November 2008

I don’t know how any one else feels but when I look back on the past year I am somewhat surprised to find that the world has leaped into a financial crisis.  You may have seen this coming and have prepared your business to survive in tough times, whereas others of us may be unprepared,  in either event we have two choices.  We can carry on as we are and hope for the best, or we can decide to take action. For some of us the question will be what action to take, where should we start amongst what can feel like an overwhelming number of options? 

To get us started lets consider three words, “maximise” , “minimise” and “optimise”.

Maximise means
“to increase to the greatest possible amount or degree.” 

Minimise means
“to reduce to the smallest possible amount or degree.”

Optimise means
“to make as effective, perfect, or useful as possible”

What we need to maximise is our revenue, i.e. the amount of money our business receives from selling goods or services, we need to;

• Be constantly working to increase the number of leads produced, treat prospecting as the life blood of your business
• Work constantly to improve the quality of the leads you produce
• Improve the rate of conversion of those leads to actual purchasers/clients
• Always sell up, increase the value of each sale by ensuring your Customers are aware of all of the goods and services you offer, and make sure you offer
• Develop programmes to encourage Customers to buy more often

What we need to Optimise are our business processes, i.e. streamline processes to ensure efficiency and consistency in everything, but with special emphasis on Customer service and Customer retention;

• Ensure that excellent Customer service is not left to chance but is part of a process
• Develop a Customer retention process to ensure that you keep your most valuable Customers
• Improve communication and teamwork in the business to reduce conflict and prevent errors
• Streamline the supply and delivery chain to reduce inventory and delivery costs
• Tighten credit management processes to ensure optimum cash flow

We need to sensibly minimise costs, making sure that we don’t negatively affect the team or damage the image of the businesses;

• Analyse cost centres to identify the major cost areas in the business, these may offer opportunities for the most/fastest savings
• Identify costs that offer easy savings
• Consider reducing payroll costs by using consultants or part time employees
• Review suppliers and change to more cost effective supply options, negotiate price reductions, discounts, etc
• Get rid of over capacity, e.g. underutilised telephone lines
• Use email rather that telephones where possible
• Eliminate unnecessary travel, use teleconferencing telephones where possible
• Identify and reduce waste, be it materials, time, floor space, inventory, etc.
• Review financial arrangements, use loans rather than overdrafts where appropriate

These are a few thoughts to get us started along the track of survival, there are many more ideas and options.  The key is to identify the issues and take action to resolve them and do it before it is too late!

There is plenty of help to be had, Ology Business Coaches have the experience, knowledge, skills and tools to help and support businesses in tough times, ask one, it costs nothing to ask.

By Chris Self, Director, New Zealand

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