How To Choose The Right Partner For Your Business

When initiating a business strategy, you will find yourself extremely invested in several ways. Your dynamic with your business may be seen as a parent and child. At this point you have followed all the steps on giving birth to your business idea, now it is time to nurture and help the business develop into what you have envisioned.  In many cases, deciding on whether or not you should have a business partner can be the most crucial step within your business model and will ultimately affect reaching future goals.

When choosing a business partner you will require that they approach the business with mutual enthusiasm and commitment but most importantly both of you will need to share the same business "parenting" viewpoints. It is advised, that your approach in finding a business partner is taken as seriously as it would be finding a spouse/day-care provider. A partnership is a long-term, legal agreement between two (or more) people. You will devote a lot of your time planning major business goals with your partner and will need to be able to sync with him/her.

 

Below are five imperative steps you should take when sourcing the ideal business partner.

Find a Partner That Shares Your Values, Entrepreneurial Spirit, and Vision

Of all the characteristics to source in a partner, this is probably the most significant. It is a necessity to apply effective communication skills with your partner to sort decisions, establish goals, and nurture the business to success. If you partner with someone that is hesitant, antagonistic, or unable to consider your viewpoint, you will find it extremely difficult to reach success.

Find a Partner That Shares Your Values, Entrepreneurial Spirit, and Vision

Of all the characteristics to source in a partner, this is probably the most significant. It is a necessity to apply effective communication skills with your partner to sort decisions, establish goals, and nurture the business to success. If you partner with someone that is hesitant, antagonistic, or unable to consider your viewpoint, you will find it extremely difficult to reach success.

Find a Partner That Can Offer Resources and Credibility to Your Business

It is great to have a business partner that has financial resources if that is what your business strategy is lacking, however there are other desirable contributions a partner can bring to the table that will be just as valuable if not more. A partner with a secure business network, industry connections, client list, or specific credentials and expertise can also increase the value of your business and advance your chances of attaining long-term achievement.

Choose a Partner That Is Financially Stable

Whether or not your partner contributes financially to the business is less important than if your potential partner is in grim financial straits. Someone in the middle of a financial crisis may not be the best choice to go into business with for a variety of reasons. Money, asset, and time management skills are critical for small to medium business entrepreneurs, and someone who has completely mismanaged their personal or business finances may not have the skills or discipline to make a business partnership work. Worst case scenario, they may even look for ways to personally gain from the business to solve personal financial problems.

Choose a Partner That Practices Good Personal and Business Ethics

Only enter into partnerships with individuals you can trust. You want to attain the trust and loyalty of your customers, therefore these fundamental practices start within the business core. Look for someone who values honesty and practices good personal and business ethics. A poorly chosen business partner may end up stealing from the company, taking your ideas or clients to start their own business, or break laws that could get your business into legal trouble.

 

When expanding a business within the service industry a crucial partner would be your chosen POS Solution.Why would we be mentioning a POS Solution when talking about choosing the ideal business partner?

A POS solution will help you run your business smoothly by offering a number of skills in one. Apart from the obvious skills such as ringing up sales efficiently, keeping an accurate count of inventory, managing a customer database and tracking all payments tendered, you’re supreme POS system can act as the ideal partner within your business model. A great system should go beyond the expected roles, it should enable a retailer to thrive by providing crucial insights into the business and guidance to make critical business decisions. An ideal solution should become a trustworthy, silent-partner in running your business.  It should be simple to learn and use, serve-up necessary data as needed, and eliminate clerical errors.

 

POS is the sales hub in a retail, hospitality and service environment and can take on many forms, including traditional counter based cash tills to mobile cloud based systems running on a tablet. It is a collection of hardware and software systems providing payment, accounting, time sheeting, customer loyalty, reporting and inventory management support to process transactions for your business.

 

The “Back end” systems integrated into your POS can provide a major boost in efficiency for your business. From systems like integrated inventory management that avoids the need for double entry of sales and stock information through to greater visibility into what is happening at transaction time through transaction reports and analytics. The ideal POS system can help you reduce waste by identifying stock turnover issues. The benefits can also extend to a better relationship with your customers from a deeper understanding of your customer purchasing habits with a CRM (Customer relationship management) system or loyalty database. It pays to think about your POS needs first then working out which bits are needed and how they all fit together.

 

 

The Components of a POS System

POS systems generally comprise of both hardware and software systems, either on premise or in the cloud, and typically involve some or all of. Let us take a look at the components of your trusty POS partner:

 

HARDWARE

(WHAT “FACE VALUE” COMPONENTS YOUR POS PARTNER CONSISTS OF)

Screens – POS systems often have one or two screens, one for the cashier and one for the customer. In a two screen environment, the main screen for the cashier can support administration of the POS system, management of items in a transaction, management of discounts, loyalty systems, payments and inventory look ups. Whereas the customer screen typically displays transaction items and totals.

Till – A secure cash drawer, while an increasing number of stores are phasing out cash transactions one remaining benefit of dealing with cash is that it doesn’t incur card transaction fees nor eliminate a client who is still in the swing of using cash for purchases.

Card Reader – A POS card reader can be used to read EFTPOS and Credit Cards for payment, manage contactless payments, apple pay and android pay.

Barcode Scanner – A barcode scanner can significantly speed up transactions in a retail environment, allowing a higher volume of transactions vs manually looking up items to add to a sale. It can also minimise human errors at the point of sale time for busy cashiers. Many scanners these days are wireless allowing freedom of mobility.

Printer – A POS printer is typically a thermal type using paper rolls to print receipts, quotes or vouchers for customers. Sometimes these can print end of day reports to accompany cash deposits too.

Hardware Options –

 http://www.ecrsoftware.co.za/#xl_xr_page_Hardware

 

SOFTWARE

(CHARACTERISTICS, SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE YOUR POS PARTNER SHOULD INCLUDE)

Transaction Management – Software to manage sale items, discounts, look up inventory and manage the sale process from end to end.

Payment Management – Managing the various payment methods that your business might offer including cards, cash, store credit or layby.

Inventory Management – Managing your stock levels in real time so you know what’s on hand and what’s needing to be ordered, an integrated inventory management system can bring about great efficiency.

Customer Loyalty & Marketing – If you offer a loyalty program your POS can capture contact details such as name, phone number and email address and manage program benefits such as discounts.

Reporting System – One of the most important features of your POS is the reporting system, gaining visibility into your transactions, customers and staff that will help you run your business efficiently and effectively.

Accounting Software Integration – Almost all modern POS system will integrate with accounting systems, you will need to make sure your POS integrates with your specific accounting system, whether that is Quickbooks, Pastel or other accounting options. Integration will mean less double entry of data, speeding up your end of day reconciliations and reducing the possibility of errors.

Payroll Integration – POS systems can also manage time sheeting and integrate with your payroll system, again speeding up and minimizing the amount of time spent on administration of your business.

 

Software Options –

 http://www.ecrsoftware.co.za/#xl_xr_page_Software

 

Now that we have completed an Ideal Business Partner Profile along with the Ideal Point-of-Sale Solution you may identify that what your business strategy may need is not necessarily an industry specific contributor, who you will need to share all responsibilities and agreements with not to mention profit. Choosing a POS System may be viewed as an efficient cost choice compared to the profit shares or monthly salaries offered to a team of individuals who will complete the same tasks as your trusty POS.

 

As viewed within the graphics provided, a business partner is limited on what he/she can offer which may be seen as a high risk possibility whereas a customized software alternative offering an all-inclusive solution designed to cater for your needs, (where the risk value is lower), may be the most efficient decision for the expansion of your business.

 

As stated by ECR Software -

Service is a philosophy not a department, this relationship is the ECR difference.