never eat yellow snow!

Don't underestimate the value of applying common sense!

BUSINESS TIPS

PLANNING IS GOOD

(If done well)

Any sized business can benefit from planning. In fact the planning process is often more beneficial than the Plan itself. Planning can give 'some' control over your destiny and will encourage you to focus resources ($ and HR). Planning will generate clarity around purpose and allow you to develop objectives and implement tactics to achieve these. There are four key elements to the planning Process. These are (1) Plan, (2) Monitor, (3) Assess and (4) Adjust. Planning is not just about a Plan its an aggregation of the elements.

OPTIMISE MARKETING SPEND

Businesses need to know if their marketing initiatives are successful or not. For example; you can do things like advertising a code that customers can use to get a discount when making an online sale. This technique will give you a good indication of the amount of business that has been derived from the advertising campaign. From there you can assess the relative success based on revenue generated vs. cost of the campaign. Unless you are solely seeking brand exposure (as opposed to sales), it is imperative you can measure marketing spend vs success.

A GOOD IDEA ISN'T ENOUGH

There are plenty of good ideas that don't do well commercially. There may be a variety of reasons for this, but products or services need something in addition to being great. They need to have 'market potential'. Simply, there must be a market need and 'pain' that this product or service will remove. The greater the pain the greater the chance of success. Market size is an important element when considering the commercialisation of a product/service, in that to have long term success a market must be of a size that allows sales growth and ongoing development and expansion.

BE DYNAMIC

The business world is dynamic and ever changing and this can have considerable ramifications for small businesses. It is unlikely that markets (clients, competitors, opportunities) will remain consistent over time. So businesses must be dynamic in their thinking and look to innovate and be adaptable. Being dynamic doesn't mean being reckless or not making well considered decisions, it means regularly taking time out to consider the market place and all the business information you have at hand, to assess the market and identify risk, threats and opportunities. Agility is a strength of small business and a friend of dynamic thinking.

MEASURE & REVIEW KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS ON A WEEKLY BASIS

All businesses need to monitor performance to make sure they know how they are going and also where they are going next. Select a few indicators to measure and report on a weekly basis (e.g. turnover, cost of sales, debtor report, operations information etc...). This will ensure you and staff know what is happening, allows you to implement initiatives if required and reduces the chances of any nasty 'surprises'. The more you have your finger on the pulse, the more able you are to react and be pro-active when required.