Quick Ways to Help Your Business Grow
Successful Small Business Owners Are Constantly Evaluating, Evolving, Improving
One of the carriers we work with, The Hartford, has offered some great resources to help grow your business successfully. Even if you've been in business for decades, we think a quick skim will give you something new and valuable to consider.
Their article goes into more detail, but here are the top three suggestions:
Manage Cash Flow and Fund Your Small Business (business failure is often linked to poor cash flow management)
Manage Your Accounting and Taxes (see below for additional links related to deductions)
Take Your Business Online
New and old CEOs always have ways to improve - being open to change will help the most. Some of their top three innovative ideas to expand your business include:
Learning From Customer Complaints
Monitoring Social Media
Offering a New Service Alongside Your Product (or a Product Alongside Your Service)
Tracking and Maximizing Your Tax Deductions
Maximizing your business income includes maximizing your tax write-offs. Save receipts. Track your mileage.
If you don't know what's allowable, you can reference the IRS website for what's deductible here. The IRS makes clear that "...a business expense must be both ordinary and necessary."
Other types of deductible expenses include employee payroll, retirement plans, rent expense, business insurance and taxes.
Cyber Security - Proactive Prevention Practices (PPP)
Always worth a quick mention because almost everyone needs improvement in this area. Prevention of unnecessary expenses (e.g. due to cyber related errors) is just as important as growing your business.
The easiest way to save money is by being proactive on cyber security. You can review our previous post on this topic detailing best practices (including data storage methods, strong passwords and proper cyber hygiene for the team, to name a few).
A Final (Most Important) Note
This is worth a hard look - you should know why you're losing customers, however few it may be. Are you:
Providing Poor Customer Service
Not Rewarding Customer Loyalty
Focusing on Price Instead of Value
Neglecting Technology
Not Addressing Staff Issues
The article goes on to note: "While some customer attrition is normal, remember, it is far more cost-effective and profitable to keep existing customers than to attract new ones. Building customer loyalty takes time and a concerted effort but, in the end, the payoff is well worth it."
Is your business set up to make sure each employee is up-to-date on Customer Service Best Practices?