Turn Business Strategy Into Profit
Competitive Advantage
- Think smarter
- Work smarter
- Gain a competitive edge
10 Ways to Improve Your Business Today
- Employees – Consultation and participation. Talk to your team, find out what they really think and what your customers/clients are saying to them. Set up a suggestions scheme, get ideas flowing. Arrange regular meetings which lead to improvements and real change, not just “talking-shops”. Your employees are the eyes and ears of your business. Use them well.
- Customers – Try to get quick feedback with every sale/invoice/receipt. Think of ways to ask your customers/clients what they think of your current services/products. If customers can see how hard you are working to be a success, most people will want to help. You just have to give them the means to do so. Ask them.
- Review – Look at the previous 3/5/10 years accounts and prepare a plan for the next 5 years. Write down the headline information; sales, profits, cash, debtors, stock. What do you notice? What issues need to be addressed? Using the previous years’ figures, now enter figures for the next 5 years using the same headings. Do they look realistic?
- Get Organised – Look at your current procedures. What particular problems are you having? Identify what needs to be improved. Make a plan.
- Sort Out Your Paperwork – Lost and/or mislaid paperwork costs you time and money. Both are precious. You can’t afford to waste either.
- Regular Bookkeeping – Ensure all income and expenditure is processed and up-to-date. It will help you keep things organised and to ensure you have enough cash in the bank. Rule 1 of running a business is never run out of cash. Rule 2 is never forget Rule 1.
- BookkeepingPLUS – Better information leads to better decision-making. Build resilience into your business. This won’t happen overnight, it takes time, but it could help you cope better with future disruptions.
- 6 and 9 Month Tax-planning Review – If your bookkeeping is complete, why not use it to see if there is anything you can do to reduce your tax bill before your financial year-end? Think about it before your year-end. Be prepared.
- Prepare Year-end Accounts and Tax Return in Good Time – It will let you know, nice and early, what your tax bill is going to be. You then have plenty time to make sure you have or are putting enough cash aside to pay your tax when it’s due. There is no benefit to you in leaving it until the last minute. That’s when nasty surprises happen.
- Update Your 5 Year Budget Plan – Is there anything in the past year that indicates that the sales, profits, cash figures need amended?
10 simple things you can make a start on to help make your business better.
Good luck with your business.
Thanks for reading
Gordon