In these Covid times I have been speaking to many small business people. Many of them ask the question “ What should I be doing about my business if I am not able to operate to full capacity?” This is not an easy question but this is quite possibly an ideal time to work “on” your business as you can’t actually work in it it to the extent you probably have in the past. Here are a few of the things I am advising people to focus on so that they do not just stagnate.
- Re visit your Dream: When we started out in business we had great dreams of what we would do, what we would become, where we would go, how we would help others etc. Are these dreams still there? Have they become jaded in the day to day effort of running a business and trying to make ends meet? Go back and look at your dreams and re establish your WHY! If you want something to read on this topic then I suggest looking at Simon Sinek’s book Start With Why. I cheated and listened to it on Audible!
- Re Look at your Vision, Mission and Values Of your business. Basically look at where you want this business to be, how you want to get it there and what are the principles on which it will be built. Are these the same as when you started your business? Have they changed?
- Draw up a Budget for your business, basically a financial plan. Start with your expenses, list all the expenses you know you will have or anticipate having. Do this on a month by month basis. Don’t forget to include your own salary. After All you need to include that as an expense as yu are a cost t running the business! Now you have your expenses look at your income. How much will you need to cover all these expenses and make the profit that you want?
- Draw up an Operational Plan: Your operational plan is the actions you need to take in order for you to achieve your targets. So you need to establish a number of measures. Firstly what value does your average client give you on a monthly basis? Simple calculation is fine, monthly turnover divided by number of invoices issued in a month. Secondly, how many times do these clients interact with you over a given period (I always suggest an annual figure). What this does is it allows you to calculate a client’s value to your business. Once you have this figure you need to work out how many clients do you need to interact with you over a month for you to cover your income budget from 3 above. This will dictate how much marketing you need to do as it tells you how many clients you need and helps to inform you how many leads you will need. From this draw up a marketing plan.
- Marketing Plan: Generally our conversion of leads into paying clients is not 100%. For me I usually use a 10% conversion rate. That is for every 10 people I talk to I get one new client. Therefore if I need 10 new clients I need to speak to 100 people.. But in order for me to talk to 10 people I probably need to meet 100 potential clients. So my marketing efforts must be geared to me coming to the attention of 100 people in any period of time. To do this I need to analyse the leads generated by each of my marketing efforts. And if the numbers don’t add up I need to do more or do it differently. I suggest that you need to have at least 5 different methods of marketing and each should be contributing to your leads funnel. Many of us use the following methods: Networking, Facebook, Instagram, Website, Word of Mouth, flyers. But there are many others and one which we tend to ignore despite the effectiveness is direct mail. Remember if you send out 100 mails and 7% are opened that is a 7 percent potential increase in your clients! And what did it cost you? Just time! Obviously the content of the mail is important. Another is a blog post, this can be very effective as it can draw attention to many of your marketing platforms.
- Procedures and Processes, Remember a successful business is one that can work without YOU! That means you have to have processes and procedures in place that allow others to conduct the business as well as you can. To do this you need to have procedures and processes written down and not just in your head. Procedures and processes for your sales, marketing, finance, debt collection, communication with clients, distribution and delivery, etc.
- Communication: Communicate with your clients, past clients and future clients. Tell them how you can help them, what you are doing to make things easier for them and just empathising with them. Most importantly ask them aware that you are there for them. Do this often. I strongly suggest emails to clients in this period. Don’t make them as long as this one, but do email. Also communicate with your creditors. Make sure they are aware of your situation and whether you will be paying them on time or not.
- Market: In this time market and market again and do more marketing. Make sure you are building relationships through your marketing. One of my clients was speaking to me and saying how suddenly he realised that his past marketing efforts did not help him in this period. Because of this he is not attracting new clients and so the ad hoc work he normally does is not coming in. this is affecting his cash flow. We have come up with a marketing plan which will hopefully help him in the future. Don’t wait to start a marketing plan, do it now! I suggest that you focus on those products or services you can do for them now. So if you can’t deliver until lock down has ended, market the planning phase for what you will deliver and get the process rolling.
- Where you are able drive your business online. Do seminars, online meetings, teleconferences etc. Make sure you are still visible.
Hopefully I have given you some inspiration for these coming weeks. But most of all remember that I am here for you and am only a phone call away. Please extend this offer to any of your clients, business acquaintances or friends who you think may benefit from a chat with me in these times. Remember that my first consultation is for free.
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