Improving Your Business’s Bottom Line

Businesses, nowadays, are constantly under pressure to up their game thanks to a growing influx of competitors and the presence of social media which can turn a firm’s reputation upside down overnight. Also, consumer behavior has changed drastically, galvanized by the power of social media, more information and globalization. Against this backdrop, it is important for businesses to stay ahead of the curve, stick to the basics and improve their bottom line(i.e. profits) to be successful and sustainable.
Avoid charging too low or too high a price –There is a tendency for startups to charge an extremely low price to grab a sizeable slice of the market. This is potentially unsustainable- Too low a price will may prompt bigger competitors to react in a similar way, i.e. a price war may take place, this is likely to lead to a fall in prices which will may as well drive the startups out of business. Also, if we try to increase prices later we are likely to lose customers. It is, therefore, important to charge a price, that is not too low or too high, one that reflects a product or service’s value. Also, keep in mind the elasticity of demand of your products. Depending on that, you can play with our prices.
Use your contacts to drive your sales– Often we tend to overlook our cousins, parents and friends and focus on trying to lure other customers. But our known ones are likely to be a part of our target market. So bring them under the radar. They are valuable source which we can bank on to drive up sales, thus leading to more profits and do word of mouth marketing; this, in turn, will attract more customers, further increasing revenues and profits.
Leverage the power of special occasions- Special occasions are excellent openings to create a sizeable demand. You can use such occasions to offer discounts/ Buy 1 Get 1 Free/Buffets/ or a free service.  You are boosting your presence by doing so, which is likely to lead to higher customer traffic in the long run thus potentially boosting profits. Again, if you can carefully curtail certain attributes of your product/service to cut costs, without damaging the customer experience, you can also boost your profits through the sales generated on these occasions
Use various selling channels- If you are selling fast food items. You can approach various retailers to stock your products, you can also use the power of hungrynaki.com or foodpanda.com to drum up demand for your product.
Make everyone in your team salespersons- Ask your employees to bring in more customers. Employees can use their contacts to bring in more customers thus bringing in more sales and increasing profits.
Reduce costs– If you are providing a service, try brainstorming to come up with better ways to reduce costs. Use shared working spaces, outsource your non-core operations or employ employees on a part-time basis or make arrangements so that they can work on virtual spaces. If you are selling a product, renegotiate with your suppliers or chose the supplier with the best deals.
Use Social Media effectively– Regardless of the nature of your business, use social websites such as slideshare.com, youtube.com or apps such as Instagram to display your products/ideas. These websites are a good medium for advertising and presents an excellent opportunity to build your brand equity and drive up demand.
Be Customer-Centric- This applies to all businesses. Listen to your customers first. After all, they are one of the most important stakeholders who will keep your business alive. So, it is important to engage with your customers. Discuss with them about how to improve your business processes, pricing, advertising etc. You will get a stream of new ideas. These new perspectives will help you make better customer oriented strategies which should result in more turnover and more profits.
Use social data effectively: If you have are selling through websites, invest in creating a dynamic shopping experience. By using social data, you can not only speed up a customer’s check-out process (the final process, in an online transaction, whose completion results in a sale) by auto filling the details gleaned from the customer’s social profile but also use the data from the customer’s profile to create a more customized and appealing shopping experience. This will result in more sales and more profits.
Improving your delivery:   Once the sale is done, the next step is to make sure your business can actually deliver the product. Don’t make promises you can’t keep- “guaranteed delivery in 1 hour”. This is usually a big let-down for the customer. Once you make a big promise, the customer’s expectation is set really high. If you can’t deliver, you might as well loose a potential customer. Make a promise which you can fulfill. Invest in your delivery network.