Building confidence for your business future – Judy Bell

Confidence is the essential element in most business success stories. Knowing where we stand and what we can rely on gives us the necessary belief in ourselves to go out there and make a difference. Judy Bell, co-founder of Quote and Print, shares some of her confidence-building techniques.

To be confident in the future of our businesses, we need to understand what makes the business profitable and successful. For most of us it’s a question of identifying the key foundation dynamics that makes the business work.

Know what your business does best: Most businesses operate on a number of levels, producing a range of goods and services. Some of these have always been there, some may be quite recent additions, opportunities you have identified and taken advantage of. But are they all equally as important, or as profitable? A good question to ask yourself is … what do my customer’s think I do best?

It’s important to identify the solid foundation provided by those types of jobs your business produces better than others. These are the ones by which you measure customer satisfaction and can rely on to underpin your business success.

Know what to do with the other jobs:

Then there are those jobs that, for whatever reason, are not economical for your company to print. What are you going to do, give them away, or develop good working relationships with companies that can print them more cost effectively?

You cannot be all things to all people. However specialization in production does not mean turning away business, especially from important customers. It is important that your customers have confidence in your business to deliver on their needs, whether you produce the printing in-house or not.

Know your business costs:

Confidence in pricing should be about knowing your true costs and what markups will achieve your desired return – this should be evident on a quote by quote basis. A company policy in relation to which staff members can alter standard markups and the justifications for doing this must be in place.

If every salesperson can alter your terms of business at will, it can only undermine your confidence in the terms of trading.

Know your business processes:

Timely and relevant information provides the basis of being confident in the operation of your business. Flying blind is not likely to deliver a confident performance. It’s no good having data sitting in discrete silos waiting to be manually extracted and compared. An integrated management system that will efficiently support and manage the needs of your business is an essential confidence-building tool.

Identify those key reports or details that should be viewed on screen or printed to assist you in to “keep your finger on the pulse” of the whole business. This should only take 10 minutes a day. A regular monthly management review should take no longer than one hour with key staff members.

A dependable integrated MIS must cover all areas of the business. Clear policies and procedures should be made available and you must be confident they are thoroughly understood by all relevant members of staff.

Know your targets for all areas of the business:

Realistic, specific and easily reportable targets should be set for each area of the business.
Examples here could be:

– Production: two per cent late jobs or one per cent reprints, or at least gradual specified improvement on current performance.
– Estimators: 95 per cent of all quotes done on the same day they are received.
– Accounts: Invoice completed jobs weekly, if not daily and close debtors on the second working day of the following month.

Confidence in the future of your business motivates you, and your staff, to meet and surpass the needs of those you work for - your clients.

Lack of confidence breeds insecurity and poor performance.