How To Make More Money By Adding Value To Your Organization
There are many ways to add value to your organization. First and foremost you should ensure that your responsibilities are fully taken care of, and that you are working on the highest priority areas at all times. Here are some bonus ideas on ways to add value to your organization. You should always discuss new ideas with your management and ensure your responsibilities are fully taken care of before taking on new projects.
What’s working and what’s not working?
Review the key activities of your organization and analyze the results – what’s working and what’s not working? Many businesses have been scaled up significantly simply by asking the question “What’s working and what’s not working” and then by doing more of what is working and less of what isn’t working, or fixing what isn’t working as required.
Study company objectives
Is there a business plan? Vision or mission statement? Seek to understand your organization’s objectives better so that you can find opportunities to improve performance.
Sales Opportunities
Look for ways to increase sales by reviewing the sales process and finding new ways to generate leads and customers.
Better processes
Review areas like lead generation, lead conversion and client fulfillment. How can each area be improved so that more leads are generated and converted into customers, and how can the fulfilment process be improved so that the business builds the best possible reputation?
Cost savings
Are there any cost savings which could be made? Is there any wastage which could be cut back? For example $1,000 saved is $1,000 back on the profits generated. It’s often easier to make cost savings in the right areas than to generate new income. Find better ways of doing things, but without suggesting cutbacks in staff. For example if a staff member or team is not generating the right returns, what could they do to improve their performance? What else could they focus on?
Reviews and referrals
Monitor the online reviews left by customers, how can reviews be improved and how can referrals be used to attract new customers?
Customer feedback
What can you learn from customer feedback? What opportunities are there for new products and services? What do customers want? What do they like or dislike? Are there any trends? What are their pain points and what do they want to solve? Take time to analyse customer reviews, and plan surveys to gain valuable customer feedback. The organizations who understand their customers the best will always have a strategic advantage over their competitors.
Competitor audit and analysis
Take time to review competitors, their marketing and social media presence, their customer reviews and general online presence. What are they doing and how?
Industry trends
Research trends in the sector and find new opportunities to serve customers. Also look at other unrelated sectors for new opportunities and strategies.
Annual calendar
Could you compile an annual calendar covering promotions, events, content planning etc? To help with planning for the organization and provide an overview.
Finding better ways
Keep note of any ideas you have and always search for better ways to do things. There are always better ways of doing things.
Kaizen
Kaizen is a Japanese business philosophy meaning “change for the better” or “continuous improvement.” It’s based on making small incremental improvements across different areas. Look for small improvements you can make, if an area can be improved by 1% every week, this will build into a huge improvement over time, even after a relatively short period of time.
Planning
Could you implement more effective planning processes and project management?
Analysis
Could you analyse current results and review reasons and opportunities?
KPIs or Key Performance Indicators
Is the company tracking the right performance metrics? Could a real time data dashboard report help the company focus on objectives and performance? Could this also help boost team performance, motivation and satisfaction?
Publishing
Are there any opportunities for publishing and content marketing which could position the organization as the leading choice or authority while providing valuable content and information to customers?
Becoming an entrepreneurial employee
A further approach could be to look at the possibility of being an entrepreneurial employee – there are no hard and fast definitions or rules, but some employers could be open to adding a performance based element as an additional responsibility for you which you then work on to add more value to the organization – effectively the best of both worlds – the security of a monthly paycheck and the rewards for being entrepreneurial.
Become bigger than your position
The starting point is to become bigger than your present role – work efficiently on the most important tasks, and do the work to the best of your ability. It takes more focus and effort – but does not take any more time – and the rewards will be more than just financial. In fact, this approach can give you more free time. You will feel proud and more accomplished and with the right level of reward, you will be able to enjoy more time off, so you can gain in multiple ways.
Study company information
As a next step you can review all the company documentation, any business plans and objectives etc. Then look at how you can add value, talk to your boss about your ideas. Always make sure your responsibilities are fully taken care of before you start any new projects, and it’s always best to discuss ideas with your boss before spending any time on activities, especially if they are not within your remit currently. Discuss your ideas and suggestions and see if you can find a way forward. Don’t ask about a pay raise at this point, focus on increasing your value first.
By increasing your value you will also become the obvious choice for any new promotion opportunities, you will become known as a go to person. It’s also worth noting that the best opportunities are never advertised, and are filled internally, through word of mouth or recommendation. By increasing your value you will align yourself with a new range of opportunities.
Another tip is to avoid office politics and gossip completely as this is negative and wastes a lot of time and energy. If you take a few of the methods from this book and implement them, you will start to see and feel a difference in the value you are providing, and it’s then only a matter of time before this is recognised. Do your best and you will attract the best opportunities.
Key Points
There are many ways to add value to an organisation
Key Shifts
Through working on the highest priority activities, you can add value to your organisation
By working on high value projects with initiative, you can contribute positively to your organisation
Key Actions
Review the ways you could add value to your organisation which align with your strengths
Ensure your responsibilities are fully taken care of, work on the highest priority areas
Discuss additional projects with your management if these are relevant to your organisation
See also:
How to get a promotion or pay raise