Did you make any New Year’s resolutions to make business improvements? If so, it’s been a few weeks, so how is it going? Have you kept them or are they already falling away? We’ve decided to share some resolutions that you can implement at any time to improve your business.
Make S.M.A.R.T.er Goals
Of course you already have business goals. All businesses do. But not all goals are equal and some are harder to reach than others. A way to improve your goal setting is to use S.M.A.R.T. method to fine tune your goals so that they are:
- Specific
- Measureable
- Attainable
- Relevant
- Timely
Let’s use a practical example. Like all business owners, you’ll want to be gaining more revenue this year. But let’s be more specific and pinpoint where that revenue should come from. Let’s say that will be recurring services. Now you need to make sure that you can measure your progress, because if you can’t track it you don’t know if you’re succeeding. Let’s say that in the next month you want to increase the number of people signed up for your recurring services by 15%.
Onto the next step. Realistically, is this attainable? It’s fine to be ambitious, but setting impractical business goals isn’t the way to proceed. Let’s imagine that you can envisage a natural sign-on/conversion rate of about 3% per month. If you push yourself, you can raise that to 5 or 6%. Looking at it carefully, it should be clear that a 15% increase isn’t going to happen. So, you should adjust your goal, perhaps extending the time period to three months in which to achieve that 15% increase.
What about relevance? Will achieving this goal increase your profits or does it simplify and streamline the other tasks your business undertakes? Relevant business goals will always do one or the other. Finally, you need to have an end date, after which you can evaluate your progress. Having a target date also gives you a deadline, which in turn can motivate you to achieve it on time. If you say to yourself that deadlines don’t matter as long as you get there eventually, the urgency falls away and it’s not really a firm goal at all.
Improve Your Organization’s Culture to Boost Motivation
Business growth can’t all be measured in hard numbers, but this other growth is still important. It can affect the measurable dimensions of your business improvement, including productivity, revenue generated and staff retention. The bottom line is that creating a workplace where people are content and comfortable working in will help achieve that measurable business growth.
Consultation is the key to accomplishing this. What makes your employees feel energized and enthusiastic about coming to work? What can you do to enhance this? If staff know that you’re actively trying to make the work environment good, the effect is to lift the whole culture of the office, and encourage new prospects to join your team in the future.
Strengthen Business Relationships
Some business owners may dream about becoming the next global household name. But it’s not easy or even desirable. Huge businesses may claim to have the personal touch but practical necessities actually mean that the opposite happens. Smaller providers can provide those personalized relationships that the big name businesses seldom can. These personalized relationships with clients can be key, and the reason why clients will give you their business rather than handing it over to the big conglomerates.
Have you made resolutions for your business for this year? If so, share them in the comments, and remember that we’re here to help with your technology needs and assist you with your goal setting and accomplishing your business improvements! Call us at (973) 882-4644 for more information.