by Jessica Dahlquist, Director of Operations | Customer Service
Let’s be honest. Hiring can be one of the hardest things to do in your business. It can be difficult to let go of certain tasks or responsibilities, because are worried that you’ll never find someone who will be able to do them like you. Am I right?
The fact is, when you take the time to hire the right person and properly train them to execute tasks according to your systems and standards, you’ll find that hiring is the best thing that ever happened to you. So let’s talk about hiring for your customer service team. Here are three tools you should focus on building prior to hiring your first team member:
A Tone Guide
Whoever is doing your customer service is a representative of your company. That’s why it’s important that they learn to speak like the company “speaks”. We recommend creating a tone guide so that they know the way in which you want communication from your company to feel. Is your brand formal or more laid back? Would you close and email with “Love, Jenny” or would that be totally strange coming from your gym equipment brand? Listing out words and phrases that reflect your brand will help your customer service team members communicate in a way that is aligned with your brand while still feeling spontaneous.
Task Videos
We love using Loom videos to train our employees. Making a video of yourself performing the task you are wanting to delegate is a great way to ensure your team gets the job done exactly the way you would do it. Walk them step by step through every part of the process, and be sure to narrate as you go along so they have a reference that is both visual and auditory.
FAQ Sheets
In any business, employees are going to run into questions or scenarios that are unexpected. That’s why it’s important to establish a process that your customer service employee can use if they don’t know how to handle a particular situation. In addition to having someone above them that can answer their question directly, you should also create a document where these responses are recorded in case the same issue comes up again. Don’t just consider these scenarios one-time occurrences. Make sure the information is easy to document and disseminate across the whole team for future reference.
Customer service is one of the first positions we recommend hiring for in order to free up your time from more pressing tasks! With the right team members ensuring your customers are happy, just imagine what other goals you’ll be focus on and accomplish! If you have any other questions about building your team and growing your business, we’d love to share more with you. Head over to www.turnkeyproductmanagement.com/apply/.
Good luck!
by Jessica Dahlquist, Director of Operations | Coaching, Full-Service
For most business owners, the end goal of building a thriving business is to sell it for a tremendous profit. It’s like investing in a home and then selling it once it has appreciated. Selling a business for top dollar doesn’t come easy, but if you’ve done your part to make the business attractive to a buyer, you can expect a pleasant return on your investment!
Jeff Lieber, the founder of Turnkey Product Management, started as an Amazon seller. He sold puppy and baby products for several years and eventually grew the business to the point where it became attractive to potential buyers and selling made sense. When he went to his accountant for the next steps, he was shocked by the response he got. He was told that his next step was to clean up his books, to the point where anyone could walk in and think that running his business looked doable.
Jeff thought his books were fine, but they were only fine because HE understood them and HE knew where to look for information. Someone else wouldn’t be able to make sense of them, and they certainly wouldn’t want to take them over in the state they were in. Just as you’d declutter a house and landscape the yard before you put it on the market, Jeff set out to give his business some “curb appeal”.
He hired someone to compile all the sales information from his years of selling, created legible spreadsheets, and was able to show a clear upward trajectory in his sales. It took a bit of doing, but once that was finished, he had a much cleaner business to present to buyers. More important, without changing a single system or increasing sales by a single dollar he increased the value of his business.
Our #1 tip for selling your business: Clean up your books. Think of it this way, if it wasn’t yours, would you want to “move into” your business? If not, what things need to be organized, systematized and dialed in to make that transition seem not only doable but sustainable and profitable for the buyer? Once you’ve answered those questions, you’re on the way towards selling your business for the big bucks. Good luck!
Hear the full story of the lessons Jeff learned while selling his Amazon business by listening to Episode 5 of the Playbook for Amazon Podcast.
by Lauren Amos, Operational Facilitator | Accelerators, Coaching
In any business, there are tasks which must be performed on a regular basis. Generally, these tasks are assigned to a member of the team who has been trained to perform them. But what happens when that team member is unavailable, or it is necessary to train additional employees on how to perform the task? Creating and maintaining standard operating procedures or SOPs are a great way to ensure that tasks can be performed and understood by any of your team members.
At TurnKey, we follow a simple six-step process when creating SOPs:
- Record a video of you completing the process (a screen share) explaining it as you go.
- Once you’ve recorded the video, write step-by-step directions based on the video.
- When the SOP has been created, have a separate team member proofread the SOP. It is helpful to have them walk through the SOP step-by-step to ensure you’ve captured all of the necessary points.
- Send the SOP to a designer to polish it up and make it look professional.
- After the designer has formatted it, have your team double-check the SOP to ensure the designer didn’t make any mistakes.
- Create a task checklist in a project management system for your
team to follow based on the SOP that was created.
Creating SOPs may seem like an unnecessary step in your business process, but having clear step-by-step instructions for all of the processes and tasks within your company will save time in the long run. It is the first step in ensuring that your business becomes as streamlined and automated as possible!
Want more in-depth instructions on creating SOPs and other topics that will help your business to function well and your sales to skyrocket? Apply now and find out what services you qualify for that can help you systematize your business!
