Your business relies on a few simple premises: it solves a customer’s problem, it provides great customer service and it makes a profit. Simple enough so far? Well, yes and no.

Even when you know exactly what you need to achieve, figuring out the best method for success can be more difficult to establish. You might know that you need to make a bigger profit, but aside from charging more – and potentially putting customers off – it might not be clear how to improve your margins. Equally, your solution might be great, but you need to find a way to make it happen faster and improve results.

All of this boils down to one thing: efficiency. The more efficient you can be, the more likely your business will flourish. But how can you be more efficient?

Automate the Obvious, and Not So Obvious

The buzz word of 2017 continues apace and automation is now at the heart of almost every business model. In fact, you could even go as far as to say that all companies are tech companies now, since technology and systems are the best way to innovate and bring new ideas and solutions to the fore.

Automation is an obvious choice for improving your efficiency as the more you can get the computer to do, the less information and processes your staff will have to do. There are some obvious things like email chains, ad spots and chatbots that you can automate to start with but other processes like checking identities through a service like https://www.jumio.com/trusted-identity/netverify/ is the best way to get the perfect result every time. It might not be as obvious, but automating processes like these are another step in the direction of success.

Build Strategies That Work Every Time

Many companies work on a wide variety of projects and as a result never really formulate a strategy for success. Even when you are working on entirely different projects, there is something you can learn and create a repetitive strategy from next time. You have an SEO strategy after all, why not have a strategy for every area of your business?

For example, you might see that customers who ring up for a quote and are sent a follow-up email 2 days later are more likely to convert. This is the kind of strategy that can be used on every single project and boost your business results by focusing on the things that work.

Hire Problem Solvers

The other way to improve your efficiency is to make sure that you hire problem solvers. While there are plenty of people who might be suited to doing admin or organizing processes over and again, finding a candidate who can look at something in a completely different way and formulate a better solution will be better for your business long term.

Diversity is also a key objective when you are hiring because we all learn something different from our backgrounds. Bringing together lots of different problem solvers will increase your chances of hitting on an amazing idea exponentially. All you need to do is attract the talent and have an open mind.