Best Practices: Ways to Brace Your Business for a Major Growth Spurt

Brace yourself for the growth spurt you’ve always wanted.

Wait. What? Most businesses welcome growth spurts, but what they’re not prepared for is the sudden dip in sales that follows. Yes, it happens to the best of us. One week, you’re breaking sales records. The next week, you’re breaking a new kind of record – one that you hoped you’d never break. Here’s how to cope with the rollercoaster ride.

Strengthen Your Customer Service Team

Almost every company in existence could use a better customer service department. Most customer service experiences are lame. CS department heads today seem to be more concerned with getting the customer off the phone than they are with actually solving the problem. “Turnover” is a dirty word in customer service. Erase that from your memory banks.

Instead, aim to please. Model your customer service after companies like Zappos, Amazon, and Simple Bank. According to research done by Zogby Analytics, in collaboration with 24/7 Wall St., Amazon.com tops the list for the best customer service in the entire marketplace (Amazon owns Zappos, so there should be no surprises here). Apple also ranks highly.

Chick-fil-A also ranked very highly. Hewlett-Packard, Sony, UPS, Trader Joe’s, American Express, Marriott International, and Hilton Worldwide also ranked highly. When in doubt, look to the best and what they’re doing.

Get Money Ready – You’ll Need It

You will need money for the lean times,You can get Small Business loans from Bank of America or from crowd funding . Just because you’re doing well now doesn’t mean you will be in the future. If you are having not very good credit, still you can get with these bad credit business loans or with your own personal savings from sales.

Build Your Infrastructure, Then Redouble Your Efforts

When you have money, build your infrastructure, and redouble your efforts to build your company on sure footing. That means have a solid bread and butter product that you can keep going back to the well to and make sales every day, all day. It doesn’t have to break records. It doesn’t have to necessarily be Earth-shattering. It just has to be a solid, stable product.

Develop a Strong Brand Message

If you don’t have a strong brand message, develop that now. Most company cultures are weak and ineffectual. Customers don’t care about brands because brands don’t care about themselves. They lack passion, drive, and personality.

But, when sales are down, it’s these kinds of things that will keep morale up.

Prepare For A New Market At The Height Of Your Success

So many businesses ride high on sales figures until that sale ends or the season wanes. Then, they’re wallowing around wishing they had better prepared for the future. Don’t do that. When you think your sales are at an “all time high,” start dumping money into market research and marketing and get ready to either switch demographics (target markets), develop new products and services, or save money for the lean times.

Even businesses need savings so don’t scoff at the idea of holding a little back for the future. It may just save your butt in three months.

Dennis Firth is a business consultant. He enjoys writing about his experiences online. His articles appear mainly on business and finance websites.