At this point, you’re balancing finding new customers against delivering your product, against the need to keep your existing customers. You probably know everything you need to know about the business relationships you have.

First growth stage – delegation

Once you have between 2 and 10 people in your team, the management task of delegation begins. This means you’ll need to discover how to get the best out of your team to deliver results for your business. Ideally, as you grow larger, you start stepping away from day to day work to focus more time on growing further. You start to rely on other people to communicate from your business. Then you quickly realise that the information you used to know about your customer relationships is now in someone else’s head.

Ten people or more – a true SME

From 10 people upwards, you’re now leading your business. You have a management structure which is responsible for delivering both their own results, plus results through their team. You’re heading up the organisation, perhaps marketing your business and promoting it to your key accounts. At the same time, your team is doing the bulk of detailed day-to-day work in the business. You no longer have track of the daily communications, but at any point in time would like access to these communications. You need to understand exactly how your business communicates with your customers, and what these relationships are like.

These growth numbers for your team may differ in your business, but they illustrate a key point. As your business grows it becomes harder to keep track of all the moving parts. This includes all the communications and agreements between your business and your customers or clients. This covers from initial enquiry, through to order, to product delivery, to billing and ongoing customer service, and ongoing billing relationships.

Communication limits in a large company

Business growth and communication problems — 150 is the limit

Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary anthropologist approximated 150 as the number of people we can maintain a meaningful relationship with. This could be online, in the work place or within a community.

Whether Dunbar’s Number continues to be relevant in today’s business world, I’ll let others debate. What it does show, is that most of us are able to manage only a certain number of quality relationships. Whether yours is higher or lower, it’s a powerful thought when applied to business.

What is a quality relationship in business?

A strong two-way relationship with your customers. You understand their needs, are aware of changes in their business, and understand how you can help their business
A strong-two-way relationship with your suppliers, so that you stay in their minds. You want suppliers to understand how your business is changing so you can discuss economies of scale as you place more orders
A strong two-way relationship with your partners. These could be consultants, partner businesses or other partners in your professional network. People that you rely on for sound advice, supporting delivery, and mutual help for growing your respective businesses

How many quality business relationships do you think you have? Add to this figure your personal, family and friends relationships and there’s a limit to the number of quality relationships we can manage. Even with the help of social media and today’s communication tools.

So, how does better communications flow = a better flowing business?

All these relationships result in a mass of communication activities – phone calls, emails, appointments, letters – and so on.

Many people in your business will be communicating with your customers, and perhaps with multiple contacts in those companies.

Systems to the rescue

Without the right system in place, it’s difficult for your team to understand your customer relationships as a whole. Instead, using the right Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system provides a central hub to record these communications for the benefit of other team members. Microsoft Dynamics 365 makes it easy for your team to store records of phone calls, appointments and emails against customer records.

Many of us use Microsoft Outlook on a daily basis to check emails and schedule events. Microsoft Dynamics 365 has the best integration in the marketplace with a dedicated Outlook application. The app makes it easy to track your communications into CRM. Further more, it gives you the choice to access CRM through Outlook, a web browser or mobile device.

If you value quality business relationships, and struggle to keep communications flowing across your business, then having the right system can make a big difference.