Freshen up your small business by doing some essential spring cleaning.
Spring cleaning doesn’t just apply to houses anymore. Business owners can also take advantage of this key time of year to get organised, review what's right and wrong and make improvements
Here's 6 ways you can spring clean your small business:
1) Website It doesn’t have to be a complete overhaul and sometimes just a tidy up and refresh is all that’s needed. This can be reworking the way information is presented to make it easier for customers and potential customers to digest. First review your key words and ensure your pages are up to date and working. Add a blog, reviews, appointment system, chatbot videos, case studies, shopping cart, maps etc.. Google loves new content and loves video, so make sure your site has one. Check your Google analytics is functioning and any links.
If you let much-needed changes fall through the cracks, your website can easily collect dust and damage your much valued brand. Maybe there is some content on your business website that needs to be rewritten to better reflect your company’s offerings, recent service changes, awards or target market. Review your CTA's (calls to action) to see which are the most clicked. Delete those that don't attract activity.
Don't limit spring cleaning to the beginning of the year or springtime. Try to “spring” clean your website throughout the year and dedicate time for website cleaning year-round for optimal website health.
2. Deep Clean Your Books Your business finances are the centre of your business. They can help you forecast your financial future and make smart decisions. But, none of this is actually possible if your books aren’t in tip-top shape. As a business owner, take time every year to deep clean your business’s books (along with doing mini cleanings throughout the year). To organize your books, review files and accounts, sort your receipts, and digitise what you can.
Business and personal expenses need to be kept separate.
Consider using an accountant to do this for you. They are slicker, quicker and know exactly what to do - leaving you to focus on your customers and doing what you do best. Research has shown that small business owners with expert support gain around 6 hours per week! (Xero)
You may also like to outsource admin or phone calls too and this can free your time up significantly.
3. Dust Off Your Business Plan When did you last review your business plan - if indeed you had one at all. Now is the perfect time to dust off your business plan and revisit it. This can be achieved in one short page if necessary. Businesses constantly develop and change, so your business plan should be too. This goes for your marketing plan too - the basics of which are:
Where do you want to go? (objectives)
How are you going to get there? (strategy and tactics)
How will you know when you are there? (measurement and review)
Set aside time each year to spring clean your business plan. Reflect on the past year and ask yourself what kind of changes your business has made in the last year or 6 months. 4. Review Your Marketing Strategies Once you've got a brief plan, there is no better time than the spring to take a step back to examine and freshen up your marketing strategies and tactics. You can freshen things up by:
Refreshing your brand - just a simple accent colour change can make a big difference
Researching new marketing trends
Using social media/new social channel
Automating tasks (e.g., email marketing)
Doing lives/video/webinars
Using analytics to compare data and gain insights to make wise decisions
Review your social media, make sure it’s up to date and shouts about how you can help your customers right now. Think like a customer -what are they looking for? What questions will they ask? Act as an expert and leader in your business area to build trust and engagement.
5. Organise Your Inbox As a busy business owner, things like emails, paperwork and other documents can quickly pile up. When you’re occupied day to day in your business, it’s easy to become disorganised, fall behind and feel out of control.
Use springtime as an opportunity to clear your inbox, you’ll feel energized and organised after you clear out those pesky emails and segment into to do, archive, pending and follow up. While you’re clearing out your inbox, you can also do some other digital spring cleaning. Go through old files on your computer and delete unnecessary documents and folders. This will reduce space on your computer and make it more efficient.
To make things more efficient going forward, consider creating specific folders to sort your documents. That way, you can easily access your work without having to search through hundreds of documents to find what you need.
Give your customer database a good sort out and remove lapsed customers. 6. Declutter If you want to literally spring clean your business, give your office a deep cleaning. Whether you work from home, a desk or an office - doing some decluttering will do your business some good. Spring cleaning your workspace can make you feel refreshed and organised. Not only will your workplace look better, but you might also feel better, too.
For a no obligation chat about your business and how Purple Accounts can help, get in touch today.
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