Do Business Faster

The speed at which your business operates will make a big difference to your bottom line. “The most important thing for a startup entrepreneur is speed,” said Patrick Bet-David, a former financial adviser and current C.E.O. of PHP Agency, Inc, an insurance agency .

“The faster you move, the sooner you can grow your business, ” he said. There are four operating speeds to think about:

FUNCTIONING SPEED
Your business functioning speed is how quickly the basic, day-to-day functions of your business get done. “The more support you have, the stronger your functioning speed,” Mr. Bet-David said. Typically, the bigger your team, the faster your functioning speed.

Example: You sell a physical product on Etsy and handle all the tasks associated with your business on your own. You create the product, manage social media, ship everything out and respond to customer feedback. You could hire an assistant to ship products and manage social media, and your business now functions much faster.

This doesn’t always mean hiring people, though. If your Wi-Fi is painfully slow, for example, switching Internet providers may increase your functioning speed a lot.

PROCESSING SPEED
Your processing speed is how long it takes to get the product to the customer. “In real estate, this would be the time it takes to go from ‘I want to buy a home’ to actually closing on the home,” said Mr. Bet-David.

Example: You have a financial consulting business. When you get a new client, you spend days emailing each other back and forth to schedule your consulting calls. Use an online scheduler like Calendy or Square to eliminate the back and forth. Your client can now get their sessions scheduled in one step.

To increase this speed, focus on efficiency. Make a list of all the steps involved in processing a sale in your business, then see if there’s anything that can be eliminated or combined. Look at tools like Zapier, Hootsuite and Hubspot for automating basic business tasks to increase this speed. For example, if you spend too much time dealing with customer returns, tools like Returnly can automate and expedite the process for you. Or maybe your invoicing system requires an extra step that you could cut to speed up the process.

TIMING SPEED
Timing speed is about leveraging the right timing to grow your business. It involves looking for opportunities and getting comfortable taking a step back in order to take a few steps forward. This is a harder one to plan for, Mr. Bet-David said. “Intuitive people are good at it.”

Example: When gas prices were increasing in 2005, Mitsubishi took advantage of the timing and offered a year of free gas for new customers, given as a prepaid debit card. The cost of this incentive was minimal to them overall but increased their sales by 7.2 percent, reported Heinz marketing. Even better, it improved their brand perception.

To increase your timing speed, focus on opportunity and positioning. Look for pain points that customers might be struggling with at the moment and opportunities to solve those problems for them. If you’re planning to launch a marketing campaign for your product, think about the best time to do this.

EXPANSION SPEED
Expansion speed is knowing the next move you need to make in your business and when you need to make that move. But control your ambitions, Mr. Bet-David warned. “A company that’s trying to grow too fast is worse than a company growing too slow.” Expansion speed is less about expanding in the moment, and more about knowing when it’s time to expand.

Example: You have a furniture rental business for real estate staging. It’s doing well, but you’ve noticed your customers request quite a bit of children’s furniture, a category for which you don’t have much inventory. After interviewing your customers and researching their needs, you decide you’ll expand your business and invest in children’s furnishings to rent. You’ll do this next year, when business profits are on schedule to increase 8 percent.

To increase expansion speed, focus on strategy and thinking ahead. “Most entrepreneurs have no idea who their ideal customer is,” Mr. Bet-David said. “You have to figure out who’s in your niche, then figure out where your market is.” Again, this comes down to knowing where your customers live, where they hang out online and what they’re searching for. Tools like Google Keywords, Google Trends, Quantcast and Market Samurai can help with this. You can also interview and poll your existing customers. What are their additional needs?