Growing up in a family highly involved in micro-business (retail), I have extensive exposure to all aspects of business operations - from researching and purchasing items to selling to organizing the items on the store shelves to performing customer service.
In my early childhood, my father’s business venture revolved around acting as a dealer for a wholesaler company that sells footwear, apparel, body care, clothes, and housing products.
I vividly remember accompanying my father visit houses in our neighborhood, immediate family, and friends to show them the brochure and get their orders. Then, once we have enough orders, we would go to the company's headquarters to place an order, get the products, and then give it personally to those who ordered from us.
In 2007, my father took over his mother’s corner business. Since then, the store has grown from purely direct selling of consumer goods to wholesaling beverages to fellow small grocery store owners.
The experiences I have from my family’s business ventures helped me develop work ethics that became immensely useful when I started my professional career after university in 2017.
Here are the three important lessons I learned:
✨Systems and processes
The lack of structure in place makes it a sure way to cause inconvenience such as delays in the tasks to be done or, at worse, forgetting to do it all together, which might cause irreversible negative effects such as loss in sales or inability to find the information needed.
This is why I believe in the importance of having systems and processes in place to guide everyone involved. Knowing a general of what to do next minimizes the chance of forgetting something. However, life happens, and things don’t always go as planned. So, it is equally crucial to have systems and processes that are flexible and adaptable.
I particularly enjoy using tools such as Google Calendar, Bullet Journal, and Notion and concepts such as Documentation, Purpose/Goals Identification, and Reverse Engineering when establishing systems and processes. But I’m always on the lookout for new trends to be more streamlined.
✨ Building a good rapport with the customers
Making the customers feel valued is one of the deciding factors in the success of a business. Some great ways I build a good rapport with customers are by calling them by their first name, accommodating them through active listening and matching their speed and energy levels, and communicating with them respectfully and positively.
✨Teamwork and Working Independently
Some tasks can be done more effectively by one person, and others require the collaboration of different people.
This is why I believe in the importance of knowing when to work individually or in a team to ensure that the operations run as smoothly and efficiently as possible. To do this effectively, identifying the strengths and weaknesses of each team member and knowing where to initiate or yield are a must.