It’s all about people
The first part of our process is to examine your business structure to see how it is performing.
Most think that business structure is all around the product and its delivery. And it is true, these things are important.
But more important are the people. Over the years, experience has shown us that it is the people, their personalities and skills that are the main factor influencing the way business is structured and managed.
First your customer
You will have a customer base which loves your products. These are the people who buy from you most of the time.
The thing is, these customers will have a strong preference, not just for your product, but for the way they interact with your organisation – especially through delivery.
A massage therapist delivering massage for stress relief is generally expected to be empathetic, able to listen, especially to feelings and understand how someone wants the massage to be delivered without being told. Not so important with a physiotherapist delivering a sports’ massage though. Straightforward no fuss delivery here most of the time.
A trades person probably doesn’t need to be empathetic, but they do need to be firm and direct and convey confidence around the fact they know what they are doing and will supply a great result.
Add to this, most of us are attracted to people like us.
What this means is, generally the person delivering your product needs to be able to communicate with your customers in a way they like and understand. So, it is the customer’s personality preferences which will dictate the personality of the people they buy from.
Second, your staff
The staff dealing with your customers are generally sales people and those delivering a product.
Of course, they need to have the skills to do the job needed.
And they need to have a personality to relate to your customers as outlined above.
The thing is, not every personality is able to do everything needed to get a job done. As business owners, we are unusual. We often have characteristics that do not fit the norm and find that we can turn our hand to most business tasks. We can’t expect this of our team members.
The massage therapist you employ, almost certainly won’t be good at sales. Picking up a phone to make a cold call or asking a client to make another appointment will generally be almost impossible. And if you employ that massage therapist as a contractor with their own business, they almost certainly will have difficulty with many business tasks such as keeping the books running and their finances solid.
Third the business
So, what this means is, you need to structure your departments around the characteristics of the people you need to do the jobs.
When dealing with our massage therapist business I would think organising your business something like this will work.
You might be doing all the work now, or you may have staff in some of the roles. Wherever you are at in your business journey, thinking about the sections as separate will give you a pathway for growth.
With this massage therapist business, the trick will be to keep sales separate from delivery being managed by separate people with characteristics and skills better suited for this outgoing role. If this was a real estate agency, the bottom level would involve both sales and delivery. After all, in this instance, delivery is selling and managing real estate and the money management which goes hand in hand with that task.
When picking your staff though, never forget the bottom line will be looked after best if you really know your customer and how they want to be treated and to make sure your sales and delivery teams are suited to your customer base.
