First of all, Happy New year everybody, and welcome to 2021! The year we hope and pray will have much more blessings and opportunities open and ready for all of us.

Like many, 2020 has taught so many valuable lessons and opened our eyes in ways we would never have imagined, with the whole pandemic and economic shift and instability, a lot of us had to roll up our sleeves and find creative ways to stay afloat and maintain the businesses we run. This was a year full of the whole mix, the good, the bad the ugly, as things quickly changed however now, we are turning over to a new leaf, cheers to that.

As entrepreneurs their so many opportunities that are opening up in 2021, but what are some of the problems that can make you miss these amazing opportunities and how you encounter them is key.

Here are 6 problems SMEs are likely to get in 2021 and here are the tips on how to prevent them!

1. Finding Customers

From big household brands such as Dettol to the small arising SME company or business, lead generation and finding creative ways of generating leads and attracting customers is the unspoken of rule of business. For any business to grow you need customers, and as many studies have shown, a business grows faster and quicker with a good and healthy generation lead and it is key to allocate resources and time wisely to avoid burn out on the same.

Tips and tricks:

When getting into any business, one has to identity their target market. When it comes to leads, who are your ideal customer is, what they do, and even the things they are likely in need of are important tips for getting great leads too. Majority of the effort in lead generation needs to be focused on your ideal customers rising your chances of generating actual customers from this from mere 30% to a solid 90%.

2. Welcoming change

Change is inevitable, and as the saying goes, insanity is doing the same things over and over again but expecting different results.

One secret that corporations which have been around for years have discovered is that they have to embrace change and incorporate into their culture, listening to the client and applying the feedback appropriately is key.

Regularly revisiting and updating your business plan can help remind you of the changing market conditions and the need to respond to them. See the page in this guide on planning ahead.

Tips and tricks

An up-to-date plan helps you identify what action you need to take to change your business and the way it operates, for instance : taking surveys to know how the market perceives your products and services, finding innovative ways to incorporate the changes needed to meet your customers’ satisfaction, training employees so they can offer better services and higher ROI, renovating your brand image so as to flow with the times and not forgetting renegotiating contracts so they are in line with the strategies your business has. Such changes go a long way in propelling your business to greater heights

3. Increasing Brand Awareness

A good reputation is said to be worth more than silver and gold, and in the business platform, this is so true. How can I grow my business to be a household name? How can I increase my products brand awareness and how can I compete with in the big leagues with companies that have been around for years and are well know?

Such are the questions entrepreneurs often ask themselves, and the answer to all these is just, increase your brand awareness, come up with killer strategies that will make you a household name but keep in mind it takes time, strategic effort, and be willing to spend some to get some kind of mindset.

Tips and Tricks:

Don’t be afraid to invest in:

• Upgrade to better marketing strategies: we are used to seeing adverts on Tv, newspapers and hearing them on the radio, but the world is going digital my friend and so do you. Invest in high quality images and videos which accurately portray your business, its products and services to attract clients.
• Also advertise using social media platforms, could be Facebook, Instagram or twitter, statistically, the average person spends 3-4 hours on social media and this is a great way to get increase your brand awareness.
• Use of socialites and influencers in the market you in tend to penetrate is another amazing strategy that can used, as well as on good terms you can sign contracts with them to be the face of the business as brand ambassadors.
• Blogging is another awesome strategy you can apply to increase traffic to your site and get your clients hooked on quality content that’s both informative and so intriguing they want to know more about your business, its products and eventually purchase the products and services you offer.
• Good PR is key always

 

4. Building an Email List

A great Email list can bring you more prospects than most form of advertising now days. In order to move prospects along their buyer’s journey to eventually become your customer, you need to build trust by staying top of mind and providing value consistently.

That starts with getting prospects into your email list.

That means you have to increase your email list by almost a quarter to just maintain it, never mind grow it. It’s the marketing team’s job to find ways to constantly add fresh, new email contacts to your lists. If worse come to worse to worse never buy email list, it is bad for your reputation and even worse for your financial position as it’s a waste of money.

Provide your clients with relevant and informative information that gets them hungry for more.

Get them hooked on your fountain of knowledge and wisdom so they quench for newsletters and willingly give their emails as they subscribe to your newsletters.

You can also request your current clients to provide their emails as you are closing sales, and regardless of whether the sale actually goes through or not, you have their email and that can be used in your email listing.

5. Lead Generation

A good and quality lead generation channel is every marketing teams dream as this makes work so much easier. The sales increase within the set targets and everything just flows so smoothly, it feels so unreal.

Generating leads that are both high quantity and high quality is a marketing team’s most important objective Whatever content you are posting and marketing to your clients should entice your website visitors to be actual customers. A successful lead generation engine is what turns website visitors into prospective customers and provides a steady stream of sales prospects while you sleep what a joy this is from top management to sales team.

Tips and Tricks

You need to first utilize your most crucial too, your website and optimize your existing websites for conversions.

• Creating custom landing pages for every single campaign that you run is key.
• Write blogs and newsletters which can drive good traffic to your site.

Prioritize the most popular pages on your website first and let homepage, product page and contact page or pops be easily accessible.

6. Delighting Customers

A happy customer is a loyal customer who will buy from you time and time again as well as be the one who will definitely give you free advertisement as well as bring you tones of referrals. Customer satisfaction is a great goal, but customer delight is even better. After all, delighted customers are the ones who buy from you again, write testimonials and agree to case studies, and refer you to people they know.

In order to achieve true customer delight so that your customers become promoters of your business, you must surpass expectations and deliver an unmatched experience.

 

Tips and Tricks

It takes work to continue solving for your customer in a way that turns them into raving fans. Here are some steps get you in the right mindset:

• Innovation is the mother of necessity and you have to come with innovative strategies how you can provide unexpected extras that go above and beyond
• Continue to measure satisfaction and improve the customer experience
• Your customer satisfaction and care have to be on point by offering them
• Great customer service during sales.
• Amazing aftersales offers and support.
• Bonuses and rewards whenever they bring in referrals who actually buy the products and services you offer.
• Deliver on those expectations (and satisfy your customers’ needs) as advertised or promised by you company.

7. Managing Workload using a workflow system

Without the right tools an artist cannot bring out the beauty of he’s masterpiece, what more of a business with the right system that allows the workload to flow with ease with everyone having individual tasks and targets and a way to monitor the same…fabulous is what it is.

At the same time, you can’t be everywhere at once as a business owner being able to focus on the prioritizes at hand and handle every department from a central place just makes that much easier and handling your business so much, more sweeter.

Tips and Tricks

The best ways to diagnose the roadblocks your team faces and increase efficiency is by creating ways for them to provide feedback. This can be done through:

• Employee satisfaction surveys where they respond on how they were served by the employees and improvements they would like done is crucial.
• Using a Customer Relations Measure CRM eases the work and tasks assigning load to monitor employees and what they are achieving easier.

• Frequent one-on-one meetings with direct reports.
• Use of an ERP system to help ease the HR processes and documentation as well as it having leave management so you employees apply for leaves and reduce paper work, call center management so that outgoing and incoming calls are easily recorded and monitored for quality assurance.

• Asking employees for their honest opinions about threats to the business and the issues that give them the most “pain” in their roles and their innovation ideas and ways to improve the workplace for better productivity.
• Finding the commonalities in the feedback you receive and the bottlenecks.

8. Financial Planning

We all work with a budget, from households to businesses and governments, and everything has to fall within the budget otherwise its out, right?

For businesses financial planning is crucial cause one wrong move could be very costly mistake that can cause the collapse of business into debts and eventually close of business.

Providing your employees with the resources they need and ease their work to free up more time so they can be more productive in otherwise is every business owner want. So how do you achieve this? Investing in your business without over-spending outside your means can only be solved by making good decisions based on solid financial planning.

Tips and Tricks

• Every business will be different, but you’ll want to,
• cut costs where possible
• manage cash flow by staying on top of invoices and bookkeeping.
• use business credit wisely
• Seek advice from business accountants and financial advisors to help you analyze your financial situation and help you make good decisions.

With all the information above, I hope with trial and application you will be able to make good and informed decisions that will grow your business to greater heights and rack in more profits to your business.

Robisearch Ltd transforming the world through innovation.

By: Waithera Mwangi