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A super-fit business
With more and more emphasis on our individual health and fitness levels, we all seem to be talking about wellbeing these days, but, I wonder, do we adopt this same approach to the business world?
No-one can deny the positive results that come from looking after our bodies with care and attention – but the same is also true in business – a successful organisation doesn’t just happen by accident – it is only by approaching it with the same deliberate discipline of careful feeding, nurturing and maintenance that we see it developing into a thriving, healthy organisation – and a force to be reckoned with.
With the following tips, we can see a business start to flourish:
Feed your mind regularly – when was the last time you studied how to improve your networking or marketing skills? What was the last business-related book you read? How often do you attend events to keep up to date with industry relevant developments? Keep yourself fresh and excited about what you do and spread that feeling through to your customers and clients.
Practise preventative marketing – don’t wait until your business is sick to make it better! When business is flowing in, it is easy to assume that it will continue this way. Never make that mistake – start work on your marketing strategy right now and continue your promotional efforts consistently, especially during the good times when you’re more likely to be enthusiastic, and not feeling desperate!
Exercise your creativity – if you’re able to think, then you have the capacity to be creative. It’s great fun to get together with others with no planned agenda other than to simply brainstorm or exchange ideas. Avoid judging and allow everyone to join in – you never know what you might unearth or spark off each other over a couple of hours and it may even provide you with the very solution you’ve been looking for the last six months.
Be flexible – real life requires constant adaptation, so it’s actually quite unreasonable to expect to follow rigid plans all the time. If you’re keen on strict policies and procedures, learn to adapt to the twists and turns in your business by ignoring some of the rules on occasion – you’ll be surprised at how liberating it is to let loose a little and maybe even amazed at some of the unexpected results that show up as a bonus.
Be vigilant – having graduated with many a statistician, I know their most annoying of stock lines is, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure”, so here’s a question for you: “do you know your business’s vital statistics!?!” One key statistic or vital sign would be the number of new customers or clients you acquire each month, or at the very least, each quarter: a number that needs to be on the increase at a consistent pace, while ensuring you commit to keeping your existing customers happy.