Here a 12 Points to consider when looking at your business:
Strategy
Have a plan and know it intimately. Simply drafting one and filing it away isn’t going to cut it. Many businesses, say they have the strategy, but it’s always good to continue to come back to your strategy, to update it and see what opportunities you can take.
Customers
Invest in getting to know who your existing and ideal customers are. More than ever before, you have the cater to them if you want to keep them loyal to your brand. We have a new type of customer today, one that are very informed. They do their research, so if you don’t have a plan to actively retain your customers, they’re going to go elsewhere.
Finance
This one of the most daunting parts of a company for a leader without accounting or finance expertise, it’s also one of the most important. If you aren’t confident in your skills, find a way to boost your savvy – take a course, find an experienced adviser or hire someone highly qualified. You’ve got to understand they key financial ratios within [your business] and what your ratios mean within your business. You have to understand the components that go into your income statement, your balance sheet, your cash flow systems,” he says. “You can make a major difference in your business very quickly just by applying a couple of strategies.
Distribution systems
You have to have a plan for getting your product to your customer with the least amount of effort for them and the quickest amount of time. You’ve got to constantly understand, what are better ways that you can get to your customer.
Marketing
Gone are the days when basic marketing strategies were all small business owners needed. You’ve got to be able to know the exact customer that you have, a lot of successful businesses will take advantage of a niche or very targeted marketing in this way, you can compete with the bigger companies because you’re focusing your dollars on a very targeted customer that brings in the biggest return.
Products and services
You must have a system to analyze the products and services and their performance and adjust, what types of product or service you can deliver have an impact on your sales.
Pricing strategies
Know your products and understand their worth to consumers. That means objectively evaluation their quality so you can come up with the best price and selling strategy. A lot of business owners don’t take pricing strategies into consideration as well as they can. Just a simple change in your pricing can make a major impact on your sales and your revenue.
People
Human resources are among your most valuable. Know your people, and make sure your staffers resonate with your organization’s values, and vice versa. It’s very important that you have your people on the same page, that they understand what they’re doing impacts the overall mission of your business,as a business owner, you must understand the drivers of good and poor performance, because if you identify employee performance problems early so that you can correct them, it doesn’t affect your business as much.
Performance
Business owners need to be able to measure their people, they’ve got to be able to measure their processes and they’ve got to be able to measure their system performance.That means having consistent metrics across all divisions of your company.
Sales
Ensure that your sales people are equipped with the right tools to be the best sales people they can be. For B2B sales for example you’ve got to develop a solid system for getting appointments, teach your sales staff how to overcome resistance, that means you’ve got to really understand what are all the possible forms of resistance you’ll probably get with each of your products.
Technology
Among the most important aspects are cloud technology, a solid email program and security protection for your IT content. These are all things that the savvy business owner need to do. Look at tools that can help automate, speed up and simplify a processes.
Personal development
Just like you set goals for your business, you’ve got to set goals for yourself. You’ve got to have a personal method. You’ve got to have your values, what you’re going to put first in your life. Ultimately, your business relies on how much knowledge and how much growth you can sustain personally.