With the summer over it’s now time to focus on pushing your business forward for the last four months of the year.

Here are some ideas to help you and your business during September and ongoing.

Whether you are a one man band or a medium to large business owner you need to know who your customers are and how to reach them. 

TIP 1 – Consider who your best customers are and what makes them ideal, maybe you have a minimum spend level that they always spend above or perhaps they trust you implicitly.  Whatever makes them your favourite type of client you need to aim your marketing to them – who wants people who don’t pay or are a pain in the neck! 

TIP 2 - Make sure you have a plan in place, how else can you push your business forward if you don’t know what you’re aiming for?  Set yourself financial targets, set your budget, list your business goals, understand your strengths and weaknesses and use them appropriately.

TIP 3 – Make time to consider your marketing strategies carefully.  This ties in with tip 1 but think outside the box, don’t just do the same old things and hope you’ll get a different outcome as it’s unlikely you will.  If you don’t know where to start then write down all the marketing activities you have tried over the last three years and note down the results from those strategies, both financial and in leads.  Everything you try needs to be analysed or you won’t know if it’s working or not. Too many business owners don’t ask their customers the most basic question, how did you find us?  Keep a record of the answers.

Tip 4 – Look at your systems.  Are your systems as efficient as they could be?  Have you looked to see if you are spending a lot of time on something that someone else could do faster and better therefore saving your time for what you are good at?  These days there is no need to miss calls from important customers when there are plenty of VA’s (virtual assistants) and call answering companies who are usually very reasonable and efficient.  Do you spend ages working on your books when you could pay a bookkeeper to do the job for you saving you hassle and worry. 

Tip 5 – Consider your pricing.  Have you aligned your pricing with your competitors? Have you considered pricing your products or services above them therefore automatically reducing the number of people who want the cheapest of everything and are not necessarily your ideal clients?  Instead you’ll attract people who appreciate quality and excellent service and are prepared to pay accordingly (you must of course then make sure that what you provide is value for money).

Bonus Tip – Ask your customers what product or service that they find most useful, and if you don’t provide it now then perhaps it’s worth considering doing so.

We hope that these tips will help you think a little more about your business and where you want it to go.

For more in-depth help with getting your business found by your ideal clients, or just a chat about thebestof Hertford and Ware and what we do for our members, drop me an email at hertfordandware@thebestof.co.uk we’d love to hear from you.