Inga Haens is a resident of Business Booster
Company: GiveLove UAB
Direction: Sale of business gifts and branded clothing, uniforms for schools
Country: Lithuania
26 years on the market
Inga, tell us a little about yourself and your company.
My name is Inga Hayens, I am a bc data brazil shareholder currently seeing growth of the company “GiveLove UAB”, which we founded in 2000. We have been successfully operating in the market for 25 years, specializing in the sale of business gifts and branded clothing. When I started participating in the Business Booster program, our company had 25 employees, but by the end of the program their number had decreased to 14.
What were your expectations from the program?
I expected the program to help the company expand and grow. However, the opposite happened and the company shrank. This currently seeing growth came as a surprise to me, although I later realized that it was an important step towards further development.
What do you attribute these changes to?
In 2019, I decided to step away vamos simplificar alguns conceitos de seo comumente confusos para si from day-to-day business management and focus on my role as a shareholder. I thought it would be simple: hire a director and hand over all powers to him. But in practice, it turned out to be much more complicated. The situation became more difficult every year, and then the pandemic began, which became a serious test for us. We began to operate at a loss, and now I am forced to finance the business from my own funds.
How has the pandemic affected your business?
The pandemic has dealt a serious asia phone number blow to our business. We have lost the speed of work, the productivity of employees has currently seeing growth decreased, especially after the transition to remote mode. We have stopped tracking indicators and lost control over processes, which has worsened the situation even more. When we tried to return to normal work, it turned out that the previous rhythm was no longer possible to restore, and we had to lay off part of the team.
How did you manage to cope with the task of delegation?
Delegation was the most difficult challenge for me. Previously, I did everything myself, which brought results. But when it came time to delegate tasks to others, I faced the fact that I did not know how to do it correctly. As a result, I simply distributed tasks but did not delegate responsibilities, which made management ineffective. However, thanks to the Business Booster program, I was able to fully delegate the responsibilities of the Sales Manager and the CEO. Now they work independently, and it brings results.
What else has changed in your work thanks to the program?
As part of the program, we changed currently seeing growth our approach to measuring results. Previously, we tracked metrics daily, but now we have switched to monthly analysis. This helped us focus on long-term goals. However, the reduction of staff left me with mixed feelings: on the one hand, we reduced costs, which has a positive effect on finances, but on the other hand, the lack of a fully staffed sales team makes it difficult to develop the business.
How are things going with your team and sales now?
We work mainly with B2B clients, so our activities are concentrated offline. We have a small B2C segment that works online, but it does not generate significant revenue. The bulk of our work is offline interaction. When we laid off some currently seeing growth employees at the end of last year, it was initially difficult to estimate how this would affect the company’s income. However, now we see an increase of 15-20%, despite reducing the number of salespeople from 10 to 4 people. This shows that the efficiency of the remaining employees has increased significantly.
