Pause + plan = R-U-G-B-Y

On 21 October the Sudburys team hosted our Business Brekkie – a free event for like minded business owners and operators to come together, connect, talk shop, eat breakfast, and yes – drink great coffee!

This year has been unusual (to say the least!) with plenty of potential to get distracted, be overwhelmed or lose focus. As we head toward the end of the year though, it’s a great time to hit pause and plan for business success in 2021. 

In case you missed our Business Brekkie, here are our key tips for business owners in the current business environment:

RESOURCES
Know what your capacity is and where your constraints are. 

If you know where you have space to grow, think about how you can maximise this and look for efficiencies in this area. On the flip side, know where your limitations are. Almost every business we talk to mentions staffing as a challenge to growth – how can you better manage this? 

One of your biggest resources is your time. How are you using it? Every 10 mins you spend on Task A is 10 mins you can’t spend on Task B – which task needs to prioritised?

UNDERSTAND THE NUMBERS
The best business owners know their numbers. You don’t need to be an accountant!
Identify the key figures that matter, learn to read them, and learn what influences them. Some great starting points are your gross profit, wages percentage, profit margin, days to get paid and conversion of quotes. 

(Side note - if you went cross eyed reading the last paragraph or you cringed a little inside, we’d love to help you understand your numbers better!)

GROWTH DRIVERS
Information is power. Understand what drives your revenue and what drives your profit. What marketing works? How do your customers find you? What is the main driver in your expenses? What type of job or work is most profitable? Knowing the answer to these questions helps you work smarter not harder. 

BASICS 
Quite simply - GET THEM RIGHT! Business is built on great service and customer experience. Providing great service is a huge opportunity to stand out from the crowd. People talk - unfortunately it’s more likely to be about a bad experience and you won’t know because they won’t tell you. The 9-15 people they do tell, will though. 

Do what you say you’ll do, go back to basics and communicate, communicate, communicate.

YES OR NO
Knowing when to say no means you place value on yourself, your product/service and your time. If you know a too-tight deadline will cause you to deliver a subpar service and damage your reputation, don’t do it. Take the information that you have and use that to make the best decisions – think about delivering quality versus quantity.

And our bonus tip - focus on what you can control. This has been our message on repeat to our clients this year, with great success. 

If you want support or coaching to put some of our R-U-G-B-Y tips into practice, we can help. Get in touch with our team for a no obligation chat.