Guest Post by Michael Chibuzor

Create an Innovative Business System

Innovation is the lifeblood of your business. {tweet this}

When you innovate, it forms the design that dictates what should be done, and what should be ignored going forward.

Lately, I’ve witnessed small businesses leap through hurdles and achieve their goals, all because the founders began to see and act like managers, rather than CEO.

In this article, you’ll learn the only thing 2 things that make a huge difference between businesses (large or small) that thrive and those that fizzle out in their first few years.

Most entrepreneurs struggle to innovate because they think it’s difficult, or better yet, they strive for perfection. But that’s not the goal.

According to Susan Wojcicki, Google’s Senior Vice President of Advertising, “Innovation can’t be perfected one time; you have to consistently tweak it.

The Need for a Business System

When running a small business, you’ll have lots of work to do on a daily basis. If you’re not keen in time management, it can be frustrating when you don’t get the core tasks completed at end of the day. That’s why you need a “system.”

A system is a set of principles, a scheme of ideas by which something is organized.

For your business to move from the present level to a higher one, you have to develop a set of principles that guide decision-making, product launch, customer service, project management and the like.

That’s what we did recently in our company and the results were real in the second quarter of 2014.

So without much ado, here are the 2 things you need to do to create a business system that saves you time and increases profit.

Complement the Competition

Does it seem like competitors are lurking around and taking over your customers? Do you think it’s unfair?

Let me just say that your job/role as a small business owner isn’t to fight or try to trounce the competition – but to complement it.

According to Inc Magazine, “Competition may be the best thing for your business, because it brings a lot of benefits to start-ups.”

Innovation has nothing to do with out doing someone. It’s a lot different. When you innovate, you’re showcasing the potential that you already have that are resident within you to the world.

For example, for a minute, let’s assume that you’re a mobile app developer. Of course you and I know that new apps are being released into Google Play™ every day. Does it mean that you’re doomed? No. It just means that you can think, design better and add more features and flexible interface for the end-user when you develop your own. The competition has now caused you to think beyond your comfort zone. {tweet this} Did you see that?

If you want to create an innovative business system, it’s time to start complementing the products out there. If you can only take this advice to heart, you’ll quit every form of competition and your business will experience a surge of success.

Listening to customers is awesome, but for a more accurate customer data, don’t go with what they say, but trust what they’re doing at the moment.

Study Customers

When you listen to customers, you know what they have in mind but that’s not going to help innovation.

The best approach is to study customers. If you take their surface response/feedback to be their real intention, you’ll continually struggle to delight them and Harvard Business Review says you should not.

In 2012, I asked my email subscribers what challenges they’re facing in their small business and what product they’d likely buy. Seventy-six percent of them said they’d like an e-book, and 24% said they’d prefer an online course.

Before creating the product, I sought advice from my mentors and they all said I should focus on the 24%, because they seem to be honest. So I created and launched an online course and guess what? 83% of my subscribers loved it.

As a test, I also created a free valuable e-book and gave it away to members of my online course and to my amazement only 15% downloaded it. Like I said earlier, listening to customers is awesome, but for a more accurate customer data, don’t go with what they say, but trust what they’re doing at the moment. {tweet this}

Take this home

To round off this post, another way to create an innovative business system is to leverage technology tools.

There are so many out there. And to save yourself the headache of running at loss, you have to pick a few of them, learn how to use them to your own advantage.

For example, in managing customer contacts, you can’t afford to do this manually, especially when you have a pool of customers you cater for.

As long as you make customer service a top priority and complement the competitors, innovation would become your second nature. See you ahead!

 

Guest Author

Michael ChibuzorMichael Chibuzor is a small business writer. He founded queryletters.com to help lifestyle entrepreneurs grow their dream business through content marketing. Every other week, he writes a tutorial on how to use CRM software to love customers and increase sales. Follow him on Twitter.