Hey everyone!

I’ll get straight to the point. I am a first time entrepreneur and run a family business with my mom(she handles inventory maintenance and new hire custom builds) + sister (she is my part time assistant)

We have an event hire business that is at referral + corporate client stage- I’m hardly running ads to attract new clients. My biggest struggle as admin is creating systems and process for the business growth

Right now some event hire orders fall through the cracks, I don’t have an inventory management system and other things I probably don’t know I need. I’m still treating this business like a small side hustle and it’s not working for us anymore. My strengths are in marketing and sales so I have no idea how to handle the scale of a business internally or do customer care well.

Please provide advice on:

  1. A good inventory manage system

  2. New employee process that have worked for you (this might vague)

  3. How do you handle customer care? After and before a transaction

  4. Who should I look at as my next 2 hires? Right now it’s the 3 of us and we are overwhelmed. We have a driver that is a contractor + we have a pickup truck

  5. How to get over the fear of a growing business. I’ve traditionally been afraid to hire and grow the business because of my control issues. No one does it better than us mentally

Thank you for all advice! 💕

  • Dismal-Stress-2408@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I use google sheets for remote distribution business. I would love to show it you if you are interested. It might be useful for the scale you are at.

  • BasicBlueBanana@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    1. Im not sure how much inventory you’re managing, but in the meantime at least utilize a database or spreadsheet. Make it a regular practice to count inventory.

    2. Not sure what this means, but if you’re speaking to onboarding new hires, make sure you clearly define all responsibilities and expectations clearly. Have SOPs, training materials, etc created to clearly explain HOW you expect them to complete their tasks.

    3. Communication. Make sure you have a point of contact for the client to communicate next steps, expectations, questions.

    4. Where exactly are you overwhelmed? What makes you all feel this way? I think you need someone to help with the ops side of client work. I feel like an account manager to actually manage client work and day to day ops.

    5. Look at it this way: If you keep doing what you’re doing you’re going to burnout. It’s not sustainable. You need to delegate to scale. And honestly, you think ypu know best but someone else can do it better than you.

    Happy to chat more if this is helpful! I’m a systems/operations manager and consultant for service-based businesses and these are all issues I help address with my clients.

    • Zoe_Rae@alien.topOPBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      Thank you so much banana! This is solid and great advice

      1. Create a very scrappy Google docs sheet that everyone in the business has access to.

      2. Would it be best to create this in a simple manual type format?

      3. On it!

      4. Everywhere. I’m marketing, ops, social media and customer care. I just need to hire as you have mentioned

      5. 🤭 burnt out as we speak. Thank you for the advice! I will DM for your details if possible

    • Zoe_Rae@alien.topOPBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      Yes event rental. Sorry the language is a little diff ion my country but we hire tables, chairs, backdrops etc. sending you a message now

  • Active_Cantaloupe810@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    If funds are limited set up inventory in excel. If you can fork out a bit then yes buy a software system to handle bookings, inventory and client management. EG what if the client needs to change their orders/reduce/increase/change location. Is this handled by email/calls? This would mean many email threads.

    Inventory - if you do not get alerts how do you know when to stock up again? Excel could list items but alerts etc. would have to be handled manually.

    Read up on various methods of handling inventory such as JIT. If you order stock last minute, storage costs less but you might not be able to handle last minute orders.

    If you don’t know where equipment is, it might be difficult to deliver. So you need an operations manager to handle that side/your mum/partner need to brush up on operations.

    Customer Service: This could be a ticketing system or clients sending emails - once again emails/different thread wouldn’t be well-organised. A basic CRM would help you here.

    Hope this helps. And avoid AI. You don’t need the extra expense. It won’t solve your current issues.