May 31, 2012

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There are a lot of people who think shipping costs are cheap because they relate shipping to the price of a stamp ($.45) for a letter they mail every once in a while. There’s such a fragile tipping point with shipping costs that one single ounce could result in a larger postage cost center. Startups often make too many assumptions that kill the bottom line and detour clients with unexpected increases; don’t let shipping costs be one of them.

Tip: Add a piece of marketing collateral to each shipment and keep your brand top of mind. While, email marketing is cheap, tangible marketing offers can always separate your business from the 500+ junk emails that customers receive daily.

2. Rebound from Mistakes

Have I made mistakes? Yes, of course.

Everyone misses something. For example, we missed the glaring area of mutual expectations. It’s common sense, but it took us years to figure out. We used to be “yes men,” meaning we would just say yes and do whatever we could to make the client happy. This caused our company unneeded pain and suffering.

We now have a process we walk everyone through — clearly outlining what a client can expect from us, and what we can expect from them. It gets everyone on the same page from the start and ensures that no one assumes anything.

3. Balance out the Details

The devil is in the details. The easiest way to handle documentation is to stop and create a process for something once you’ve done it twice.

It seems tedious and annoying, but all it takes is that baby step to start. The sooner you do it, the better your operations will be. It’s so much harder to go back and remember something that was discovered three months ago and make a process for it.

Embrace this exciting time in your life and career. You have big dreams and even bigger ideas, but you cannot lose track of the details. Keep all of the small, daily parts of the process of starting your business close in your mind. It may be tedious and time-consuming, but it will keep you on track to accomplish all of your goals.

Take care of the small details, and the big ones will take care of themselves!

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Jordan Guernsey is the CEO of Molding Box, an innovative company that provides shipping,  printing, handling, and disc media production services. Jordan started Molding Box in his mother’s  basement and has grown the company into an Inc. 500 list member.

Photo Credit: H&M

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