Sweet success. Admittedly, the word accidental success is humorous. Ask any rock star or well-known actor a good overnight boost of fame. The candid ones please explain that many years of effort preceded their "accidental" fortune.
Exactly the same concept is true for just about any online business owner. Imagine finding yourself in the throes of the major pr blitz, with skyrocketing sales following close behind. The truth is that you may be unprepared to deal with the amount of business that this brings. But we guarantee you that your success isn't any accident!
How can you get ready for an onslaught of hard-won business? In the end, if your site is just mentioned by Oprah or featured in a brief segment on CNN, your URL could be rocketed in to the glare of the spotlight (in an incredibly great way). Before you realize it, you'd have back orders and your site could be caught up in the jump in visitors. You would not have the ability to get UPS to drag into your driveway fast enough. Lest this blitz of excellent fortune become your sudden demise, you'd better prepare yourself.
The list below describes both immediate and short-term actions you need to take when opportunity comes knocking at your domain:
Identify your pressure points. Determine in which the biggest interest in your time or resources is originating from. You may be beseeched by the media for interview requests and should not make it towards the phone. More than likely, your production and distribution cycles have kinks, and you've got to get (or keep) products stocked in the higher demand levels. Also, your customer support functions must handle the incoming request load.
Maybe your biggest issue is determining how you can pack and ship this steep increase in orders. Once you identify your most immediate (and demanding) supply of frustration, you can begin creating a solution.
Hire temporary help. When your manpower has no "man," you need to call in the cavalry. Going from the solo operation to one having a dozen employees is daunting, however. It requires time for you to screen and hire people and set benefits in place.
The answer would be to hire temporary workers to supply an instantaneous boost to your productivity levels, without the headache. Make use of a professional staffing agency to quickly add qualified and prescreened workers. An additional benefit is that you can withdraw on staffing levels if demand decelerates.
Outsource certain tasks. Following a sudden influx of orders, probably the most economical solution (for the long and short terms) would be to outsource a number of your functions. Because the who owns a little site, you may be accustomed to processing each order and then packaging and shipping the product yourself. Factor in a 50 % to 75 % increase in orders, and you can no more physically continue the pace.
Combat the issue by getting a local answering services company that may take over functions associated with customer support. Or, try contracting having a distribution center to warehouse your products and handle order-packing and -shipping functions.
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08142011
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