All businesses, no matter how big or small, can benefit from reviewing the way things are done from time to time. Remain flexible when running a business and a pragmatic approach will often lead to greater success. Here’s the top five things any business owner can do, often with little effort, to improve their operations! I’m not a business owner myself but I’ve studied business and marketing and now work for a start-up that’s grown rapidly in the past few years so I understand a bit about strategy and switching things up!
1. Develop a Short to Mid Term Strategy
When you are growing a business, perhaps even from scratch, your eyes can be fixed on the ultimate goal which might be years, even decades, away from fulfilment. By looking more into the mid-term and even short-term, you can gain greater focus on what is needed right now. Give your company weekly targets for achieving certain results. These need not all be sales led – some short term aims might be to raise your brand awareness, for instance. However, by focussing harder on monthly or weekly goals, you should find that your overall business strategy starts to fall into place of its own accord.
2. Keep Your Records Up To Date
All successful businesses need to have detailed records on which they can rely. This means updating your list of clients, orders and suppliers regularly. If you try to keep too much information in your head in one go, then the results can be disastrous, especially if you cannot deal with everything yourself. Employees need to have access to records so that they can do a professional job without always having to ask the boss. By keeping detailed records which are as up to date as possible, you will also gain a better understanding of how the business stands financially at any given point. This means you can deal with things like credit risk much more effectively.
3. Deal With Your Tax
Tax is a headache for most owners of SMEs. However, if you are not prompt with your VAT return, tax return and employer NI contributions, then you can expect things to get problematic very quickly indeed. Without prompt or accurate payments to HMRC, your whole business operation could be put at risk. If you are not confident with these business functions – and many company owners are not – then find a suitable subcontractor to handle them for you.
4. Rationalise Your Storage
As businesses grow, they soon need to handle more stock to meet customers’ demands. This frequently results in poorly kept store rooms and warehouse operations which are not fit for purpose. Consider rationalising your goods in and goods out processes into an integrated storage system such as pallet racking which will help you to handle your storage needs effectively and meet customer orders much more rapidly. There are different companies who provide Pallet Racking services such as WSSL in Harrogate provides this service to different businesses. It often means using all of the space you have available, too.
5. Talk to Your Customers Post Sale
Think you are doing well? Perhaps you are, but gaining some candid customer insights into your organisation can help to prevent going wrong and lead to improvements. Ask customers for feedback systematically, perhaps in the form of a survey or online review, so that you are able to identify any parts of you customer service processes which are letting you down.
