by Lina Martinez
When you start a business, if you start small, you might have complete control. You might be creating products at home and selling them on sites like Etsy and your own e-commerce store. You are in charge of production, marketing, sales, and just about everything else. A product never leaves your business without your having something do with it. Over time, you start to develop a brand, and again, you are in control. You work with designers on logos and websites. You build your brand by advertising and communication. It’s all yours.
At times, this is tough. You very much have to become a jack of all trades as you try to do it all when really all you want to do is make and sell your products. You put every hour that you can into your business, sometimes around another job and other commitments. It’s hard work, you are exhausted, and you can’t wait until the day that you are earning enough to hire help.
But, as soon as you start to hire help and grow, you inevitably begin to lose control. In your business does well, you might find that you no longer sell your products yourself. But you instead distribute to other retailers. You might not be involved in creating products anymore, as you can no longer keep up with demand from your spare room. It can start to feel as though you’ve lost all control, and when this happens, you might begin to feel disconnected from your business. Without control, you might wonder if it’s still your business at all. So, let’s take a look at some of the ways that you can keep control, and have a positive influence in your growing business.
Keep Specific Responsibilities for Yourself
Delegation is often key to growth, and learning to let go of some elements as your business grows is a good thing. You don’t need to spend your time on the shop floor or answering the phones anymore. Your time can be better spent elsewhere.
Give yourself specific responsibilities. Big jobs like designing new products and overseeing marketing plans, that need your eye and skill. Keeping these jobs for yourself means that it will always be your brand, and your products will always have your vision. Try to keep essential duties that take your business forward. But also the tasks that you enjoy doing. If you like running social media profiles, do it. If you like to spend some time with your production team, that’s fine too. Just make sure you understand where your time is best spent.
Make Sure You’ve Got all of the Data
It’s impossible to keep control if you don’t know what is going on. You can’t control who is selling your products and how if you don’t know. Use track street to monitor sales and to report a MAP violation so that you can keep control of the sales of your products.
If someone else runs your website, email campaigns and social media platforms, make sure you’ve got access to the analytics so that you can keep an eye on things, and don’t feel as though you can’t step in if you need to.
Have Strong Brand Values
Developing strong brand values and ideals is a great way to keep control. Employ the right people, and your values will filter down. As long as your companies beliefs remain the same, it will still be under your control.