Spring is the season associated with new beginnings and fresh starts. It’s the perfect time of year to act on the saying: ‘out with the old, in with the new’ – not just in terms of your home or mental health but also in terms of how you run your small business. Now is your chance to check-in with your small and medium enterprise (SME) and start preparing for the busy end-of-year rush.
Providing his insights on how to spring clean your business is Elvandre Brooks, Area Manager at specialist SME financier, Business Partners Limited. “Spending time taking stock of where you are or how far you have come as a business and what you need to do next is critical to long-term success. Running a small business can sometimes be chaotic and somewhat noisy – there’s so much to think about and do to make sure that your engines keep firing.
However, on a regular basis, you need to press pause and review the main aspects that keep your operations moving forward. Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting out, giving your business a spring clean can help you streamline operations, refocus your goals, and set the stage for growth in the months ahead.”
Brooks recommends the following four factors to take into consideration when doing a small business spring clean:
Master your money
The most vital aspect of running a successful small business concerns your financial wellbeing. The biggest challenge every entrepreneur faces, whether they’re well into the growth stage of their business or in the first few years of getting off the ground, is effective cashflow management. If you don’t keep a close eye on the inflows and outflows of capital in your business, you could risk over-spending, missing opportunities to earn additional revenue, racking up unnecessary debt or not spotting costly inefficiencies before it’s too late.
“Your financial spring clean should involve a review of your most important financial statements, which are your income statement and your balance sheet. By reviewing these documents, you’ll get a good overview of what your fixed and variable expenses are monthly and where it’s possible to cut costs. This will also provide you with an informed perspective on what your budget should look like for the months ahead.
Once you’ve gained an understanding of where you stand financially from inside your SME, it’s also helpful to take a broader look at things. For example, you could use this time to review the marketplace and check whether your product or service is still competitively priced in relation to your competitors,” says Brooks.
Prioritise your people
Doing good business is not only about profit – it’s also about people, so the next aspect to check in on is the health of your team. Being an effective team member in a small business often involves wearing many different hats and offering assistance on tasks that sometimes fall outside of a regular job description. This presents great opportunities for growth and personal development, but the risk of burnout is very real.
As a business owner, your spring clean should therefore involve touching base with the key individuals on your team, formally or informally. It’s the ideal time to use incentives to give top performers a boost before the busy end-of-year rush sets in. It’s also the best time to catch up on some team building or a group activity, to reestablish connections between team members and make sure that people feel valued and appreciated.
Now, how about those goals?
A great way to ensure that you gain enough momentum to carry you through the peak season and into the new year, is to review and refresh your business goals. Setting measurable objectives is crucial to running a successful business. It’s equally as important that each team member is made aware of what your vision for the medium- to long-term is, to allow for single-minded focus and a united effort.
Expanding on this, Brooks says that “You may be surprised at how your goals and benchmarks change and evolve as your business journey progresses. If your initial goal was growth – now is the time to check in on the metrics you’ve put in place to measure growth and to decide whether ongoing growth is still feasible.
Sometimes, you’ll need to switch your focus to other more pressing needs, such as product or service development, improving your company culture, expanding your business network or upping productivity. Remember, your goals should be dynamic enough to be adapted according to the many variables you’ll need to consider as your business develops.”
Put self-care on your to-do list
The fourth factor to consider is your own personal wellbeing as a business owner. Surprisingly, amidst the often-manic activity of running a small business, entrepreneurs forget the most important factor, which is their own physical, mental and emotional health. Burning out, feeling exhausted and neglecting your own needs may seem like a worthy sacrifice, but in the long term, not being in the position to give the business your full attention and energy can become a drain on your resources.
Now is the time to take stock of where you are as a business owner and what you need to fuel the next leg of the journey. It’s your chance to enrol on a course you may not have had time for during the first half of the year, take a break and enjoy some time outdoors, add some self-care rituals to your day or check in with your mentor. The more relaxed, self-assured and mentally in-tune you are as the head of your business, the more confident your team, your suppliers and your customers will be in your abilities to deliver on your promises.
PERSONAL FINANCE