It’s always a mistake to discuss general truths of the business world if you imply they belong to everyone. That’s not the case. A graphic design studio will follow slightly different rules to a freelance graphic designer, for example, while some industries, like the restaurant and hospitality sector, are vastly different from most others.
Now, specific and direct advice for each sector exists, but none of it can be so direct and appropriate that it perfectly speaks to your situation. This is where a little creativity is needed. How do I retrofit the wisdom and experience I’ve learned and port that into a new space? Moreover, how long is this advice good for, anyway? After all, opening a restaurant in the 1970’s will follow different rules than opening one now.
In this post, we’ll discuss a few conversion metrics you can use to keep your business insight ticking over, relevant for as long as possible, and open to new information. Any company leader that can achieve that process will be able to learn from those around them, and that involves the highest level of wisdom.
Understand Your Challenges
Ultimately, no positive changes can be discussed unless you understand the challenges those changes are hoping to address. So for example, perhaps you’ve read a guide on customer support for your company. Except as you run a restaurant, it’s true that you don’t have a call centre team sitting around ready to take those complaints. This could be the challenge that you face, and the one you have to work around.
Instead, consider what works. Opening your phone lines in the main offices at certain hours a day, opening up a reservation email address or online booking form, and having time in your week to reply to public reviews can be a good place to start. The advice may remain similar, but the implementation has been altered to suit your brand.
Use Precise Software Support
Even if you serve a somewhat unique sector, it’s true that you’re part of a unique market that, hopefully, someone has tried to address. This is especially true of management software, which is entering a golden age. For example, rental software solutions that allow you to track inventory related to event management, live music and many other aspects of a dynamic and constantly changing industry can provide you the efficiency boost you’re looking for. As software services can be implemented, changed, selected on a modular basis and even matched together, you may be surprised just how effective the end result will be.
Consider Your Customer Profile
A general customer profile is a unique tool in determining exactly what your output should be and who it should serve. If you have that to hand, then any advice you most hold detailing how to retain and manage said audience can be converted. For example, the attendees of a music concert are going to be different than those visiting our aforementioned restaurant, not necessarily in terms of demographic makeup, but in terms of what they expect from the evening, what amenities should be available, and how to plan out security and logistics to ensure their evening proceeds smoothly. Investing in chaperones and security, for example, is a stringent process that should be planned more diligently than a waiter who seats guests. A customer profile helps you better port certain business advice into an effective stratagem, which can serve as a base for some of your other corporate planning.
Test & Iterate
The truth is that no business advice, even in sectors perfectly primed for that vantage point, will be 100% adaptable to all wisdom 100% of the time. Just like any other business, you have to test and iterate on new concepts and measures within your business, and some of them simply won’t work. For example, some companies have taken to remote working norms like a duck to water, others have found it harder to bring a professional team together when so many employees are spread across the state in their homes. Trial runs can be a great method of seeing if business wisdom applies to your sector, and there’s no shame in declaring that trial incompatible with your final business goals. At the very least, this shows the mark of a dynamic business looking to improve itself over time. Any professional would be lucky to work at a firm like that.
WIth this advice, we hope you can better retrofit business advice to your unique sector, even if the end results aren’t as seamlessly integrated as you might first expect.
