I’ve always thought the new financial year is a great time to tidy up a small business … in the broadest sense of the word.
Finance ... a very good place to start
Finance is a good place to start since you’ll already have done, or started doing, your end of year tax. While your head’s around your financial position, delve a little deeper into how your business performed over the last fiscal year. If you’ve got accounting software it will make this task a lot easier, but even without it your regular records should be enough.
Firstly, list your clients or customer groups by sales and profit. A big issue for small businesses is relying too heavily on just one or two key clients – putting all the eggs in one basket – which can turn pear shaped if that customer drops away. But this exercise is even better for highlighting the amount of revenue gained from particular markets, in relation to the amount of time and resources spent on them. It can be a bit of an epiphany to realise that some time-consuming customers don’t actually stack up in terms of profit.
Next take a look at revenue on a monthly basis and see if there are any trends. Can they or can’t they be explained? Importantly, are they likely to be repeated in this coming year? This financial analysis of your business cycle can help figure out if and when money should be spent on targeted marketing campaigns to ensure steady revenue growth throughout the year.
Check out your computer
While you’re “cleaning” up, spend some time on what’s most likely one of your most important business tools – your computer. Cleaning up the desktop and deleting all the unwanted temporary files should make it perform better, as well as making files easier to find. It’s also a good idea to make sure your anti-virus software is up to date and that you don’t have any spyware installed on your PC.
If you’re the type to let old emails bank up, try to get rid of all the ones you don’t need and file those you want to keep. And get your contacts list up to date, even if it requires the onerous task of entering all those business cards you’ve been collecting.
Next stop ... your website
If you have a website (and if you don’t maybe it’s time to consider one!) it’s another area which may be in need of a spring makeover. I read a statistic the other day that professionals between 25 and 55 decide within 10-12 seconds of seeing a website whether they’ll stay on it. Not surprisingly for under 25s the time is even less, about 8 seconds. If your homepage looks outdated, is difficult to navigate, or just doesn’t make clear what it is you offer then users will likely go elsewhere. Regularly freshening up the content on your site will help make it more “sticky” and interesting for anyone who visits it regularly.
Now comes the hard part
Financial and electronic maintenance out of the way, don’t forget the good old fashioned roll-your-sleeves-up kind of spring clean. For a start getting rid of junk you don’t need and filing anything important will make the business look better and save you time. Even more importantly, it helps from an OH&S perspective.
The hardest part of a spring clean is finding the time to do it, and the motivation to get started, but it’s a worthwhile exercise and needn’t take too long… especially if it’s done EVERY spring!