When you’re running a small business, it can be difficult to pull yourself away the day-to-day responsibilities, take a breath, and examine what you can do to drive growth over the long term. As summer approaches, it’s likely you’ll devote some time to clearing out the clutter in your personal life, like cleaning out the messy garage, so why not do the same for your business?
Of course, you won’t be cleaning out your garage (unless that’s where you work), but scheduling some time to examine the progress you’ve made toward meeting your annual goals and identifying the actions you need to take to meet those goals can be beneficial.
Below are seven tips to guide you.
1. Review and revise your business plans
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Sage recently released the results of its 2015 Sage State of the Startup Survey, which compiled responses from more than 500 successful startup founders. We learned about characteristics that successful startups share and the challenges they face. We also cataloged the lessons we learned from the very best startups.
One of the most common pieces of advice these successful entrepreneurs gave to new startups is to have a business plan in place before doing anything else. Take the time to revisit your business plan and evaluate which strategies did and didn’t work. When reworking your tactics, don’t focus solely on the state of your business, but rather consider the bigger picture and what’s to come.
2. Track spending and chart your budget
As part of our State of the Startup survey, we also received input from more than 100 senior executives who routinely counsel, invest in, and generally nurture startups. According to these experts, two in five (39 percent) of startups will eventually fail. Why? Two of the most common mistakes they cite are taking on too much debt and not controlling costs closely enough.
To increase financial control and account for fluctuations in the economy, find a convenient and easy way to track spending and chart a budget. Accounting software can be your best ally for this task.
3. Organize your digital and physical workspace
Keep only the information and materials you absolutely need. It’s always a good idea to do maintenance and cleanup of onsite and cloud systems at least once a year. Purge old data and documents, run diagnostics to ensure your systems are in working order, and call your solution provider if you have any outstanding issues. Also, thoroughly clean and organize your physical workspace, and dispose of outdated and damaged products/items.
4. Perform computer and software upgrades
Perform any necessary computer and software upgrades, and take a good look at your IT infrastructure.
If you decide you need to upgrade or replace older systems and software, avoid the three most common mistakes made by small businesses:
- Using three or more solutions to manage the business
- Implementing financial management software with too many features that force entering the same data into multiple places
- Spending too much time managing tasks instead of billable work or customer service
Streamlining and modernizing your technology solutions could have the same effect on your entire business.
5. Update customer and vendor information; evaluate customer loyalty practices
Efficient client and vendor relations will largely depend on having up-to-date information about them and your mutual interactions. Go through your database and add any missing information and update or remove superfluous data.
Likewise, you should check your customer appreciation and retention strategies . After all, your business is nothing without customers. Whether you provide products or services, you won’t survive unless individuals or other businesses maintain interest in your offerings and want to pay for them. Achieving customer satisfaction that keeps clients coming back entails much more than selling a good product or service, so be sure to spend some time analyzing your strategy. Do you pay enough attention to customer feedback? Does every employee provide an excellent customer experience? Do you have a reasonable rewards program for loyal customers? Are your marketing activities really connecting with customers?
6. Evaluate subscriptions
Are there any subscription services up for renewal? Before doing so, it would be worthwhile to evaluate whether the subscription is something you need. Did you get a good return on investment from it? Is there a vendor that can provide the same service at a better cost?
7. Ask for help
We might remember the 2014 tax year as one of the most complicated and stressful to process, thanks to last-minute changes to tax credits and deductions, and new tax rules relating to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). As you move through 2015 and encounter unexpected challenges or difficulties in any areas of your business, follow the lead of a majority of the most successful entrepreneurs we surveyed for the State of the Startup Survey and turn to a professional advisor. For example, 54 percent of them are more likely to hire an accountant, at least part time.
