How well do your business resources match your marketing goals or sales targets?
You may want “more business” right now, but if it came, if your marketing was so effective and compelling that all the extra business you want actually arrived, how well could you service it?
Many people say that this is a “great problem to have” but they are totally missing the point! If you are unable to benefit fully from all that potential when it comes along, you are likely to miss out on what might be a business-changing or life-changing opportunity.
Internet
Many businesses, for example, have their websites on servers that are poorly equipped to cope with a sudden surge in traffic. You need to know how your site would hold up, if a major Internet influencer, like Robert Scoble, decided to share your amazing product page or a blog post you wrote, with his huge social network. Equally, if your site or blog gets linked to by a popular website for whatever reason, traffic can go through the roof.
I’ve seen sites drop after a few minutes, when they have been linked to by an influential person or website – The EXACT opposite of what they want, if they want to benefit from all that free exposure! If you are serious about your website / blog as part of your business, get serious about your hosting too.
What about the phones?
Can your phone system cope with more than 1 call at a time? If you were taking a call right now and I called you, what would happen to my call? Would I get a busy / engaged tone? If you state your phone number in your marketing material and you plan doing some endorsed relationship marketing, for example, you would need as many simultaneous calls to be taken as possible. Otherwise, you will lose sales AND stacks of highly valuable leads too.
Talk to your phone provider or one of the many call handling services to see what your best options are. Some offer ad hoc services, which you can use during the busy times only. These can be ideal for small businesses.
Logistics?
If you have to ship a physical product as part of your business, do you have a strategy in place to cope with a surge in orders? When I first launched my Motivation Master Class audio program, it was only available as a CD box set. I did an appearance on The BBC and had a massive surge in orders – Which resulted in me needing to find 5 people immediately, to help me deal with the packaging and despatching of orders. Luckily, I knew some people and we got everything out in time. Luck, however, is not a great fall-back plan!
It’s a lot easier today – you can simply click here and be listening to me in minutes!
Proposals and tenders
You just designed a wonderful website and it gets featured on a TV show that’s watched my millions. Over the next 3 days, you get more tender requests than you did over the past 3 years! Do you have a system in place to reply to every single request you get? Do you have a way to efficiently sift through the requests generated, so that you spend your major time talking to serious people? If not, now is a great time to get yourself prepared.
Those are just a few of the areas that are better to research and plan for BEFORE you need them.
If you have others you would like to add, ideas that will help people deal with a surge in business, please share them!
Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!
IMPORTANT: If you want to make more sales, boost your profits and grow an amazing business, this will help you!