It’s a new year which means it’s time to start planning our business year ahead. Now 2020 has ended it’s time for 2021 to be the year businesses make a comeback, we have listed below a few tips on getting your business up and running to have a successful year ahead.
Make A Business Plan
Having a business plan in place is vital to any business success, it will give you a clearer idea on what your goals are and help keep you focused as you grow your business. You can set your business plan over a one, five or even ten year goal, you should set a period of time to regularly check in with your plan to see if you are on track and if you still hold the same values or your end goal has altered. There are many templates online to help guide you when writing your business plan.
Define Your KPIs
Having key performance indicators or KPIs in place will allow you to monitor how effectively your business is achieving its goals and objectives. When defining your KPIs it might be helpful to think about the answers to these questions:
- What is your desired outcome and why does it matter?
- Who is responsible for the outcome?
- How often will you monitor the outcome?
- When will you know the outcome has been achieved?
Once you have a clearer understanding of your KPIs have them somewhere visual so you can keep on top of your progress. Some good examples of KPIs might be to increase revenue by 20% or hiring 5 more members of staff by the end of the year.
Be Wise With Money
When running your own business you might feel like you want to invest all your money, whilst investing some money into your business is a good idea it is always best to be wise and sensible. To get a clear idea on what money is coming in and out, we would recommend performing a Cash flow analysis on your business. This will allow you to see how much money you have at the end of the month or year after you have deducted expenses from your total income. If this is looking a little low then have a think about how you can improve and grow your sales. This is when reviewing KPIs will be beneficial.
Grow Your Online Presence
It is vital in 2021 to have some sort of online presence, if you don’t it will be very difficult to stay in business, as most people use the internet to find a service or product. Having a good clear website is a must, make sure it is easy to navigate and optimised for all devices. Once this is in place you should consider opening a social media account. Social media is a great way to market your business and is one of the top ways to gain customers. The main social media sites are Facebook, instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and Tiktok. Choosing one or two platforms to focus on as having too many running at once can require a lot of updating and monitoring.
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