According to entrepreneur.com, It will likely take months to re-adjust to the forces that have hammered the world’s economy, and to you, the budding entrepreneurs, months can feel like years.
Here are our tips on gearing up for business growth and moving one step ahead in 2023:
1. Agile planning
It may seem obvious, but setting out achievable short-term and long-term goals is important, but creating an agile plan of action, maybe even more so. Goals act as a guide to what you need to do and when you need to do it. Having a clear plan of the direction you want your business to take will help in reducing the risks associated with expansion. Creating a plan that takes our learnings and best practices into account is vital, but it’s equally important to create some space in your planning for tactics and strategies that can address unplanned events. The challenges of our past have taught us this and we should learn from it.
2. Build a sought-after workplace
Having a strong team is the foundation of any successful business. Building a desirable place of work will help you attract the best people for your business and retain them.
When hiring new people to join your business, it is important to be clear on what your business vision is and how you intend to invest in them, as much as they are onboarded to invest in your business. The mutual levels of respect will solidify commitment and build rapport between yourself and your staff.
Building a sought-after work means promoting the things that make working for your small business most desirable. That proverbial saying of ‘if you build it, they will come’ stands true here. Create opportunities here to attract the right people. Attractive salaries, perks, training opportunities, conferences, packages, discounts, bonuses, and whatever you feel is affordable to get you started. Investing in your people is putting your best foot forward as a small business and will build best practices for years into the future.
3. Improve your processes
Having clear processes makes it easier to understand what is needed to scale your business. It can be challenging for a small business to document how you do things within your business with fewer hands to help but once you simplify and map the processes so everyone knows how to manage them, it saves not just time and stress, but a lot of money for you too. When you have your processes down on paper, your employees can visualise the work they do from start to finish. If you are unsure of how to create this with limited funds, you can consider an all-in-one bank account for SMEs to streamline your current processes. Or make it easier to stay on top of your business finances with powerful cash flow tools, even faster access to funding, and support from real humans to manage your processes with peace of mind.
4. Keep your customer in mind
When you are planning to grow your business, you must think about how and why your offering is different. It is important to always keep in mind what makes your business successful and why customers return to you.
Adding a personal touch to your product or service helps the customer feel connected to you and builds brand loyalty. This gives you the edge over larger companies who may not find this to be an essential part of their business model. Make better business decisions based on innovative tools and products to help manage your customer’s needs better. Improve the management of your stock or protect against out-of-stock shipping scenarios by sourcing local and having capital on hand to not just juggle change within your business – fast but to create a stand out for your business in 2023.
By far, the greatest way to grow your business is to invest in marketing and advertising for your business. This can be one of the hardest but also one of the most rewarding decisions. If your funds won’t allow you to invest too much, perhaps you might consider revolving capital that will give you funds when you need them most and help you to invest in your businesses in the best of ways.
5. Review, review, review
It’s important to always go back and review your performance against your plans so you can improve them at every turn.
While your business goals will largely remain the same, your operating environment will always be changing. In order to truly evolve and gear your business for growth, adapting to change is always necessary. These challenging times present an opportunity to address oscillating times and put practices in place that benefit your business growth.
Analysing your business data and customer feedback is an important step in understanding your customer needs better and knowing where to turn
6. Get tight with your cash
Leverage a hybrid work model to reduce rent and other overheads. Keep online meetings alive with Zoom, Teams, or Google Meets. Seek credit terms with key suppliers and if the cash is not flowing easily for you in your business, then arrange revolving credit to keep your cash flowing when you need it most.
By far, the greatest hurdle to overcome in small business and in any business is cash flow. Cash is the lifeblood of a small business. Generating enough cash from your business to meet expenses, supplier payments, marketing, staff, overheads, and stock can feel daunting and downright scary in some months. That’s why it’s important to take constant stock of your business’s health and support cash flow needs effectively in order to not just manage your day-to-day and month-to-month but inevitably grow and scale your business to where it deserves to be. You can make a start today by accessing immediate funds fast by contacting Lulalend. Lulalend is an online, alternative banking solution for SMEs in South Africa. Created by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, they are passionate about empowering every SME to succeed, so what are you waiting for?
