This morning it occurred to me that you don’t hear many good jingles anymore. As advertising practices have changed, the jingle seems to have fallen by the wayside. Yet, jingles, like most music, are very catchy and stick in your head creating a lasting association. Memory-focused repetition is a big deal and something we encourage from all of our online inventory system users. A jingle is no different than a standard operating procedure in that regard.
Now where were we? I bet I could make you start thinking about bologna or corn chips with just a few bars of a jingle. Trying new things is great. We’re big fans of the concept, as you know if you’ve been following our blog for any length of time. We just think it’s important to hold on the things that were already working well for your business. Look for ways to integrate the old with the new. If you’ve always had a sandwich board announcing specials in front of your store, that doesn’t have to go away just because you created a fancy new website that provides all that information. The two can co-exist quite well and both are likely to provide benefits for your business. Often there is synergy between the old and the new. You can use one to promote the other and increase the positive outcomes from both. We deal with this a lot when changing how our online inventory system works for you and your small business.
You don’t want to make too many changes at once or ones that are too drastic. Either scenario is fraught with risk of alienating some of your loyal customers. Most people like things that are comfortable. If your business suddenly starts to feel unfamiliar they may take the opportunity to give a truly new place a try and you may really lose out. As much as we encourage implementing and embracing technology, we want to caution you not to lose the good stuff as you migrate to a new way of doing things.
Remember why you started looking for new ideas in the first place. The goal is to grow your business, not completely revamp it. If something works well for your business, there’s no need to replace it. Have you ever heard someone say, “I don’t see it, but everyone else was doing it so I thought I should give it a try,”? How did that work out for them? Usually, the answer is not well. Implementing a solution that you don’t believe in is a sure way to waste money. Doing something just because everyone else is doing it is simple peer pressure. It was bad when you were a teenager and it’s bad for your business now. Yes, there may be something to a solution that thousands of other businesses are migrating to (think cloud computing), but if you have a great point of sale system you don’t have to invest in the newest technology just because the store down the block did.
In some cases, the new will replace the old. If you’ve implemented Stockpile, our online inventory system, you shouldn’t be adding data to your old legacy inventory system. Not only is adding the information in two places a duplication of work, but it can also cause serious issues if things only get entered in one system. Having one place to add and track data streamlines the process and ensures that you only have one place to turn when you are trying to run reports or find out where items are.
We understand the urge to hold on to the old way until you’re sure that the new way is going to meet your needs. That's exactly why we made our online inventory system free to use. This way there's as little risk as possible when you're considering your options.
Anytime you implement new software solutions we highly recommend keeping your legacy software until you’ve had the opportunity to use the new solution for a few weeks. There is nothing worse than losing data and not having a backup. The problem arises when you continue to try to update both systems. Once the new solution is fully operational it’s time to let go of the old one.
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We hope the suggestions that we’ve provided here, and in our previous posts on embracing technology have prepared you to grow your small business without losing the things that make your company special. Want to manage your inventory in the best possible way? Try our online inventory system today!
