Success planning for your business in 2009 from Weymouth based IT Consultants, kism-it
8th February 2009
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2009 is going to be a tough year to survive and prosper for small businesses. Therefore we need to look at our methods and practices to ensure we are getting the best out of every lead and opportunity. Here are a few ideas on improving your business survival techniques:
Success Planning - 7 keys to business success
1) Take charge - Firstly realise that success will not just happen - it is up to you to make it happen. Successful people claim to be in control. The refuse to be victims and accept responsibility for the results their business achieves and take the blame themselves if things go wrong.
2) Know where you are going - without having specific goals, business owners often find working the business becomes an endless slog. If being in business in not enjoyable and rewarding - then why be in it? For those that are really successful it is exciting and rewarding - the difference is that they have a clear idea of where they are going and each day can see their business making progress toward their clearly defined goals. Define your direction in writing a company strategy and
update it regularly.
3) Spread the word - You will never succeed by keeping your business a secret. You need to spread the word to let people know about your unique products or services - your USP. Many small businesses tend to be reactive. Instead of one broad objective of 'getting more sales', strategies can be developed in three areas:
• Actively encourage word of mouth and a system of generating referred leads
• Planned advertising to generate a steady flow of new enquiries
• Increase the value and frequency of purchases from existing customers
4) Do what you do so well they'll come back and bring their friends - The difference between the truly successful business and the average successful business is that the former live, breathe and preach quality, where the later only pays lip service to it. There are many companies that have built their reputation on the quality of the service they provide as much as the product they sell.
5) Train the people to do it better than you - When we start a business based on our own unique skills, we have a difficult choice when we get too busy to cope with all the work our expertise has created. We need to spread the load by employing others to do some of the work. This is the critical point in the businesses' development. If the business owner gets this right, the future of the business is assured, but, if it goes wrong, the business is doomed.
Often the business owner wishes they could 'clone' themselves. They are unable to find anyone who can work as well as they do. Business growth is always stifled by the owners hanging on to the work they enjoy. Having made the choice to grow, the key to unlocking this potential is to train the new people to be better than yourself.
6) Keep the score - The greatest danger in growing a business is for the owner to lose control. This fear causes many to choose to stay small because they do not want the worries of growing too big. What you can measure you can improve. A business' performance needs to be managed and controlled. So many business owners worry about getting the work done, but they don't measure the results, they don't keep score. Keeping the score indicates how well
the business is going towards achieving its goals. If performance is behind expectations, steps can be taken to improve. If the score was not kept, no one would ever know that performance was substandard and the goals would quite likely never be reached.
7) Celebrate your victories - Regeneration of our physical and emotion resources comes when we celebrate victories. One of the problems we have in small business is that we think we are too busy to get time off to celebrate. Even if we just get away from the business and relax, we come back rejuvenated and are usually able to tackle our work with a renewed vigour.
