Too often, the challenges of small business leads to stress in your company, but also in your life. When business is your life, and your life is your business, the adage "leave it at the door" doesn't always apply. As a small business, one of the major goals is to increase your bottom line. A bottom line not only refers to a company's net income, but also any actions that may increase or decrease a company’s overall profit. A company that grows its net earnings or reduces its costs "improves its bottom line".
You need to evaluate your processes, people, products, and your company’s expenses.
1. How do you evaluate your company’s processes? Set a SMART goal.
SMART stands for:
- Specific – The who, what, where, when, why, and which. Your objectives should be unmistakable and link together what is expected, why it is important, who is involved, where it is going to happen, and which constraints are in place. It is much easier to visualize if you make it specific which in turn, will be easier to measure. A vague ideal is not something that you can get excited about because it is not attainable or has not used key information.
- Measurable – Imagine that you are trying to navigate a trip in a foreign country with a map without a key…you are probably going to get lost, right? The journey to reach your goals should have similar benchmarks. When mapping out your journey, you should include a concrete criterion for measuring progress and achievements.
- Attainable - Your ambitions should be realistic and possible for you to reach. It is counter intuitive to set yourself up for failure. If you make a goal that is impossibly out of your reach, that is exactly what you are doing. Ask yourself, can I physically, mentally, and economically attain this goal? Will I accomplish this a certain amount of time? What, if anything, could hold me back from achieving my ideal?
- Relevant - Your objectives should matter to your business. A goal that does not address the core value of your business is not one that is worth having.
- Timely - You should have an expected date of when you plan to reach your target. You can check out our more in depth blog post about SMART goals here, but using the SMART goal method (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely) will help as you're evaluating your business’ strategic process.
Prepare for the period that you wish to evaluate. Is it over a year or a quarter? This is important to define because you can compare the sales during that period with the results from the previous period to see if you're making any progress. Use this method to compare the cost of your business expenses as well.
2. How do you evaluate the people in your company? Evaluating your people should be done on an ongoing basis, not once a quarter, every six months or even once a year. Keep your evaluations simple and track someone's skills and attitude. If you make it a point that you'll only hire people with positive attitudes, then all you have to focus on is improving skills. Skills are easy to improve, but attitudes tend to be constant. Make it a priority to hire positive people, and you will receive positive results. These positive attitudes will reflect in the culture of your business, but also in the culture of your life.
3. How do you evaluate your products? Evaluating your own products may be tricky, after all, they are your babies, the brainchildren of your foreseen success. Luckily, you have an amazing product tester…your customers! Generate feedback from your customers about what they liked or didn't like from a particular product. Just because a product is successful, doesn't mean that there is not room for improvement. Cross test a product or design. Find what your customers respond negatively or positively to help you create a brand. Execute the brand, but remember that everything has room to improve. Survey your customers on a regular basis and offer a small incentive in exchange for their feedback.
4. How can you cut company costs? Evaluate what is important to the company and think areas where you can reduce costs. For example;
-Can you save on operational costs like rent and equipment to focus on the essential factors of your business like inventory and marketing?
-Can you save on cost of office supplies?
-Can you get competitive rates from competitors who are interested in handling your company’s payroll?
Save on the aspects of your business that don’t make you money, and spend on the aspects that do. Before you spend a lot of money on fancy offices, fixtures or state-of-the art technology, consider other, less expensive ways.
Keeping your company up to date on the processes and evaluating performances will enable you to identify areas where you can increase your efficiency. The more efficient your company will be, the more efficient your life will become.
Some of the ways we specialize in increasing your bottom line are:
-Brand Essence
-Gathering Information and using existing research related to brand awareness and attitudes, as well as brand loyalty, satisfaction and trust. This should include executive interviews, focus groups, surveys, ethnographies, etc.
-Gaining Insight to facilitate an appreciative working session to uncover current perceptions of the brand essence, and aspirations for the brand.
-Plus many more
Evaluation of your processes, people, products, and your company’s expenses will help to focus your marketing strategy, increase your bottom line, and enable you to flourish in business and life. For more information on how we accomplish this evaluation, please click the link below to get a your free copy of Dr. Rachel's E-Book.
