We may be well into the New Year already but there is never a bad time to make some time to review your business and consider ways to improve.
We have put together our top 7 New Years Resolutions to give you some ideas as to how you can become more efficient and hopefully make more profits.
1. Improve Communication
This can take many different forms;
Communication with your customers – You can use communication as part of your customer service strategy and to really make people feel valued. Make sure you return phone calls and emails as quickly as possible and consider whether a friendly phone call might actually be better than a quick email for helping to build those relationships.
Communication with your audience – Try a marketing strategy to help you focus your social media posts and email communications.
Communication with your team – think of ways you can improve communication between your team as It may go a long way to improving efficiency within your organisation. Regular team meetings may help (although don’t overdo it or you will become inefficient) or maybe consider digital messaging tools like slack to keep on top of communication.
2. Consider delegating
Small business owners are often guilty of trying to do everything themselves. However, if you want to grow your business you will have to learn to delegate. Consider what you don’t enjoy doing and see if you can pass this on to someone else or outsource it?
3. Set goals
Take some time to imagine where you want to be in 1, 5 and 10 years time. What do you want the business to look like and where do you want to be personally. Its daunting but starting to think about this can really help you to focus on your goals and strategy.
4. Improve Productivity
Consider which parts of your business are the most labour intensive and if there are any ways that you can change this. Are you spending a lot of time of bookkeeping, or sending out quotes to customers, or are you stuck on the phone dealing with customer calls? Chat with friends or colleagues or research online. Chances are someone has had similar problems to you and has found a way around it.
5. Cut unnecessary costs
Sit down and critically review your bank statements and P&L. You may find that you are paying for insurance that you don’t really need or you’re still subscribed to a service that you don’t really use anymore. Spend a bit of time to shop around and trim spending where you can.
6. Review your prices
Are you a busy fool? You may get to the point where you are working flat out but not really making money. Although not relevant for every business, you may want to consider the impact a 10% price increase would have. The best outcome would be that you lose some customers, but the money you make from the remaining customers increases. This will cut your workload, allowing you to spend a bit more time with your customers and hopefully increase your overall turnover. You might not want to be this drastic but reviewing your prices every quarter will ensure you remain competitive whilst maximising your profits.
7. Be Data Compliant
From GDPR to MTD make sure you are aware of your obligations and comply. Compliance might not win you customers but not complying may lead to you losing customers, losing data through security breaches and getting a bad reputation.