We’re only a month away from the start of Spring, and many businesses will be hoping the second quarter of 2023 starts to deliver those green-shoots which lead to growth.
But success doesn’t happen by accident.
Just like the changes you will be making to your wardrobe and your lifestyle this month, carrying out a Spring clean of your business can be transformational, help create a new identity, and boost your chances of a healthier looking bottom line.
Business coach Daniella Genas specialises in supporting entrepreneurs to grow their businesses.
And she says February is the perfect month to reassess where you are heading.
Daniella, the founder of She’s The Boss, says: “The start of the year has flown by, and everyone will have a different feeling about how 2023 has gone so far.
“ Maybe you smashed January and want to maintain or exceed upon what you have already accomplished. If that is you, well done!
Or, maybe you are feeling a little discouraged as you did not make the forward progression that you expected and worked so hard for. But whatever your experience has been, now is a great time to plan for the next stage of the year. Do not be discouraged. We are only one month into the New Year and there is still more than enough time to exceed even your own expectations. It is important that you are intentional about success. If you want to achieve business growth in 2023, it starts with clarity.”
Here, Daniella, shares her seven steps on carrying out a business spring clean and increasing your chance of achieving business growth.
Revisit your vision
To reach your destination, you must first know where you are going. The most important part of planning for the future is being clear on what success looks like. If business growth is the goal, what does that look like? Spend some time this week reflecting on the vision you have for your business and for your life. It may have been quite a few months since you stopped and reflected on exactly where it is you are trying to get to. Ensure that you have razor sharp clarity on the purpose and mission of your business and how they feed into what you are trying to achieve overall.
Ask yourself these questions:
- Where do I see the business in 5 years?
- What will my daily life look like in 5 years?
- What size of team do I want?
- What type of work will we be doing?
- Who will we be working for?
- What do we aim to achieve?
If you have a team, ensure that you involve them in the process. Get them to contribute and see how they will be involved in this future you are creating.
You may be thinking how 5 years in the future applies to the next 6 months. If you get clarity on the long term goals, it will help motivate you into setting yourself on that trajectory now.
Review your performance
Because we often do not see immediate major growth in our businesses, we do not recognise how far we have come and count ourselves out. We can sometimes see failure, where there has actually been success. Incremental progress is still progress, but we often miss it, because we are not properly or accurately tracking. Because we don’t stop and understand the actual performance of our business, it is difficult to get a true sense of how we have performed and whether we have achieved business growth.
Spend some time deep diving into all areas of performance in your business. Evaluate all of the performance areas that will have an impact on your business growth: Finances, sales, client satisfaction, operations etc. You may be surprised by the results.
Set your sales targets
This is a MUST! Get clear on exactly how many sales you want to achieve for each service or product, for each month of the rest of the year. This will help you to understand and plan for the required resources, time output and cost of delivery. It is important to be proactive with sales. Identifying the number of sales required will help inform the amount of marketing and sales activity required to hit your sales targets. And this, in turn, will help you achieve business growth. It will also provide focus and if properly tracked, can enable you to make adjustments if you see you are moving too far away from the target.
Update your marketing and sales strategies and tactics
If you want to achieve business growth by the end of the year, it is essential that you have clear strategies to enable you to achieve it. The strategies that you defined at the start of January may no longer be relevant. Now is a great time to update your strategies, assuming that you have them.
Build upon the areas that have proven successful. Where specific strategies have not been successful, seek to understand why and maybe change approach. You should then identify the key tactics which you feel will work going forwards. Ensure that you are clear on the goals that the strategies are seeking to accomplish and the ways in which you will measure success to achieve business growth.
Refresh your action plan
Create a list of all of the specific actions which need to be accomplished and by when. Create start dates and end dates and assign the tasks to the person, or people responsible for carrying them out. Try to overestimate, rather than underestimate the time it will take to complete the tasks. This will help ensure you are not putting too much pressure on yourself or team members. Make sure that you schedule weekly, monthly and quarterly reviews to determine if actions are being completed in the specified time.
Identify partnerships and/or support
You can’t do it all alone and actually, you shouldn’t have to. Identify individuals and/or organisations that can support you in achieving your goals. Maybe you need to partner with another small business to help expand your reach. Maybe you need to get a mentor or a coach to provide guidance or to hold you accountable. Maybe you need to expand your team to increase capacity. Whatever your requirement, be clear on what/who you need and make a plan for getting them on board.
If you want to achieve business growth and success in the next 6 months, then get intentional.
