Probably one of the most important questions any business owner needs answers on, is advice how to improve business.
Seems like a very simple and straight forward question but looked at on its own and in isolation, a business owner can spend valuable time going down the wrong path and not have any noticeable improvement in their business if you have not identified the correct areas of their business to focus on first.
It's been our experience that the main areas that need to be improved and focused on in business are, increasing sales and making the cash flow of the business better.
Both of these can be independent symptoms but they are often interlinked and need to be watched very closely.
If your sales need to be improved you first need to understand why your sales are where they are.
You may indeed need to seek advice how to improve business.
Most businesses don't know "the numbers" and as a result don't know what to focus on to increase sales.
The main drivers to increasing sales are: - Getting more appointments with potential prospects - Discussing all your product range with your existing customers - up-selling and cross-selling - Analyse what products are selling and which ones are not - You may need to add new products with higher margin to your offerings Cash is indeed king! Lack of cash in any business can be terminal if it continues over a long period of time.
Symptoms of poor cash flow are: - No management of clients who owe you money - No management of supplier you owe money to - Clients and customers often hold final payments due to poor customer service or lack of completion of projects Solutions to poor cash flow: - Put process in place to manage your debtors (AR) or creditors (AP), if you're not good at this get someone who is, it well worth the investment of time and resource - Change your payment terms, get some payment up front before you start work - Measure if your poor completion of orders is causing a delay in payment.
- Make sure your customer service level is high so your clients have less reasons to withhold payment of outstanding invoices There are many other ways of how to improve your business but we have found with our clients that focusing on and improving these two areas are the best business advice how to improve business immediately in today's challenging market place.