Operational and financial health
When was the last time you conducted a thorough assessment of your business’s operational and financial health?
It can be easy to continue using the same processes without ever stopping to question things. But making small changes to how you run your business could make a huge difference to your success.
In this three-part Business Performance Series, we examine the steps club owners and leaders can take to maximise overall company performance – from financial success, to marketing wins. You can also follow this advice if you manage an organisation that employs staff or has facilities. Download our free business performance ebook for actionable tips and advice.
The first step in this process is to assess the current state of your business. A great way to do that is to use our assessment tool to grade yourself in the key operational areas, then begin mapping out an action plan for improvement. How do you feel your business performs? Can you identify some strengths and weaknesses in each area?
Click here to download the LoveAdmin Assessment Tool
After you’ve finished assessing, tell us – how did you do? We would love to get your feedback.
Now that you’ve taken a deep dive into your organisational report card, let’s begin planning improvements. Here are some ideas for where to begin:
1. Your business model
Upselling
While you want to make sure you have a clear hero product or service for new members, smaller items with lower price points can also be helpful. Of course, you want to build a long-term relationship with every member. But there is certainly money to be had by selling lower barrier offers, such as merchandise. And make sure you are communicating these small add-ons to your members regularly, to keep them front of mind.
2. Service delivery
Automation
New and returning members have come to you because they find value in your business, offering or services. Making it easy for them to sign-up / purchase and get started is key.
What automation do you have in place to make sure members can pay without needing to wait on you? Can they make a decision and send you payment without needing you to be involved?
The less time you spend on administrative tasks that can be automated, the more time you have to improve what you’re offering – plus more time to ensure your staff have sufficient training.
3. Marketing and sales
Story branding
Telling the story of your business is an easy and fun marketing tactic. People buy from people. Consider creating content that you can share across multiple platforms like your website and social media, that tells the story of how you came to be, who your staff are, a little about your company personality and finally, how you can help your members.
Then, having a ‘sales’ conversation is easy as you’ve created a relationship through storytelling. It’ll be as simple as a regular conversation.
4. Staffing
Communication
Most of the time, we think we are over-communicating with our staff when in reality, they need more from us. One easy step to take with staff is having regular, one-on-one conversations. It’s important to connect with them, and really getting to know them on a personal level.
What are their dreams and goals? What motivates them to work at your business? Why you? Try asking some reframing questions, such as ‘what do you think I think of you?’ If you haven’t had these conversations before, it can be uncomfortable in the beginning. But stick with it, because you’ll see promising results.
As you have these conversations regularly with your teams, your relationships will improve. You will then see an increase in staff retention and lower human resource costs, among other benefits.
5. Income management
Habits
Different businesses have varying degrees of financial control. Make no mistake, poor cash management is one of the biggest culprits of failure for any size company. So it’s worth taking the time to revisit or establish your money habits. Having regular income deposits and planned savings deposits help you make accurate predictions and educated management decisions.
Do you have a plan to build profit? How will you save for educational expenses, new equipment or a down payment on a standalone building? These are complex issues but certainly important considerations for your business.
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LoveAdmin can be utilised in all stages of your business development. Our tools provide a way to serve each of these five areas. The technology is easy to integrate into your core offer and website, as well as providing a simple way for customers to make payments to your business.
In addition, marketing content that conveys your story can be created using our content sharing platform. This also provides employees with a way to help raise your organisation’s brand awareness.
Please reach out to us if we can be of assistance in any of these business improvement areas. We’re here to support you.
If you’d like to read the advice in the rest of this series, click on the links below:
