Never Entrust Your Business to a Third Party
Five Reasons that you Should Consider
1. No one knows your product the way you do.
Your product or service doesn't just require a representative. It needs an advocate.
As the owner of the company, you present your product with passion, you know your offerings inside and out, and you make it your mission, not just your job, to show potential clients how your product can change their world. You have the opportunity to spread your enthusiasm and your knowledge every minute you spend with your team. Outsource any of your services, and you are letting that opportunity walk out the door.
2. You want your brand to be the only one, not one of many.
Third-party contractors almost always represent multiple brands. When they are courting you, they do their best to make you believe their staff will handle your brand as you would, but in reality, this is rarely possible. Their staff members have a choice each time they contact a prospect: They can talk about your brand or any of the other brands they represent. If your brand is not the preferred, pet brand of their staff, it will never get the attention it deserves. By keeping your brand in the hands of your in-house team--from design to sales to accounting and everything in between you will ensure that your brand is the only one that comes up in conversation with your potential customers.
3. Your future growth comes from customer feedback.
You may start off with what you think is a great product, but to keep it alive, you will need to keep retooling, reimagining, and reinventing it. If you pass your product over to a third party, you are passing up a valuable source of input. Customers are the best product-development team you can call upon: They will tell you how they use your product, how they use other companies' products, and even the kind of products they want to buy but can't find. If you allow a third party to do your outreach, the third party may filter back a comment here and there, but most of the tips and requests from the end user will be lost. By keeping direct contact with your customers, you can keep up with your client and keep your company on the cutting edge.
4. If things go wrong, you want to be the first (not the last!) to know about it.
Your company is only as strong as its weakest link. Customer complaints should be acted upon quickly, because they are valuable indicators of your company's health. By putting a third party between you and your customers, you rely on the third party to record problems accurately, you increase the time it takes for you to find out about problems, and ultimately, you delay the resolution of those problems. In the interim, customer dissatisfaction builds and the risk of lost business grows. If you keep an in-house team on the frontlines, and train them to listen carefully to customer problems, you can always react swiftly, thus safeguarding your customer satisfaction and your company's market share.
5. Service is the secret sauce.
Your company may have great products, but without great service to accompany them, your business's longevity is limited. Relinquishing control of your company's service is a fast way to frustrate your customers, because an outside contractor never has the authority to serve your client base the way you would. A third party works off parameters and rule books, and makes customer policy more important than customer service. Keeping your service team in house ensures that you have the chance to navigate customer needs using common sense, and most important, affords you the opportunity to be proactive about how you serve your customers.
Read the full article at: inc
Patty Block, President and Founder of The Block Group, established her company to advocate for women-owned businesses, helping them position their companies for strategic growth. Charting the course for impactful, sustainable, profitable businesses, the beacon is control: of your strategic direction, your money, your time, your staffing, and your ability to bring in business. The Block Group brings together the people, resources and ideas that build results.
Business management consultant.
Business consulting for women entrepreneurs in Houston, Advice for women entrepreneurs, Business Coach in Houston, Growth strategies for small business, Business continuation for women, Growth for women-owned businesses, Houston business coaching, Financial strategies for small business, Small business consulting in Houston, Business management consultant, Business, Consulting, Women, Entrepreneurs, Houston, Coach, Growth, Strategies, Coaching, Continuation, Owned, Owner, Financial, Consulting, Management,
