful for your business Don’t overlook channels such as Pinterest. Although Pinterest has only been around since 2010, the channel is already one of the leading social media platforms, with an estimated 70 million users worldwide. Product-driven advertising has become a powerful tool for retailers on social media outlets, and Pinterest is a fundamental part of this strategy. It can be a prosperous way for retailers to generate exposure and interact with their consumer base. Because it’s a giant in the social arena, Pinterest should be an integral part of retail social strategy. It’s already second — behind Facebook — in providing referrals to websites, and it supplies at least four times the amount of referrals as Twitter. Once Pinterest users arrive on a website, they spend twice as much as shoppers who arrive via Facebook. As Pinterest continues its rapid growth, more consumers are trusting the network to recommend quality products. As a result, it’s an ideal channel for online retailers to understand and develop a strong presence on.

Whatever social channel you choose, it’s worth making sure that you follow these 6 quick social media tips:

Be captivating: Be amusing, creative and interesting with your social engagement. Speak in the tone of voice of your target audience to make yourself a relatable voice.

Encourage shoppers to share: Place social sharing buttons on your website and on each product page to make it easier for shoppers to share items via e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and more.

Keep them coming back for more: Reward your social fans and followers to encourage brand loyalty and spur repeat purchases.

Talk about it: Appoint a social media employee to participate in the conversations happening on social sites and directly influence how your brand is perceived.

Give them what they’re asking for: Integrate with social media sites to make it easier for shoppers to find the perfect birthday, holiday or anytime gifts for friends or family members.

Think beyond the billboard: If possible, advertise through social media to gain exposure beyond your competitors.

Summing It Up

To bring it all together, keep focusing on the mechanics of your business. Without them, you won’t have anything to offer your customers. But always have the customer in mind when you’re optimising these fundamentals. Does your mobile site appeal to all, or is it tricky to navigate? Do you have a team member looking at all the visible feedback on your business? Review your company’s website marketplaces and social media alike. Finally, ask your target audience where they go online, and make a point to be there, too.



Blog post by Gary Yeoell, account manager, EMEA, at ChannelAdvisor.
Posted on ChannelAdvisor by Laura Lane