It’s Spring here in the Southern Hemisphere and I know I am clearing out the clutter around the house. But have you ever thought to Spring clean your business? Clear out the cobwebs, peak under the couch, and shake out the rugs. But why & how?
You make New Year’s Resolutions to lose weight, save money, exercise more, and you track those goals. If you go off course many will jump back on and work out what went wrong so it doesn’t happen again. How many of us do it with our businesses? We are often so busy looking at the end goal or caught in the daily grind to look back at what did or didn’t go well.
September is the start of the Spring selling season here in Australia. It leads in to the holiday selling season and as such it’s a good time for businesses to take a quick check of where they are and where they are headed.
Watch the following video to learn how to spring clean your business and then following the specific links in the remaining blog to dig deeper or kickstart your clean.
I’m a bit of a traditionalist with this. I’m a first principles kind of gal. I look at what has happened, look at my goals, review my client avatar, and plan my activities.
Let’s start with your why and what.
Look at your goals. Did you set them at the start of the year? Are you on track? Are they still relevant? Are they still realistic? Do you have non-financial goals in there too? I had to do a lot of soul-searching through the Telstra Businesswoman of the Year awards. This process cemented my belief in the necessity of not just a financial, but also an operational review of business. You can read more about the questions I was asked and the process in the following blog post. If you would like some more solid direction on reviewing and goal setting, I do have a workbook available for instant download.
Looking at the big ticket goals, let’s talk financial. Do you know how many products, clients, hours you need to achieve your financial goals? Alternatively, have you been putting off reviewing/reducing your costs to increase your profits? When did you last raise your prices? Do you have any wholesale customers you can approach? What about new leads? Let’s get analytical on your finances and serious about achieving these goals. You should be able to answer these questions. If you need help, please message the page and we can discuss options for you.
Speaking of analytical, do you know who your ideal client is? (Please don’t say ‘anyone’) Knowing who you are targeting will give you the ‘what’ to your discussions. It will direct your media presence (social & traditional), it will help build & guide your relationship, but best of all … knowing your ideal client will remove your overwhelm. See, if you know who you are aiming at you remove any guess work. You will always hit your mark & you will get results. Yes, you can have different ones for different arms or products, but I recommend one overarching definition. If you want to read more about ideal clients, have a look at this blog post. If you would like to know why they are important, you then grab a cuppa because this one’s a long one. If you would like to read about how my client benefited from knowing their ideal client, then this post is for you. If you’re more action and cut to the chase oriented, then you can download the ebook now.
I hope this has left you feeling more on track, empowered, and educated on how you will move forward in to the major selling season. If you would like to chat further about your goals, you can always book a free initial consult. (I get a buzz out of seeing businesses succeed)