When it comes to improving the efficiency of a business and keeping profits on the rise, there are many ways to go about it. The secret lies in choosing the right strategies to suit your business. There are however some fundamentals that cut across most industries. Getting stock off the shelves is one important area. Recovering outstanding debt is another priority for many businesses right now.
Check out the following tips and ideas and see what would help maximise the efficiency of your business and improve your profits.
Sell off your excess stock
Your business may have been closed for part of the last two years during lockdown or running at reduced hours. This may have led to an accumulation of excess or outdated stock that’s now sitting dormant on your shelves. Instead of giving up on unwanted stock, writing it off or heavily discounting your excess stock, you can promote it instead to a whole new marketplace and sell it through the Bartercard community at the full sale price. You can also save your advertising dollars by listing your goods at no cost through Bartercard.
Bartercard members are happy to pay you full price if it means spending their trade dollars, especially in the current economic climate. You can then use the trade dollars you earn to offset your business expenses and keep cash flowing in your business.
Collect outstanding debt
Any business carrying customer debt is putting itself in a risky situation. At times it may be unavoidable, but it’s important you keep on top of it and have a system in place to manage it well.
Bartercard offers a useful solution to remedy debt when traditional payment methods fail. Here’s how it works. When a Bartercard member is having trouble collecting cash from one of their business customers, they can offer to accept part or all the debt in products or services. These can then be on-sold through the Bartercard community for trade dollars.
The products or services are advertised (at no cost) through Bartercard’s online platform attracting buyers who are keen to spend their trade dollars. Your debt is reduced with each sale until you recoup the full amount.
Cross-sell and upsell to your customers
It has been proven far cheaper and easier to keep an existing customer than to try and win over a new one. Yet so many businesses let customers walk out the door without asking if there is something else they would like to buy. It’s the famous McDonald’s line “Would you like fries with that?”
Remember to go back to the basics such as cross-selling and upselling. Cross-selling refers to selling related, but distinct, products in the same transaction. For example, in a hairdressing salon – rather than just a cut, offer a treatment or some take-home products. Upselling refers to pitching higher-value versions of the same product such as a full car service rather than a basic one.
Create bundles of existing products to create higher-value options for your customers. If you’re in a service-based business, create tiered levels of your service, adding in more features for the higher levels.
Join a business network that boosts your profits
Networking is a great tool for attracting new customers and growing your business. Bartercard provides opportunities to meet like-minded business people and expand your business reach.
Being a Bartercard member gives you immediate access to the world’s largest business-to-business trade exchange and the ability to network with tens of thousands of member businesses – locally and nationally.
Several large B2B networking organisations are also members of Bartercard. You can pay your membership using your trade dollars and network with potential customers in both the cash and trade economy.
Watch this short video to find out how Bartercard can assist your business to maximise efficiency and increase profits.