Every business owner dreads when they get to the point that their current services and solutions no longer work for their company. They dread it because it means that change is coming, and change is rarely easy or fun.
But the fear of big business transitions shouldn’t stop your business development. That’s why we wanted to share some simple tips that anyone can use to take the stress out of their next transition.
Don’t rush the process
When you discover a way to improve your business, it’s easy to feel like you need to make the change as soon as possible. But quickly making a change means not putting enough time and planning to make sure everything goes off without a hitch. And trust us, getting to a “better” solution laden with process bugs and lack of proper education is worse than your current solution 9 times out of 10.
When you realize you’re ready for the next step in business development, take your time to evaluate the marketplace. Evaluating the market isn’t about striving for perfection. Instead, you should see it as an exercise in identifying where your business stands against the marketplace, and take time to assess what tools and solutions you can benefit from. By being able to anticipate and plan for what is ahead, you set your business and staff up for a well-planned, seamless transition.
Seek advice from friends and experts
No matter how much research you do, it’s always good to get an extra set of eyes and opinions. If you want to be sure your strategy for business development is a good one, you should talk to professional colleagues as well as experts.
You should ask colleagues what solution providers they use and what they like about them. Ideally, this will give you a great list of names to add to your search. At that point, take the time to reach out to your list of potential new service providers. A good service provider will be happy to take the time to talk about your business and help you make a good decision about your business development strategy.
Engage your employees
And while you’re talking to people, talk to your staff. You aren’t looking for their approval on your decision making, instead, you should try to learn about their day-to-day pain points and what tools they feel empower them most. With only 47% of employees reporting that they feel understood by their managers, taking the time to understand their use-case can go a long way.
At the end of the day, your staff is crucial to healthy business development, and how well they take to a solution often determines its success. So make sure you’re picking solutions based on not only your leadership’s struggles but also your staff. And a good service provider will provide initial and ongoing education to make sure that whatever solution is deployed, your staff adoption of it is successful.
Understand your limitations
This one can be difficult. Once you decide on a partner to provide your solutions, it’s vital that you understand your limitations.
As a decision-maker for your own business, it is natural to feel like you need to make the right decisions for your service providers. But by doing that, you’re eliminating the central purpose of the partnership. When it is all said and done, you need to be able to trust your service provider. That means not only trusting they can do the technical side of the job, but also the advisory side. Trust their recommendations as well as their processes.
Finding the right solution provider is all about getting to this point. So once you’re confident in your decision, take your hands off the wheel for a bit and trust the experts.
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