3 Tips To Handle Explosive Growth In Your Business

You are on fire!

The sales are racking up and your bottom line is growing expeditiously.

There is one problem.

You don’t want sales to start suffering and you are running out of gas. What can you do to keep the business party going? Check out a few tips below to help keep your ship sailing along.

Tip One - Streamline Your Service Processes

Is everything moving along without a bump in the road?

If there are bottlenecks in your current customer service or service delivery workflow, you could be headed for disaster. We have all read negative reviews on Google and quickly decided not to do business with that company. Check out these tips to help with streamlining your processes and these tools for creating standard operating procedures. Also, check out this resource for best practices for writing awesome SOPs.

Tip Two - Know Your Numbers

I know this sounds like a broken record BUT understanding financial data like how much you sell vs. how much you spend and if you are profitable by doing a break-even analysis will go a long way to help you achieve business goals.

Specifically, it’s important to manage your cash flow, use the data to update your pricing strategies and have the information needed to make capital purchase decisions. Check out this post I wrote about making money and measuring how well your business is doing.

Tip Three - Take Care Of Your Customer

We have all heard the phrase, “The Customer Is Always Right.”

Harry Gordon Selfridge, a very successful retailer from the early 1900s coined the term which is meant to promote a high priority for providing customer satisfaction. If you take care of your customers they will take care of you. I am sure we have all heard that phrase too.

One of the challenges of rapid business growth is maintaining the same quality of service as you scale. One good first step is to take the pulse of your current customers by using surveys and gathering customer success stories. Check out this tool for creating customer surveys and this tool can be used for collecting customer testimonials. Additionally, you can use this feedback in your marketing efforts but ask your customers for permission first. 

It’s a full-time job managing all the aspects of your business as it grows. The goal is to keep all the balls in the air and organized. I hope the tips I shared will help you to be an amazing entrepreneur juggler.

Keep IT Sunny~

How To Shift Your Mindset When You Are In A Rut

Is your business in a growth phase? Are you starting to feel overwhelmed and a little less than enthusiastic about your business since you started it?

If the answer is YES then it might be time to do a mindset shift. First, let’s define the word mindset. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, Mindset is “a mental attitude or inclination.” Sources of Insight say it this way, “Mindset refers to a particular way of thinking, a set of beliefs, attitudes, and perspectives that shape how we interpret and respond to the world around us.”

The world around us as business owners is our business. I am guessing when you first started your business your mindset was filled with positive dreams, goals, and aspirations. You probably had so much excitement around being your boss and ditching your 9 to 5. Now years later you might find yourself in a rut.

Ideas to shift your mindset

1. Turn to art to inspire new thoughts. This could look like reading a good book about other successful entrepreneurs like Mark Cuban, Oprah, Madame C.J. Walker, and the list goes on.

2. Get moving and listen to a podcast. I like to go for long walks and listen to a business podcast on different topics to shift my thoughts. Entrepreneur on Fire is one of my favorites.

3. Get quiet and think. This is huge. Dr. Eric Thomas always says that making time in your schedule regularly to just think through scenarios is key to being a successful entrepreneur. 

4. Give yourself a new goal. If you have accomplished a goal then it is time to give yourself something new to strive toward and set a new goal. 

5. Reward yourself. Setting daily or weekly rewards for yourself after completing a goal will help to motivate and inspire you.

6. Rediscover your reason for starting a business in the first place. If it was to gain autonomy, money, or status then you should create goals that are deeply tied to your purpose in life. Having a purpose, and a mission statement for why you do what you do will help to keep you motivated and help shift your mindset when you are in a rut. 

Suppose your business is in a growth phase that is a great place to be. However, if you are starting to feel rundown with a lack of energy then it could be time to shift your mindset by using the tips above. Fall in love with your business by discovering your purpose for doing what you do. 

Keep IT Sunny!

Grow Your Business Forward By Focusing On Your Zone of Genius

Photo by Akil Mazumder: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-holding-a-green-plant-1072824/

When I go to the store I usually have a grocery list and then I put the amounts of each item I want on the list and total it up so that I can have a general idea of how much I will need to spend to get those items. In contrast, if I am out running errands and I just pop into the nearest Walmart Neighborhood Market to grab a few items almost always 3 things happen: 

I always forget something when I get home and notice it’s missing

I always spend more than what I wanted

I always buy stuff I don’t need because I am hungry when I go to the store, which is a big no-no.

🙂

In the same way we as service-based business owners tend to do more of the latter than the first scenario. We tend to try to do everything in our business from marketing to sales to customer service to bookkeeping and handling our tax filing using TurboTax (I see you out there:) We typically do not outsource these very important components of our business to someone else that, let's be honest, can most likely do it better than us because they are focused on doing only that thing. I see this a lot when it comes to bookkeeping management and I get it. When you are first starting it could make a lot of sense to try handling the bookkeeping because you are trying to save money and for a while, it might be working 

BUT

As your business grows, it is time to tap into a seasoned professional to help take you to the next level. This is where partnering up with a professional bookkeeping firm can be a game changer. In my series this month called What Can A Bookkeeper Do For Me, I will lay out what are the different types of bookkeepers, how you need to prepare before you start looking for help and what are some types of things a bookkeeping firm can help you accomplish. 

I am passionate about the bookkeeping/accounting profession and hope you will gain knowledge and insight to help you select the right partner for your business. 

Keep IT Sunny

How To Have Sustainable Growth & September Roundup!

Many of us started our business out of a need to solve a problem or a passion for a skill set that we have. I started my business to use my background in accounting and administration to help service-based entrepreneurs create & sustain a business that they love so they can create the lifestyle of their dreams. I am a one-woman shop and look forward to growing my business but I want to do it smart.

According to a joint study shared on Entrepreneur.com, “Roughly two-thirds of the fastest-growing startups end up failing. Research from California State University also showed that companies that had fast revenue growth performed worse, long-term than their slow-growing counterparts.”

I am sure these business owners had the best of intentions and were super-excited to scale their business to increase revenue and jumped right in. We can learn from their mistakes by applying the 5 steps below as we move along the business scaling journey.

Step One

Set S.M.A.R.T. Goals. I shared in a previous blog post that SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

Step Two

Take time to do market research on your industry and the competition to gain a better understanding of your competitive advantage or threats.

Step Three

Know your numbers. It is super important to understand where your business stands financially so that you can make good decisions. Additionally, creating a detailed business budget and financial projections are also must-haves in your business toolkit.

Step Four

Create efficiencies in your daily operations and use technology to reduce labor on repetitive tasks.

Step Five

Provide excellent customer service to your customers and ask for their feedback to improve your services.

There are many more things to consider when you are thinking about scaling your business. If you take your time and give some thought to the steps above you will be miles ahead of your competition as we sail out of the month of September. As usual, this month went by fast. People say that time flies when you are having fun so that must be true.

I truly enjoyed kissing summer goodbye and moving forward into the fall season. I hope you had a fantastic summer season and were able to get some things accomplished. This month I talked about 3 Ways To Create Measurable Goals and How Busy Entrepreneurs Can Continue To Learn New Things. If you have time for a few quick reads check them out and remember the tortoise won the race.

Keep IT Sunny~

Welcome To The Month Of April!

Photo by Polina Kovaleva: https://www.pexels.com/photo/scrabble-tiles-on-a-wooden-surface-6945789/

I absolutely love April. Spring is in bloom (in most places in the country:) The flowers are blooming and the sweet smell of summer is just around the corner.

My favorite thing is to get outside and explore which is a lot of fun here in the Vegas Valley. This month I want to explore the necessary tools to have in place to help your business grow. We will specifically look at some options for funding your business, hiring team members, and managing cash flow.

I hope you are ready to dive into this month and learn what it takes to move your business forward.

Keep IT Sunny!