Get your team involved Your team will need to know what you are up to. They need to know and understand your goals. How can you expect them to go on this journey with you if they don’t know where you are trying to go, how you want to get there and what you are going to do? Get them involved in the process. There are two ways to increase profitability: revenue and reduction of expenses. It’s amazing what solutions your team will come up with. We guarantee there will be at least one that you wouldn't have thought of!
Make a quarterly action plan We aren’t talking about a 100-page full-cycle plan here. We are talking about a one-page plan. Break it down into action steps. You should be determining where you are today and what you need to do in the next 90 days. This should then be broken down further into monthly and then weekly steps. This isn’t an all-encompassing task, an you likely aren’t going to get it right the first time anyway. The more your team does this, the better you will get and the more successful you will become.
Measure your key performance indicators at least monthly Most businesses use historical information to make their decisions, often last year’s financial statements that may now be four to six months after your year end. Should you base today's decisions on data from 18 months ago? We think not. With today’s technology you are capable of getting real-time results. This can be a hard adjustment from the traditional desktop accounting software, but it’s well worth the learning curve and your access to information will improve tenfold!
Give bonuses, not raises When you give a bonus, the money is already in the bank and based on actual performance. When you give a raise, you are increasing expenses forever! If you actively engage your team they will understand how their bonus was calculated and be engaged to continue to help the company grow. Don’t jeopardize your cash flow by giving raises. If you would like further information on any of these points, or help in putting any of them into place, please reach out to us. We are here to help.
