Big, well-run companies accumulate expertise and experience that we can skillfully adopt in our online businesses. If done with care and consideration, these tricks will help boost our income flow. In this post I will be sharing some things I learned during my decades of working for large corporations.

1. The product is never finalized. If you stop developing it, your competitors will certainly take any possible opportunity to beat you. Even if your customers are telling you that your product is “perfect”, keep improving it: its content, its performance, its package, its overall design, its brand.
2. Your marketing communication is crucial. If you are doing your best to keep up with others in your market, unfortunately, that is not good enough. You must be a trendsetter and take the lead. This is what will make your brand a hit and become a favorite with prospects.
3. Never economize on acquiring the best talent. Hire the best of the best, the crème de la crème, and make sure you offer them good compensation and keep them motivated so that they stay with you. On this subject in collaboration with Doug I wrote a series of posts (How to Grow your Business by Building your Team, parts 1-3). I strongly suggest you read them.
4. Make your business decisions carefully. While it is a well-known fact that we make choices based on our emotions, business decisions must have solid bases of facts and figures. Spending on analytical tools and resources always pays off in the long run.
5. Assure your compliance and check regularly if your activities are aligned with the spirit and the letter of the law. This may seem to you as of less importance, but it is fundamental.
6. Keep your documentation system up to date, don’t let it pile up unsorted. Have your files always readied for checkup. This is especially important regarding your email lists, your most valuable assets.
7. Lay down the basic internal rules to ensure smooth operations of your enterprise. What large corporations have on file as their policies are documents that they regularly refresh and align with the changing legal environment.
8. From time to time, assess your colleagues' work performance. Sit down with them individually and walk them through their respective business goals that you had agreed upon some time ago. If they met those and did a good job in general, reward them.

These are some of the simple strategies to learn from big corporations. If you have some more, let me know in a comment and we will share it with your peers.