We often think of managing our business efforts as a list of duties designed to please our target audience. To some extent, this is true. You do not invest in marketing for your own benefit, or to smile at how intelligently abstract you can design your message. No – your marketing effort needs to be absorbed, and while your taste does have some influence on the final result – you need to consider what will be effective first.
That being said, customizing your business life to your tastes is possible in some worthwhile avenues. You just need to know how to arrange this. Some considerations may be possible. For example – you may select your offices and premises based on your proximity to it, or the functionality it offers. But you cannot ask your staff to come in only after 4pm because you work much more comfortable at night – as not all of your office staff will want to conform to this standard simple due to your arbitrary tastes.
So how do you customize your business life in the right way? After all – you deserve to ask this question if you’re running your own operation. Let us see what that might look like:
Your Workflow
It’s essential to consider what your workflow may look like, and how you might use your preferences to inform the optimization of your entire team. For example, it could be that you much prefer using Google’s business suites for cloud hosting and instant messaging through Hangouts. Alternatively, you may wish to opt for a more dedicated and comprehensive suite, perhaps one offered by an IT management solutions firm. Your preferences will be shaped by many things. It could be that you’re interested in secure and encrypted email, rather than only relying on 2 factor authentication to keep you safe. You may wish to contact support professionals at any time of day. Different suites will have different pros and cons, and so sometimes opting for the trial period or embarking on a digital tour can help you develop your important workflow implementation.
On top of this, you may consider what the necessary standards for your business are, and where you absolutely should invest. For example, even a small business outfit would be better assisted by using the Adobe Creative Suite, especially the standard of Photoshop, for their own branding and design efforts. This means that when outsourcing branding work or graphic design, they can inspect the granular detail, develop guidance samples themselves, or even open this department when hiring marketing professionals and artists for the latest campaign.
Consider what you wish to be greeted with when turning on your device each morning, and what categories are important to you. For example, a cloud-based note taking applications such as Evernote may be a much better alternative to install on your staff devices – as features such as Work Chat allow people to collaborate on specific note taking efforts. Of course, most of this will simply be informed by how you enjoy a certain interface or template, how you feel comfortable using a particular operating system language, and what the norms of your industry are. Mac computers are preferable to windows in most areas of creative production, such as video editing or content publishing. This might mean adopting enough research to understand what these standards are – but also questioning those norms might help you select something new and noteworthy, in order to gain an edge over those you hope to compete with. This can be a vital tactic, and one worth considering.
Subverting Tradition
It’s not uncommon to find business leaders hoping to subvert tradition, particularly if they have experience in a field already and believe something needs to change. For example, they might feel as though the current system of monthly payment for hospitality professionals is simply not enough. They might opt to pay out on a weekly basis to keep staff happy, and to also calculate tip tax more easily, and in a more digestible form.
Subverting tradition can also come in many interesting forms. For example, you may wish to overcome taking insurance policies out with many different providers, and instead enter discussions with a service such as Krywolt insurance brokers, those that can help you adopt and customize many packages at once. This can help you get the thorough insurance you need without having to follow the oppressive or quite particular norms that can come with many of the mainline companies whose terms can be overbearing.
Keeping Tradition
Then again, there is something to be said for tradition. It might be that in your creative studio – you are tired of seeing flannel shirts and beards. You believe that staff function better when in formal dress. This might help you stand out, and give your company a particular image, while also helping your staff feel the creative professionalism of their role.
While many other services are entering a subscription-led billing structure to potentially profit from those who forget to cancel or those who may not even be using your product as they pay, you might find it worthwhile to sell your products for a certain price and offer a license to it. For example, this is not something you often find with software these days, but it’s important to consider its effects and beneficial uses. You may just appeal to those who miss the good old days, and you might truly differentiate yourself to that end.
Hiring Talent
Only you can ever say why you decide to hire someone and what that means for your business. We can read a thousand resumes and covering letters, but ultimately, the final decision is made by the impression they leave on us. For example, let us say you have two people coming in for the final interview. One is perfectly accredited, with excellent experience and qualifications. A perfect candidate. Except, for our creative studio example, they aren’t someone who seems truly interested in the art, or perhaps seems overly corporate instead of bursting with ideas. They’re a great person well enough, but they don’t bring that spark out in you. The other candidate has less experience, but is brimming with ideas, and is extremely keen to make something of themselves within your industry. This comes to the point where it radiates off of them.
Which person do you select? Some might select the former. Some might select the latter. Either way, you gain a fantastic new hire. This is where customizing your business life can be considered. Hiring is not just based on how competent they are for the job, but on how you can interact with them, on their communication skills, how they might come across to a client, if you’re happy to talk to this person every single day in the office.
This means that you shouldn’t be fearful about selecting talent you know has a chance, or that you feel right about in your gut. Many business leaders, particularly novices, may not have this kind of sense of sniffing out the best people. But it is important that you do this, because sometimes seeing potential in someone is better than seeing them fully formed right now. After all, training them into your workflow and showing them the progression of your daily office life is easier when they have less conceptions about how this should run already. Put simply – customizing your business talent is a truly extraordinary skill. Ensure you focus on it to your benefit.
Suppliers & Services
As a business leader, you are also expected to select the suppliers and services you collate with, in order to find the best results in the long term. This can be achieved in many different ways, but for the most part, it’s important to understand what metrics you are personally looking for. Of course, you need a firm to fulfill a certain order, or to provide regular supplies in a certain category.
But do you opt for bulk buy discounts at all costs? How about those who have a great aftercare department, ensuring you are taken care of if something goes wrong? What about those with impeccable safety standards, or perhaps investing more in order to give an additional marketing tactic to your sales pitches? For example, a restauranteur might pay over the odds for the simple ability to say they can stock beautiful Welsh lamb in their special tonight.
This means that curating your suppliers is an essential part of providing the sustenance of your business experience, and you need to weigh up the options correctly – despite there never being a truly ‘correct’ answer. As ever, the ability to customize your firm comes down to solid research, and the willingness to opt for an option that might not seem so obvious to begin with. This is how a firm can differentiate itself.
With this advice, we are certain that you can customize your business life in the right way.
