Small Business | Teik Oh

Operational Efficiency – The First Steps

Sep 08 2020

In my Small Business Owners Growth Guide, I identify the Six Business Success Factors.

In 40 years of working with small businesses, I have observed that all successful businesses do these 6 things well.

They are:-

The Act of Leadership
The Practice of Planning
The Logic of Marketing
The Pursuit of Customer Fulfilment
The Attainment of Operational Efficiency
The Mastery of Finance.

You can download my free Small Business Owners Growth Guide to the Six Business Success Factors here and “audit” your business to see how well developed they are in your business.

I’ve recently dealt with Leadership, Planning, Marketing and Customer Fulfilment in this blog, so this week I want to turn my attention to Operational Efficiency.

What do I mean by that?

I also want to set you a challenge that you can undertake over the next 5 days, taking just an hour a day to start your journey in Operational Efficiency.

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A Challenge in Customer Fulfilment

Sep 01 2020

Customer Fulfillment usually refers to the process of delivering the product or service to the customer, involving “order fulfilment” methods such as logistics.

However, when I say customer fulfilment, I mean the whole system of ensuring that your customer is “fulfilled” in their engagement with you.

In other words, how fulfilled are they when they first encountered you, how easy was it to transact with you, whether they received their goods and services in the way and time that they liked, and what was their experience after the sale?

I take customer fulfilment to be much more than “customer service”.

It’s about total satisfaction.

In this definition, customer fulfilment is one of the six key factors that successful businesses must have to be successful.

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Small Business Marketing Made Easy – Your Messages

Aug 25 2020

This week I’m going to give you a challenge that will focus your marketing on your ideal customer.

The Logic of Marketing is one of the Six Business Success Factors that I have consistently found – in 40 years’ of working with small businesses – that successful businesses all possess.

Even if you feel you don’t have the skills, or that you are too busy, or that you can’t afford it, you cannot deny that your business needs to market itself to customers.

What stops us is that we think it’s too expensive, or we don’t know how to start because we don’t know enough about it.

So, we “market” by talking about our product, we hang signs on our doors, or we place the odd advertisement on social media or in a newspaper.

What if I were to show you the Logic of Marketing and how easy it is to start?

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The Practice of Planning

Aug 18 2020

I have identified six things that businesses must do if they are to be successful businesses.

Not all businesses manage to be good at all six things, but all successful businesses – no matter how small – are good at all six things.

These Six Business Success Factors are providing Leadership, good Planning, effective Marketing, Customer Fulfillment, management of Operational Efficiency, and the mastery of its Finance.

This week I’ll discuss the Practice of Planning and how it helps any size business to succeed.

I’ll then set you a challenge that you can undertake over the next 5 days.

It will be fun and more importantly, it will help your business become focused on success.

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Six Keys To Business Success

Aug 04 2020

Small businesses succeed because their owners do some critical things well.

At times like this when the world is not helping you, when the pandemic shuts your city down, when the economy is in freefall, it seems obvious that we need to apply some emergency strategies as I wrote about in May this year.

But what is less obvious is that any crisis strategy you take to keep your business afloat, even those I recommended, is still based on the key business principles you need to have in your business, whether you are starting up, looking to grow, or reviewing your ability to survive, change or pivot.

Every strategy and tactic to employ now – as they are when you are in the growth phase – should be focused on the six keys to business success.

Even with multiple strategies and tactics in your plans, only those that reinforce these six key attributes are deserving of the focus right now, especially now when you can’t waste time on non-critical use of time and other resources.

If you look after these six key factors, you will be able to do what you plan to do, every time.

In this week’s post, I’d like to explain what these six fundamental attributes are, and how you can apply them in a simple six-day challenge to sustain or grow your small business.

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Increase your sales through a highly focused marketing plan!

SMART Marketing: In this book, the owners of a small business are led through the SMART Marketing 7 Step Process to produce a marketing plan targeted at their most desirable customers. Any business can use these principles and in 4 to 6 weeks implement a plan to get them through the door! Find out how...

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Category - Small Business

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Operational Efficiency – The First Steps

A Challenge in Customer Fulfilment

Small Business Marketing Made Easy – Your Messages

The Practice of Planning

Six Keys To Business Success