Get ‘Back to Business’ With Fresh Goals, Financials, and Employee Engagement
For kids across the U.S., “back to school” means the end of summer vacation, but brings the excitement of new school supplies, clothes, and teachers. It’s a time to start fresh, with a completely clean slate. Anything is possible.
While you’ve likely not had the entire summer off, you should still take some time to refresh your business so you can finish the year strong. Think of it as a post-summer “back to business” for your company.
Evaluate and Reassess
You should’ve developed a comprehensive business plan before launching your business. If you didn’t, take the time to do that as soon as possible. If you already have a business plan, get it out and assess your progress toward your goals.
Conduct a SWOT analysis. (SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.) You’ll want to examine where you’re succeeding, determine what facets of the business can use improvement, and how new products or services, pricing strategies, or marketing campaigns from competitors could threaten your business.
The analysis could help you identify new opportunities to grow your business—opportunities you may not have thought of when you first developed your plan. Ask yourself what new trends are driving your customers’ decision-making processes and influencing their wants or needs.
No matter where you stand in terms of achieving your business goals, chances are your opportunities list will include a desire to deepen customer engagement and increase customer loyalty. After all, there’s no better marketing and sales tool than happy customers who repeatedly bring you their business and encourage their friends and family to do the same.
Your SWOT exercise may also help you identify new customers, and provide insight into how your sales and marketing efforts should differ from how you interact with current customers.
Inspire and Deliver
You already know your company’s best asset is your employees. They’re the ones on the frontlines every day interacting with customers and fielding their compliments, complaints and suggestions. And they can provide invaluable ideas on how to achieve your goals, so loop them into the SWOT process early and often to help them feel empowered and engaged in the business.
Your broader sales and marketing plan will likely require some updating to reflect the new opportunities you’ve identified in the SWOT analysis. How effective is your engagement with target audiences across the ever-expanding selection of social media platforms?
Just because Facebook has an enormous user base doesn’t mean it’s the most appropriate and effective option for engaging with your particular customers. Perhaps LinkedIn or Twitter are better options. Remember, the number of likes you receive on Facebook, or how many people follow your Twitter feed, isn’t as important as a strong relationship built through thoughtful dialogue in a relevant LinkedIn group or via a trending topic on Twitter.
Yes, visibility is important. But transparent and strong relationships are more critical to expanding your brand’s visibility and awareness.
Review and Investigate
As part of your business refresher exercise, you’ll want to take a hard look at the financial performance of your business such as sales trends, expense situation and cashflow position.
If numbers aren’t your strong suit, consider bringing in experts, either as part- or full-time employees, or hiring an outside consultant. Also, investigate whether technology can help make the process of balancing the books, tracking inventory and other business processes more efficient and less time-consuming for you and your employees.
Your business plan should be a living document that’s visited and updated on a regular basis. No matter what product or service you offer, new market trends will reshape—sometimes radically and unexpectedly—your customers’ needs and buying decisions.
Examining and updating your business goals will help you stay engaged with your customers and turn them into long-term loyal brand advocates who help you attract new customers and achieve your ultimate vision for your company.
It all sounds like a lot of work, and it is. But it likely won’t go unrewarded. Start these “back to business” days off right. Good luck!
