October 2017

Monitoring and measuring your business allows you to think and behave like a big business.

In my last blog, I explained actions to give small businesses the capacity to become big businesses. The final one being to monitor and measure activity, it’s the only way you’ll know what’s working.

Know where you’re headed

The first step to measuring your activity is to have goals to measure against. Set targets and put a plan in place to meet those goals. How many sales do you need to make a month to hit your revenue target? What revenue do you need to break-even?

How the big boys do it

Large organisations with senior management operate by monitoring and measuring data fed to them by lower levels or electronic sales systems. With this information, it’s possible to track activity without the need for multiple site visits. Progress or problems can be identified and actions taken to ensure profitable growth.

Monitor and measure for growth

As a small business, you should be doing the same. The scale may be different but the principle the same. If this crucial monthly view is missed, how will you ever meet your goals?

On a monthly basis, look at your finances, sales, order book and delivery schedule. How do the numbers compare to your budget? Just like a big business, this information will give you the ability to take action when needed to ensure profitable growth.

What about sole traders?

Find other sole traders and hold monthly meetings where you can hold each other accountable. Or take on a business coach who can have that monthly meeting with you. It’ll be worth its weight in gold.

If you’d like some help to implement any of this, why not contact me to arrange a Free Business Review? This is a genuine free 2 hour session whereby I’ll come into the business and spend two hours giving you advice to make positive changes in your business. Click here to arrange yours.

Have a great month!

Many of my clients think and act like a small business, because they are. However operating like this prevents them from becoming the big business they covet.

There’s one area where many small businesses already think and act like a big business and that’s in their website. It’s often hard to judge the size of a company from their website, it could be one person in their bedroom or it could be 50 people. So if it works to act like a big business in one area, it will work in others.

In this blog, I’m explaining the other ways acting like a big business can help you become a big business.

1. Price correctly

Small businesses often price themselves at the lower end of the market, considering themselves unable to charge more due to their size.

My recent blog on pricing goes into more detail on why you should be charging what you’re worth. Critically, you’ll be able to provide a higher quality product/service leading to better retention, reputation and from that will come new business. A step towards becoming that bigger business then?

2. Understand your finances

Getting the job done is often the primary focus of a small business. Having lots of processes in place seems like a pointless exercise and something only bigger businesses need.

For example, where finances are concerned (in my experience) small businesses assume as long as there’s money in the bank, they’re doing OK. So they don’t actually ‘know’ what it’s costing to run the business, what expenses are made up of and what their future orders look like.

As you might expect, big businesses will have a handle on their finances. They’ll know what confirmed orders they have for months and even years ahead. This data allows them to plan and manage growth. See my recent blog on budgeting for more info on this. Putting in a process like this enables you become a big business.

3. Have processes others can follow

Can you imagine being big enough to take on additional staff? If you’re taking on more people that can only be because you have more work. So imagine having to train staff to follow undocumented processes when you’ve suddenly got a workload bigger than you can manage. Yep, not very appealing. Putting in processes as a small business is much easier than trying to do it later. Your new staff then have an easier induction process and can deliver your service just like you have, as ‘the norm’.

4. Monitor and measure

So, you’re charging what you’re worth, have the right processes in place to manage your finances and your service delivery through your staff leaving just one box to tick. As with anything, measuring and monitoring performance will give you the ability to manage your journey to become that big business. For more information on this, read onto my next blog.