Maybe one of the most important questions every business owner needs to answer, is a suggestion of how to improve business. It seems like a very simple and straight forward question but looks alone and in isolation, business owners can spend valuable time down tracks wrong and don’t have a real increase in their business if you haven’t identified their true area of their business for the first focus.
It’s been our experience that the main area that needs to be improved and focused on business is, increasing sales and making business cash flows better. Both can be independent symptoms but they are often interrelated and need to be monitored very carefully.
If your sales need to be improved, you must understand why your sales are in place. You really need to find advice on how to improve business. Most businesses do not know “numbers” and as a result do not know what to focus on increasing sales. The main drivers to increase sales are:
– Get more promises with potential prospects
– Discuss all the ranks of your product with your existing customers – UP-best-selling and selling cross
– What product analysis is sold and which is not
– You might need to add new products with higher margins for your offer
Cash is indeed a king! The lack of cash in any business can terminal if it continues for a long period of time. Symptoms of bad cash flows are:
– There is no client management that owes you money
– There is no management of your supplier owing money
– Clients and customers often make final payments because of poor customer service or lack of project solving
Solution for bad cash flow:
– Enter the process to manage your debtor (AR) or creditors (AP), if you are not good at this, get someone who is worth investing in time and resources
– Change your payment terms, get payment in advance before you start working
– Measure if your bad order order causes late payment.
– Ensure your customer service level is high so your clients have a little reason to hold up an extraordinary payment of invoices
There are many other ways about how to improve your business but we have found with our clients who focus on and increase these two fields are the best business suggestions on how to improve business immediately in the current challenging market place.
