Founder and CEO of Insightly and a lifelong techie with a passion for all things startup.
Efficiency is, by definition, “the peak level of performance that uses the least amount of inputs to achieve the highest amount of output.” While the concept itself is, in theory, straightforward, it’s anything but when it comes to how most businesses operate. Being truly efficient takes a set of tools and strategies that many companies don’t utilize correctly across their organization. Given the current challenging economic landscape, I believe that “using the least amount of inputs” to become more efficient is something that every company should prioritize this year.
In late fall 2022, customers and prospects were facing some economic headwinds. 2023 has also been unpredictable thus far for many in the business community, including seasoned economists. So yes, efficiency seems prudent—but maybe there is a silver lining here. What if the benefits of efficient growth extended beyond your bottom line to also producing better outcomes for your employees and customers?
In our own effort to become more efficient and conserve precious capital, my company has made a number of recent adjustments that better suit our fully remote work culture. We’ve jettisoned our expensive offsite events that burn both time and money and instead replaced them with virtual meeting initiatives. Some of these changes require a little out-of-the-box thinking, like for our lead generation events. We plan on moving our customer advisory board meeting this year to a remote event, which should save time, increase productivity and make it easier for customers to attend. And rather than hosting an expensive blow-out sales kick-off, we’re toning it down and holding it closer to where many of our employees live in San Francisco, at our original office.
These are just a few examples of how you can focus on efficiency within your company. If you are wondering how to tackle this goal, here are five tips I have found can help and ultimately lead you to more customers, fewer expenses and a higher profit margin.
1. Be strategic with how you go about finding new customers.
While it might seem like an easier task to have your sales team recruit new customers through SEO, digital ads or even cold calls, a more efficient way to get new business leads is by cloning your current customers. To do this, use the data you already have on your customers to better define their attributes. Once you do some data crunching in your CRM to learn more about their makeup, you can create a predictive audience-type model to help identify future customers.
Another way to grow is by formalizing a way to have your best customers evangelize on your behalf. My company has found that at least a fifth of our revenues come from word-of-mouth or referrals. You may see something similar or higher, especially if you create a referral program and provide incentives to customers to share their love for your brand.
2. Reduce wasteful spending.
One quick way to reduce organizational expenses is to reduce your overhead costs. A cost-saving measure becoming more common today is making your workforce fully remote in order to close large office space; this can provide you with the flexibility to reallocate your largest operating expense toward employee happiness. Talk with your team and staff about suggestions for other unnecessary expenses that could be reduced or removed from the organization without negatively impacting workflow.
3. Offer enticing incentives to help recruit.
Sourcing internally is a great alternative to outsourcing job openings. Not only that, but it also fosters employee engagement while saving time and money. A great way to increase participation in employee recruitment is to offer referral bonuses. While this isn’t anything new, it’s often forgotten about or not utilized as much as it should be.
For instance, consider holding a LinkedIn contest to encourage employee engagement and utilize your internal resources to help market your business. You can also offer periodic incentives to employees who promote company announcements, news articles and job openings, which is a win-win on both ends.
4. Consolidate your SaaS software.
Another potential money waster? Unused software tools. Research from software firm Zylo shows that SaaS growth continues, and the average organization has 323 SaaS apps and spends $65 million on SaaS annually. Their research also shows that as much as 40% of that spend is wasted on software that doesn’t get used.
It’s a good idea to periodically audit your SaaS company-wide to reduce duplication and redundancies. Look to combine licensing to get the best prices from vendors. For example, if your CRM vendor offers platforms for other service areas, you may qualify for discounts. Also, be sure you’re selecting software that easily integrates with your stack or you’ll end up hiring developers to create costly integrations that can break when new versions are released. Seek ways to consolidate the tools you absolutely need via API integrations, or find all-in-one solutions that manage multiple functions in a single cloud platform.
5. Be scrappier.
My final suggestion to help your organization become more efficient is to get creative with the resources you already have in place. Most companies are not taking full advantage of their tools or their connections. A great example of this is your existing leads—use your CRM to the fullest, put in data hygiene processes and ensure great follow-up to close deals. Reach out to former customers and reconnect to see if they might come back or demo your new product. Reach out to current customers for referrals or to expand their relationship with you.
While there are many different ways your organization can become more efficient, implementing these strategies can put you in a better position to improve efficiency and, as a result, engage your employees, reduce unnecessary expenses and gain more customers.
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