Spring is normally the time we spring clean our homes but what about your business? The new tax year is upon us so now is a good time re-energise your business and re-evaluate what’s working and what’s not.
Here are some suggestions you can put in place to re-energise your business. You don’t need a lot of time researching or thinking about these ideas – just put one or two in place at a time and then when you have those in place pick another one or two and so on.
So in no particular order:
- Re-evaluate your finances. Do your accounting figures leave you confused? Ensure your accounting numbers are being interpreted correctly and turned into information you can use to make the right decisions in your business.
- Invoice your clients immediately on completion of sale or service. Don’t wait for the month end to do them in a batch.
- Simplify your business. Identify the products or services which don’t sell or are unprofitable and stop doing them – concentrate your time and effort on the profitable ones.
- Systematise (or automise) the non- profit making areas especially the ones the customers don’t appreciate their value for example – accounting, customer care, voicemail, sales reporting, record keeping.
- Encourage employees to find more efficient ways of completing their tasks and achieving their goals. A major discouragement can be the overbearing, bad tempered boss. Ensure you are open to discussions about the running of the business at all times.
- Delegate everything you do that doesn’t make money!
- Be nice to your suppliers – you never know what benefits you will receive!
- Give clients a clearly defined product or service then charge for extras or any changes made by your customer. But be fair!!!
- What can you do to make sure your customers stay loyal and keep coming back?
- Check out your competition. Have they spotted trends that you haven’t? Are their websites better than yours? How do their pricing structures reflect on you?
- Work more efficiently. If you can spend less time on each assignment you can fit more assignments in.
- Marketing – ensure there is something valuable on your website for others eg; how to….
- Social media. Does your business tweet? Do you have facebook? Are you on linked in?
- Local media – do you send press releases to your local free paper so you can be identified as the local go to expert?
- Forums – are you on the appropriate forums to meet potential customers?
- Local business community – are you members of your Chamber of Commerce? Go to events and meet local suppliers and potential customers.
- Ask your customers to refer you to their colleagues. This is so much more effective than marketing to “the world”.
- Ensure all offers are included in email footers/ invoices.
- Put your business forward for awards – it is surprisingly effective as a marketing tool.
If you need assistance in putting any of these ideas in place, ask Gibson Hewitt for help and advice.
Our independence and experience is invaluable for “seeing the wood from the trees” and offering support to the entrepreneur. It can be very lonely at the head of an organisation with no one to discuss ideas with.
Give Lynn Gibson a call on 01932 336149 and arrange a FREE NO OBLIGATION MEETING to assess the benefits of our services. Lynn has been advising, running and turning around business for 30 years!
