At Complete, we believe in building for better. We love helping businesses get to where they want to be. By getting the right foundations in place, we empower business owners to save time, plan for the future and achieve their goals. Because your business matters to us, we love nothing more than seeing you succeed. But this has to be underpinned by clever tools, strategy, and a clear vision of where you want to be.
Whether you’re a startup or an established brand, here’s how to harness the tools and your vision to take your business to the next level.
Outline your goals
To move forward, we need to have a clear idea of where we want to be. Sometimes it can be all too easy to get stuck in the weeds, caught up in the here and now of running our businesses, so remember to think big and take time to focus on the long-term plan. Where do you want to take the business and what does success look like? Maybe you’re looking to grow your business and increase your turnover, expand on your products or services, or perhaps you want to niche into a new market.
Ask yourself, where would you like to see the business in 1, 2, and 5 years from now? What’s the dream?
Come up with a game plan
Now you’ve got the vision, it’s time to figure out how you’re going to get there.
When planning for success, be specific, but also be realistic. Instead of getting carried away with too many opportunities, stick to what’s achievable and prioritise the activities that are most important for helping you achieve your goals. It’s important to set specific and measurable targets, and to give yourself a timeframe for completing them.
Come up with a timeline of activity and format your game plan to follow along with each quarter, then share it with other members of your team to ensure everyone is aligned with your vision.
Tighten your processes
Before launching into your game plan, it’s good to get back to basics. As tempting as it might be to get the wheels rolling and jump straight into driving your business forward, you need to make sure you’ve got the right systems and processes in place to sustain growth. This means making sure you have really solid foundations to support your next big move.
Are your systems and processes as efficient as they could be? Are you taking advantage of tools and software to help you manage day-to-day tasks and save time? Is there anything you can improve about your systems that would help with your game plan?
We’re big tech aficionados here at Complete and we believe that with the right technology, you can streamline your business, work smarter and spend more time doing what you love. We’re also big believers in having a core set of systems in place, whatever stage you’re at and whatever your goals might be.
With the right software in place, you can automate things like accounting, bookkeeping and expenses management, to help with the day-to-day running of the business. You can also tap into the numbers and get access to key information to help with forecasting and future planning.
Want to up your tech game? Here’s 7 apps to help streamline your business.
At this stage, it’s good to get a holistic view of every element of the business to see what’s working and what areas could be improved, then working to tighten them up.
Once you’ve fine tuned the ops, you’re ready to start looking forward and taking those next steps towards achieving your goals.
Forecast, forecast, forecast
To build the kind of future we want, we need to plan for it. Think of forecasting as your routemap for the way ahead. It’s your way of planning for the future and carving out the kind of business you want to build.
Whatever your long-term goals are, forecasting for financials and cash flow is vital. Cash flow is the lifeline of any business, and it’s the key to growing in line with your goals and ambitions.
If your goal is to grow your business, it’s also important to forecast for increased customer demand. This will help you estimate the amount of goods and services customers will buy in the future. To look forward, we need to start by looking backwards and analyzing sales and other data to estimate future customer demand. This will give you an idea of your expected growth to help you move forward. A good accountant will work with you to do this using the right tools and software, then help you implement this into your game plan.
Innovate your product or service
When it comes to improving our businesses, sometimes it’s the most obvious things we forget about. We’re so firmly focused on the future we can forget what’s staring us right in the face. Before launching into a new venture, it can be worthwhile refining what we’ve already got by improving our existing products or services.
Your customers are the most important part of your business, so keeping them happy is paramount. Investing in existing products and services will help you better meet the needs of your customers, and it also gives you the competitive edge to stand out from the crowd. And in times as volatile as these, improving your products and services will help ensure brand loyalty. It’s a win-win!
To get started, we suggest talking to your customers. Ask them what’s good or bad about your service and really listen to their experiences to find out what’s missing from your product or service. Are there any additional problems they have, or things they need help with? Collect your feedback then find the common patterns. This might just lead to you creating an entirely new offering that suits them perfectly.
Building for better
Improving your business isn’t always about growing it into a multimillion dollar company. Every business is different, and we all have our own ideas of success. For some, it could be hiring their dream team member, whilst for others, it could be cutting down long hours at work to spend more time with family. Whatever success looks like to you, it’s important to plan for it.
Sometimes success is about working with what you have and striving to make that even better than before. It’s about building a better life, a stronger team, doing things better than you did last year, or the year before, and making the world a better place by doing what you love.
When we lead with our purpose and always strive for better, that’s when we pave the way for success.
Ready to take your business to the next level?
We can help! We love helping people get to where they want to be. It’s what we were born to do. Through clever planning, forecasting and business strategy, we’ll help you come up with a game plan to address your goals, then get the right systems in place to help you achieve them.
