Reduce Operating Expenses: Business goals and operational efficiencies.

Business Planning

Regularly plan, evaluate, and adjust goals. Prepare, execute on plans, measure progress, and quickly adjust as needed. For many new businesses, an agile approach is required as there’s no historical data to gauge future outcomes. Established businesses should be just as nimble in order to quickly pivot on opportunities or changes in markets.

Create and maintain a roadmap. The roadmap incorporates the business goals and provides a clear view of how you’ll reach them, with major steps defined. If your business goal is to launch a new product, the roadmap will help communicate the steps and priorities needed to accomplish that goal. Adjustments to the business roadmap should be frequent and align with shifts in company goals.

Evaluate financial health of business and get help before it’s too late. Your business has been profitable the past few months, nothing to worry about, right? Not necessarily. Profitability, solvency ratios, revenue growth are all factors to consider for your own business, but if your business relies on the sustainability of suppliers, you should consider their health as well.

Have a clear communication strategy and execute on it. Effective business communication – both internal and external – connects employees, alights the business strategy, and improves productivity.

Leadership

Lead by example; focus on personal growth and development. Successful business leaders are effective at making everything work in a seamless manner. They may help set the tone of the organization, but the collective group of employees define the culture. As the culture evolves, so to must the leaders.

Be informed and decisive. Two of our favorite attributes of a leader. However, to be one without the other is reckless.

Invest in those around you. The manner in which you empower your employees could be one of the greatest assets of your company. Motivate, lead, and enable them.

Operational Improvement

Evaluate existing operational processes. What works today, may not work tomorrow. Operational processes should be evaluated periodically, more frequently for rapidly growing businesses, in order to plan effectively for change and to ensure company goals can be met.

Create operational efficiency and reliability. How much more output is gained by additional input? Operational metrics may help gauge efficiencies and provide insight into needed resources.

Consult with experts. Lean on outside sources when needed. Subject matter experts or solutions providers can be an excellent path to operational improvement.

Reduce operating expenses. One way to improve your company’s bottom line is to reduce the operating expenses. Sometimes this can be accomplished through efficiencies created in your processes, but other times, it’s a matter of understanding and improving complex pricing agreements. Accepting credit card payments from customers allows for improved cash flow and creates efficiencies on the receivables side, but the associated costs could be burdensome. Learn how our RateGuard program can reduce credit card processing fees.

Customer Relationships

Analyze customer behavior. Customer engagement, segmentation, and analysis of their behaviors can drive profitability and define target audiences.

Measure and track customer satisfaction and retention. Understanding your customer satisfaction and retention levels and making needed improvements will increase revenue and drive consumer loyalty. Consider surveys that measure Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), Customer Effort Score (CES) or Net Promoter Score (NPS).

Create a strategic relationship with core customers. A strategic relationship with a core group of customers may provide direction with new product development, make them feel empowered, and allow you to focus on the vital few, instead of the trivial many.

Increase Revenue

Audit your marketing activities. Depending on the size of the organization, marketing may be handled by a dedicated team or by an individual with some level of expertise. Whatever the case, you should be able to quickly identify the efforts, what’s working, and what needs to be adjusted. With insight into marketing performance, you can focus your efforts in the right direction.

Diversify product offerings and grow revenue streams. Consumer needs shift and so should your business. If the majority of your revenue comes from one product offering or revenue stream, what happens when that well dries up? A strategically diversified business creates more value and improves chances of long-term success.

Cross sell into existing customer base. If your business has multiple products or solutions, aim to cross sell into your existing customer base. It’s far cheaper than new customer acquisition costs.

Be innovative. Always be on the lookout for a new way to solve an existing problem. Listen to your customers and provide solutions to affect positive change.