9 Ways to Effortlessly Improve Your Startup's Performance

Improving the performance of your startup is quite easy if you don’t spare the effort or the

resources. For instance, if you’re not afraid to commit a huge amount of money in order to

move to a bigger office, buy new equipment for  your enterprise, you’ll do just fine. The problem lies in the fact that hiring more people, getting another business

loan and expanding without a workload to follow-through won’t always be an option. With

that in mind and without further ado, here are nine ways how you can improve your

startup’s performance without sacrificing too much in the process.

1. Lower operating costs

The first thing you need to do is understand that the simplest way to increase your profit is

to actually limit your spending. There’s one massive hazard here. You see, sometimes by

lowering costs, you’re also lowering the quality of your products and your work, in general.

Cutting bonuses means leaving your team demotivated, cutting down on the quality (or

quantity) of raw materials means undermining the quality of your products, etc. Overall, you

need to make sure that the way you’re cutting expenses is safe for your enterprise in the

long run.

2. Focus on return customers

Making a customer return costs you five times less than making a new conversion.

Moreover, people have a chance of returning on their own if they were satisfied with a

previous visit. According to some surveys, 8% of regular customers contribute 40% to your

entire profit. By paying more attention to these people, you will save effort and make a

massive increase in your corporate efficiency. Knowing which methods work is one of the

simplest ways to save time and energy, not to mention grow your organization.

3. Pick scalable options

One of the ways how you can improve your overall organization is by always choosing

scalable options for your enterprise. Chances are that you will use a number of tools and

platforms in order to make your enterprise more effective. Always check if these options are

scalable. Do they have bigger plans that involve more devices and users at the same time?

Do they have low caps that will inconvenience you in the future? These are just some steps

of precaution that you will have to take.

4. Invest in your delivery chain

If your startup relies on deliveries, boosting your delivery chain and lowering operating costs

is one of the simplest ways to make a difference. One of the ways to do so is to invest in

decent fleet management software. First, this will help you save fuel and time by picking

optimal routes. Second, such a thing will allow you to notice which of your drivers are prone

to risky driving behaviors and replace them. Lastly, it will become a lot easier to notice

employee theft, time theft and use of company vehicles for personal needs.

5. Outsource some tasks

One of the most cost-efficient ways to make a difference here is to effortlessly improve your startup’s performance by entrusting some tasks to someone else. Tasks like organisational design take too much knowledge, experience and a team composed of individuals with an affinity towards creative thinking and problem-solving. In other words, making an in-house team capable of delivering comparable results will take too much time, money and effort on your part. What you need is to be innovative, adaptive, and responsive, and one of the simplest ways to achieve this is to outsource.
 
By outsourcing, you find the best person for the job no matter their location. Outsourcing is particularly beneficial for those roles where physical presence in the office, or even the origin country of the business, is not mandatory - for instance, IT support technicians or customer service assistants are two roles that are often outsourced. Outsourcing is also beneficial in terms of cost. This is because the cost of hiring an employee that works remotely, particularly one located in a third country with lower labor costs, will not put as much strain on your purse strings, though will still provide the specialised support and service your business so desperately needs.
 

6. Let some people go

There are some types of employees that are not only not pulling their own weight but are

actively preventing others from giving their best, as well. The slacker and the bully are two

common archetypes of bad employees but they’re just the tip of the iceberg. There’s also

the emotional vampire, the siren, the martyr and the “star”. The problem with these people

lies in the fact that they aren’t necessarily underperforming or making others feel bad

through direct action. Still, your workplace will be a better place without these toxic

employees, that’s for sure.

7. Delegate tasks

In order to really make your team unleash their full potential, you need to start delegating

tasks. Start by getting to know each individual person in your employ. The best time to do

this is during the hiring and training process. This way, you will know their affinities and

skills a lot better and this can help guide your decision-making process. By paying close

attention to your employees, you will also be able to recognize those with the potential to

be future leaders. This way, you can start grooming them for leadership positions early on.

Keep in mind that you can’t do it all on your own and that, sooner or later, you will have to

start sharing responsibility.

8. Diversify your offer

Different items have different seasonal appeal. Then, when you come up with a new line of

products, based on market research, you can get a pretty good idea of what you’re up

against. However, you can’t know with 100% certainty what the best-seller is going to be.

The safest way is to diversify your offer, regardless of if you’re selling products or services.

Keep in mind that diversifying your sources of income makes your firm more resilient. Sure,

it may not help boost your startup’s performance but it does help it deliver with more

consistency.

9. Save your cash

Whenever you have the option of not dipping into your cash supply, you should take that

offer. Sure, you need to burn cash in order to run a successful and lucrative business but

there are alternative ways to make payments. Business loans, personal loans,

compensations and account payables are just some of the ways to avoid ruining your cash

flow. Remember that while it seems intuitive that you should pay now if you can afford it,

running low on cash supply means putting your business at unnecessary risk. It’s probably

best to avoid these risky scenarios.

In the end, the best thing about the above-listed nine tips is the fact that they don’t take

additional effort or massive monetary investment. They also don’t change your business

model by too much. In other words, these are the kinds of changes that you can start

introducing as soon as today. This is something that you can completely alter in a matter of

weeks, even days. The speed at which these decisions can be executed also means that you

get to reap these benefits a lot sooner.