by Sheri Heiney, President & CEO, Prescott Chamber of Commerce
Small-business spring cleaning, while time-consuming, is extremely beneficial to small business owners: Good time to trim the fat from their organizations while streamlining business processes. It’s exactly like regular spring cleaning except it involves way less elbow grease and a lot more professional evaluating.
OK, so it’s nothing like regular spring cleaning.
Assuming you’re on board with the idea, set aside some time this spring to clean up your company.
Business Spring Cleaning Tips
Clean your office. Literally.
I mean, you might as well. No one has vacuumed behind the printer in years.
Update your website and social media
Go through and take stock of what your online presence is like. Is there some copy on your site that could be rewritten to sound better or more accurately reflect slight shifts in your target market or what kinds of services you are focusing on now? Is your brand being represented as effectively as possible?
Now is a good time to tighten things up and fix all the little details that, although they don’t take a lot of effort, make a big impact. Organize your emails
Shop to see if you can get better prices on materials and utilities
Are you getting the best deal on business communications? What about your cloud infrastructure and hosting fees? From time to time, it’s worth reexamining your relationship with suppliers and vendors to see whether you can reduce your expenses.
Get in the habit of making this a regular part of your small business spring cleaning.
Invest in technologies that save money on the backend
When’s the last time you invested in new platforms? You can improve your cash flow by strengthening team productivity through investments in the right technologies.
The perfect collaboration platform, for example, will almost certainly increase your team’s output by accelerating decision-making processes and helping move projects forward faster. The right investments will enable you to take on more clients and generate more revenue, making cash flow management much easier.
Change the way you invoice
There’s no law that says you have to wait until the end of the month to bill your customers. If you’re struggling with cash flow, change the way you invoice your clients. Instead of sending all your bills out in one fell swoop at the end of the month, immediately invoice your customers as soon as projects are completed. This should accelerate payments by at least a little bit. You may also want to offer discounts to encourage your customers to pay early.
Specifically look at the way cash flows through your small business. A few changes here and there could go a long way toward solving your cash flow problems and growing your bottom line. Happy cleaning!
For more information about the Prescott Chamber of Commerce, please visit www.prescott.org or call us at 928-445-2000 or 800-266-7534, or stop by the Visitor Information Center at 117 W. Goodwin St., Prescott, AZ 86303.
The mission of the Prescott Chamber of Commerce is to provide leadership and resources to create a vibrant business environment for Prescott.
