If your business is in trouble financially, you need to get a plan in place. Every solution has its own issues that require a bit of dedicated time.
1. Write Business, Sales/Marketing, and Operation Plan
A business plan is essential for any entrepreneur, a good business plan will help entrepreneurs focus on the specific steps in order to make their business ideas success. Investors, management, the bank and your employees will all benefit / ask for a business plan too. It shows them your strategy and helps everyone stay on track to complete their short term and long term objectives. It will help them see where they fit in and where they can offer their expertise.
Companies that spend the time creating a great plan are much less likely to get into trouble and while it might seem like you don’t need a plan right now, if things get any worse you’ll severely regret not having one.
Not got enough time to create a good plan? Turning around a struggling business requires a LOT of time and energy but it also needs plan.
2. Meet with Key Employees
Get the key people in your business in one room to have some discussions on how you can turn the company around. Don’t go into a meeting without having a plan of your own though, it will only make your people lose confidence in your ability to lead, especially if you don’t have a vision for your business.
Provide employees with the relevant parts of your business plan. This will allow them to see the bigger picture and provide some feedback and input.
With this sort of meeting it’s essential to be self-assured, take the time to listen to everyone's opinion and be open minded to all ideas. Admitting that there are things wrong with the business is essential.
3. Cut Unnecessary Costs
Make a list of all your expenses and get rid of unnecessary costs. If you’re running low on cash, eliminating things from your expenses will buy you time. For example, you could lower your financial expenditures by consolidating insurance policies or save money on insurance by comparing providers.
Creating a break even analysis sheet or a proforma income statement can help you determine the viability of your business.
Another option could be letting employes who aren’t essential to the business go. If you want your business to survive, you have to keep the people who are vital to your business and no more.
If letting them go isn’t an option, maybe you could cut their hours temporarily?
4. Brand
Having an establish brand can be as detrimental to your growth as much as it can accelerate it too. Sometimes you need to shake things up and get a new look that consumers can relate to. People get bored and things change, so if you’re not keeping up your customers might go elsewhere.
Rebranding is essential because your current brand could be outdated, it might not reach the needs of your current audience and this could be preventing visitors to convert into customers.
Look at some companies who have modern brands and find out who did their branding for motivation. https://www.pearlfisher.com/work/fazer-yosa/ for example, Fazer Yosa had their branding updated by Pearlfisher, a professional company. This enabled them to create a quality brand that aligned with their customers values.
5. Narrow your focus
As your business grows, it can make sense to branch out and start building new branches for your company. However, if your business takes a turn for the worst and things are looking bleak, it might be time to narrow your focus. After all, doing what you do best is bound to yield you better results and branching out can take some time / money to make it become profitable.
Limiting the type of services you offer allows you to be more productive with your time too. Alternatively, if you feel like narrowing your focus this could mean you’re going to turn away business. It could be a good idea to find a subcontractor to do the work for your instead.
6. 80% of the results come from 20% of the work
It’s true, if you’re properly tracking the actions taken within your business you might come across a few processes that give you the most success or there might be a few products that make you the most money.
Once you’ve identified whatever it might be that gives you the most results, you can spend more time on this, therefore narrowing your focus.
If things aren’t going as well in your business implementing some of the steps above will give you what you need to get things back on track.
*This commercial content is compiled via expert opinion. Clicking in certain hyperlinks within this article will redirect you to a 3rd party.
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