Small talk with Peter Jones: How to elevate your business performance

In our Small Talk series, we delve into how your business can tackle some of the many challenges you face so you can elevate your performance. Peter Jones, our Sage customer for life, sat down with interviewers Nina and Jed to talk about what you can do to ensure your business can perform at its best. Plus, there are a few challenges that Peter was set by his intrepid interviewers. Watch the video to see how he got on and below is a transcript, followed by some advice on how you can elevate your business performance. Jed: Hi. Hi Peter. Peter: Hello. What’s your name? Jed: Jed. Peter: Hi Jed. Great to meet you. Jed: Nice to meet you too. Nina: Hi Peter, I’m Nina. Peter: Nina, great to meet you. So you’re the guys that are interviewing me? Nina and Jed: Yeah. Peter: Wow. Nina: Are you nervous? Peter: I am now. Nina: Are you ready to talk about performance? Peter: I’m ready to talk about performance. Nina: Not as in acting or sports. Business performance. Peter: Ok. Jed: How can business people get out of doing boring stuff, so they can do the exciting stuff instead? Peter: So, how do you get out of it? I think the only way you can get out of it is, you’ve got to automate your business. So you’ve got to get a good piece of software and then you’re going to have far more time to go and do other things in the business. Nina: What does elevate mean? Peter: Elevate? Well, actually, elevate is different things for different people but elevate, to me, is about growing or doing something better. So, how do you elevate a business? You elevate a business by doing certain things in the business to make it perform better than it would normally perform. Having so much paperwork that you’ve just got to shift papers from one place to another, that’s pretty boring, isn’t it? You want to have a bit more fun than that, don’t you? You want to make calls to people. You want to go out to meetings, meet people and try to drive business. Make your life easier, so that when you actually get information in, you put it on to a computer, store it, you can get on with doing other fun things like talking to customers and trying to get more business in. Do you think that’s a good idea? Nina and Jed: Yeah. Jed: Performance is doing better than your competition. Who can blow up a balloon the fastest? Peter: A balloon? Jed: Yep. So, I’ve got a… Peter: What, between us? Jed: Yeah, just between us. [Peter, Nina and Jed blow up their balloons – Peter finishes first] Jed: I’m guessing Peter wins, then. Small talk with Peter Jones: Check out the rest of the series

• How you can increase business productivity
• How to overcome business challenges
• How saving time can help your business
• How to free up time to make smarter business decisions
• How to motivate and empower your employees

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Three ways to elevate your business performance

1. Automate your processes

Start by focusing on improving efficiency and productivity. A great way to do that is to automate the things that are slowing you down – manual processes such as data entry, for example; this will give you the space to focus on more value-add tasks that will benefit your business.

2. Use data and insights

Following on from automation, use some of the extra time you’ve created to focus on the data that your business is generating. Remember, you’ll have lots of data to choose from – but don’t get overwhelmed by all of it. Think about what you want to achieve, set your key performance indicators (KPIs), set up customised dashboards and reports using your software, and start generating insights that you can use to move your business forward.

3. Empower your people

It’s true – your people are your most important asset. So give them the tools and the space so they can perform at their best. Offer them flexibility if and when they need it – using cloud-based software will mean they can work anytime and anywhere. Look after their health and wellbeing. Put the power in their hands with self-service tools, such as HR portals so they can manage payroll and performance data. And show that your value them – be it via the employee benefits package you offer or by saying a simple “thank you” for their work as you all aim to boost how your business performs.

Final thoughts on elevating the performance of your business

You want your business to succeed – to deliver for your customers, achieve your goals, generate strong revenue and profits, and so on. By doing the right things at the right times, you’ll be able to do all of this and more. By putting the right steps in place, you’ll be able to improve how your business performs. Take the time to look at your current processes and see what you can automate. Use that freed-up time to focus on those tasks that can make a real difference to the business. Use the data that your business generates and turn it into actionable insights that you can put into play. And give your employees the space and support – with gratitude thrown in for good measure that’s communicated regularly – so they can do what’s required to help the business get ahead – and stay ahead.