As a small business, opening more locations means your company is growing, and you are better positioned to make more profits, which has most likely been your dream all along.
However, with greater expansion also comes the matter of how to manage it all, which is nearly impossible to do without careful thought and consideration of the various problems facing you as a multi-location business owner.
In fact, as you expand your business, some steps you need to take to help avoid the most common problems associated with opening a new location include:
Give Each of Your Locations Equal Attention
Though you have multiple businesses, it is easy to unconsciously give more of your attention to the location you are actively managing.
Hence, it can cause your other locations to fall short of meeting your business standards, which can lead to a loss of customers and profits.
Therefore, as you open new locations, be sure to spread your time between each of them as needed to ensure they are all given the proper attention necessary to become an integral part of your portfolio.
Delegate Leaders to Take Your Place When You’re Not There
When you are absent from one location to tend to another, it leaves the employees at the first location without mentorship to perform their jobs properly.
Therefore, it’s a good idea to delegate someone in the company who you can trust to fill your space in your absence.
This way, you can take time to build up each of your other businesses with peace of mind knowing someone you trust is taking the managerial role and handling the other locations properly.
Streamline Your Communications
It is also a good idea to streamline your communications when managing multiple locations to prevent the need to send several different emails or to schedule various meetings with managers to ensure everyone is on the same page.
One way to do this is by implementing a software solution, such as residential estate management software, if you own multiple investment properties.
This way, according to the experts at MRI Software, “you can centralize your marketing and property management across one set of data to achieve greater accuracy and collaboration and more.”
Unify Your Teams Across All Locations For Strong Corporate Culture
Maintaining strong company culture is very important, especially when managing multiple locations because it helps ensure that all employees understand your company’s values, so your customers receive the best service no matter the location.
Therefore, you should continuously work towards creating a unified work environment to prevent losing customers and profits due to incompatible employees working against your brand culture and values. It also helps prevent unhealthy competition between one location and another.
In conclusion, multiple business locations help expand your brand and attract more customers. However, the key is to focus on quality and not quantity. Otherwise, it does no good to open another location only to have it fail because you opened it with the wrong focus and weren’t prepared to address the issues that come with it, thus costing you precious time, money, and customers.
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