Building Value
Businesses exist to enable your family to live, but it is more than just money. They are a source of personal interest and financial stability for employees. The business provides needed services or products of value for your customers. Along the way, owners often get sidetracked with items that consume their time and take them off their core mission which should be to build the value of their business.
Building value should be a daily goal of every owner. Some aspect of every day should be devoted to looking at ways to refine processes, improve communications, brainstorm ideas, increase revenues or profit margins or to take any other step to improve both the short-term and long-term value of the business. Some days that might be just a few minutes, while other days might be completely devoted to working on the business rather than in it.
A few quick ideas:
- Typically, revenue growth takes time. Taking action to add future revenue builds a pipeline, but it also leads to innovative thinking. Taking the time to reflect and plan can create ideas that contribute to growth.
- Watching expenses is critical to any business, but trying to grow by cutting costs is generally a formula that leads to erosion. There is only so much you can cut to control profits. Eventually you run out of options. Monitor expenses but direct more energy increasing revenue, ensuring profit margins are accurate and that efforts are directed at the highest margin, services and products.
- They have key information on how to better refine your services or products, how to operate efficiently and what customers might need. Formal meetings with your team or select members can yield tremendous breakthroughs since the employees spend so much in-depth time focused on specific areas of the business.
There is much more involved in building value. One of the first places to start is to set some time aside to step back and look at your current position. Then, determine what direction you need to head. If you need help, call us.