How to Manage Multiple Clients When You’re Running a Small Business

Imagine this:

You start a business and you start with two clients who need urgent help in reviving their website.

After helping them out, being happy with your work, they tell their friends. 

From one point to another, a good word is spread about this new startup who is good at what they do – at a great price.

So, with everything being on the up-and-up, people contact you to avail your services.

From two clients, your business is now catering to six!

With a rise in clients, as a manager you feel overwhelmed.

• How do I manage all these clients?
• What if I can’t complete all these projects on time?
• How do I keep the quality in check?

So many questions cross your mind, and as a result, it just slows your productivity as well. 

So, what do you do?

You put a strategy in place!

Asking the right questions and doing something about it is the best way you can get out of any hurdle in life. 

In this particular scenario, ask yourself:

“How to manage multiple clients?

When it comes to managing multiple clients – what’s the right way?”

How to Manage Multiple Clients: 6 Ideal Business Practices To Follow

1. Be aware

Sounds a bit spiritual? 

Let’s look at it that way: 

Focus is one of the cornerstones of success. Having a Zen-like focus gives an unparalleled edge to the business. For any business to turn out successful, it must be constantly aware of its clients and their environments. 

This essentially involves running a SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats) analysis and identifying the market and its participants. Edgy business people realize that learning and updating are vital to thriving in today’s rapid world.

2. Stay Organized

When you set out for an adventure, it is always advisable that the bag is packed and the routes are sorted out. Being organized helps in avoiding pressure, panics, and assists in better and quicker decisions.  

Using task management software can help the business in organizing its tasks, deadlines and getting around deliverables management and allocating tasks and activities to multiple personnel. 

Keeping track of the tasks and assignments are also enabled by such tools. In the present scenario, the industries are getting more and more specialized and this necessitates the need for better collaboration management. 

To efficiently track the progress and manage the workflow of the different functions, collaborative task management software can become handy.

3. Prioritize and Learn to Say No

Catering to the needs of the clients is one of the main primary objective and strategic policy of any organization. However, it is necessary to run the viability and feasibility analysis before taking up an assignment. 

If the offer looks intimidating and too cumbersome to handle with the available resources, it is vital to offer a blunt “No” when it is absolutely necessary.

It is also necessary to make priorities and manage them effectively. Using tools like the Eisenhower priority matrix can help manage the tasks efficiently.

Today, project management software offers a wide variety of solutions to manage priorities and deadlines by giving notifications and enabling tracking of the project progress.

4. Share and Sync the Calendar

It is vital to share information regarding the important dates and communicate it across the team to streamline the overall operations as well as to ensure better time management. 

It helps to let the organization know what it is doing at any given point in time.

It is also important to sync it over all the devices used in the organization so that meetings, both internal and client meetings can be streamlined and conducted without fail.

5. Plan and Execute Projects Properly

Warren Buffet once said, 

“An idiot with a plan is more likely to succeed than a genius without one”

It is a very dynamic and fast-moving world. Yet having a basic plan and policies in place can give you unparalleled confidence in the overall business management. 

It is a necessary discipline often overlooked by the small-scale business people. But, it can prove fatal if the business is moving forward without clear cut objectives and visions. Statistics show that less than 56% of US startups made it to the fifth year of operations. 

The reasons for such early shutdowns are:

• Improper staffing,
• Lack of funding, 
• Lack of market support,
• Lack of proper financial management.

All these factors have a single problem point – a lack of planning.

6. Set Realistic Expectations

It is very crucial for the small and budding businesses to maintain their successful delivery rates high particularly during the initial stages of operations. It is for reasons obvious that the expectations should be proximate to reality.

Unless the businessman can open doors using spells, it is necessary that the expectations are realistic and practical from the very beginning. 

While setting targets and deadlines, the manager should give due attention to the market conditions, the business environment, and the availability of resources. 

Managing Multiple Clients: What’s The Best Way Out?

The small scale sector faces a number of challenges in effectively managing its day to day operations. From organizing labor and material to delivering quality products and services, everything requires efficient management of time and resources. 

So, among all the idealistic ways mentioned in this blog, deploying a small business project management software is one method to keep everything in check. 

Adopting an invoicing software that offers all the features needed for project management.

General and specific aids offered by project management software solutions can greatly contribute to the effective and hassle-free management of resources, tasks, and deadlines.

You can streamline the entire project management process and alongside keep your clients in the loop – eradicating the possibility of any confusion or mismanagement.