Thrifty Business Tips For The New Year
I’m not into re-inventing the wheel, so I won’t.
Did you achieve your business goals over the past year? By how much? Did you create a way to measure your success? How has your plan changed for this upcoming year? If you don’t have a clear path to reaching your goals (or if you don’t have a plan at all!) here are some tips to help you TODAY.
Last year I wrote a blog post detailing the importance of establishing business goals, and provided 6 tips to developing effective and actionable business goals. Here’s the summary:
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Break it Down into Small Steps
Breaking your measurable business goals into small measurable steps enables the business owner to tackle the goals in a systemic manner.
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Track your progress
Make it a habit, or better yet, a scheduled task, to review and evaluate your measurable objectives weekly, monthly, quarterly, or semi-annually.
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Establish a process/procedure
In order to duplicate a successful plan, and to change directions when a plan is failing, we need to understand exactly WHAT is working and what is not.
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Find a support system
One way to bolster your confidence and increase your effectiveness is to find a support system. Some suggestions include LinkedIn Groups, Professional Organizations, Meetup groups.
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Be flexible/Evaluate your direction
Plans should be written in pencil; just like many roadmaps, plans are full of twists and turns. Build business plans that are ambitious, yet allow for flexibility to change course.
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Celebrate successes
Take the time to celebrate your successes. Whether privately, semi-public with family and friends, or publicly, let your followers and stakeholders join in on the celebration.
As I revisit the post I find the content still resonates and can be very useful to business owners, entrepreneurs and managers alike. Here’s a few additional tips to consider for the new year:
Remove non-essential expenses
Does your business require a physical location to operate or can you work remotely? Do you need full time staff? Select your team wisely. Are you a one-person shop? Are there any non-essential tools you can do away with? Cut out the fat and get lean!
Consolidate
In business, you may benefit from consolidating operations and performing an analysis of your core business. Concentrate on where your business is earning most of its revenue and remove yourself from the ‘extras’ that suck up your time and resources without an adequate return.
Incentivize Salaries
How is the pay being distributed within your organization? Is your rock star employee bringing in enough business to justify their salary? These are some questions you may have to ask yourself and consider offering an incentive based salary. The employee might be more motivated if he or she has control over how much they can earn. Sure, you may end up paying a higher salary, however, if you’re tying incentives to your company’s overall profits, it’s a win-win scenario for all.
Stay On Budget
Necessity breeds ingenuity, and as such, face yourself to compete based on skill and competitive advantage, and not rely on your spending power. Because believe it or not, there’s always another bigger company with a deeper pocket that can outspend YOU. Rely on talent and hard work.
Do you have any comments, questions or suggestions you’d like to add? I’d love to hear about it. Share yours comments below!