Owning and operating a small business comes with no shortage of challenges and pitfalls. Finding a pathway to success, especially as the retail landscape rapidly changes, can be increasingly difficult in today’s market.
Once you’ve found your niche and defined your market, there are still key steps to take to ensure your business not only survives but thrives in any economic landscape. So what are the essential elements for running a successful small business?
Here we break down the top 3 elements that make a successful small business tick.
Know your data
The key to running any business, large or small, is utilizing the data available to you. Making data the focus of all your strategy will remove the guesswork from critical business decisions. Data helps you understand your company from the inside out so you can deliver on all your customer’s needs at the right moments.
Creating a data-driven culture in your small business can help you in many ways, including:
- Identify and understand your KPIs (key performance indicators)
- Earn higher returns on marketing efforts
- Expand your reach and grow your market
- Drive repeat business and lower your customer acquisition costs
In order to use your data effectively, you first need to implement the systems that can help you capture the most relevant data. Think about your customer journey, and consider every touch point where you might be able to capture key information.
Important data points, like phone numbers and email addresses, allow you to reach your existing customer base with future marketing campaigns. And demographic data, like that you can collect from your social media and website visitors, help you widen your scope and connect with potential customers.
With the right tools and technology, setting up key touchpoints along your consumer journey can help you build up a sizeable data set that will unleash your business potential. Your social media and website are a key part of this, but a streamlined POS solution can also help you capture even more important data from each unique transaction.
Source data from a variety of places, such as:
- Email marketing sequences
- Customer loyalty programs
- Social media
- Website traffic analytics
The key is to start growing your data set and putting it to work for you.
Be flexible
Small businesses and startups must be flexible and ready to adapt. The early years of any company are going to demand the ability to respond and react to unexpected circumstances. It’s important that a small business can calibrate expectations as they learn their market and products more deeply.
If a business is too rigid and determined to weather challenges without changing or adapting, it’s going to have a much harder time surviving or finding success. But this doesn’t mean scrapping everything and starting over whenever something doesn’t work out the first time.
Consider the struggles faced by small businesses across the country during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Business owners that identified opportunities to adapt to the new normal fared better than businesses that were unable to meet changing consumer demands. s
Business flexibility can also mean staying committed to risky, experimental ideas, or testing out new, untraveled roads. It could mean making do with fewer team members than you need because it’s all you can afford. And it can mean exploring creative marketing strategies when you’ve got zero advertising budget.
Whatever it means for your business, staying flexible is going to give your company staying power and longevity.
Make the most of technology
The digital landscape can be daunting to small business owners. With so many tech solutions to choose from for every facet of your business, it’s hard to know where to start. This technology overload can lead some business owners to make poor decisions when it comes to their tech.
But technology can make or break your business. Bad internet, unreliable POS systems, expensive payment processing systems, and bad security setups can be costly to your business. Investing in quality tech solutions will save you headaches and hard costs down the road.
Not to mention, consumers today want to give their business to tech-savvy companies. Integrated eCommerce and in-store retail are the way of the future, and with the increasing demand for convenient online shopping options, including the choice to buy online and pick up in-store, customers are favoring digital brands.
Not to mention, when you use tech to your advantage, you reap the many benefits:
- Increased brand exposure
- Improved communication with customers
- Streamlined accounting and inventory
- Optimized project management
- Overall reduced costs
- Better security
- Cheaper and more diverse payment options
- Detailed data analytics
There is certainly a strong case for implementing smart, streamlined technical solutions into your small business. It can save you time, money, and stress. But it can also boost your overall business operations and create measurable metrics for determining success.
Solutions for small businesses
Whatever your industry, at RCS we have a streamlined technical solution that will work for you.
- NCR is a user-friendly system with useful modules like CRM and supply chain management.
Get the Best Cannabis POS System Today!
A full-service point-of-sale system can drastically improve your small business operations and drive success. Our retail and service industry POS solutions work for businesses large and small. Call us today for a demo and a free quote.
