Category: Growth

accountant with laptop

15 things you didn’t know an accountant could do

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When asked “What does an accountant do?” many people answer with accounts, tax or compliance work. While that’s true, what many don’t know, is that the good ones do so much more. The best accountants will become a part of your team; they will give you strategic advice to save money and boost revenue, they will help you work more efficiently, and they will not only help you plan for your future, but they will help you get there.

To better answer the question, “What does an accountant do?” here is a taster of what they offer to you and your business.

Things an accountant can do…

  1. Launch a start-up

You need to know that your idea will make money and may potentially need to convince investors of the same thing. An accountant can do that for you plus work out your start-up and operating costs and create credible revenue forecasts.

  1. Manage your cash flow

Getting a stable and consistent cash flow is every business owner’s dream. An accountant can make sure that you always have the money there to pay staff and suppliers, as well as cash reserves in case of an emergency.

  1. Help make you more tax-efficient

Everyone knows that an accountant can help you complete and submit your returns at the end of the tax year. What many don’t know is that they can also help you to lower your tax ethically as well as helping you deal with old tax debts and making sure your books are watertight if you’re audited.

  1. Manage your debt

What loan should you choose? Should you use spare cash to pay back loans or reinvest in the business? An accountant can help you develop a specific strategy to manage debt in a way that is best for your business.

  1. Chase unpaid invoices

An accountant takes the ‘chasing money’ headache away from you by setting up an automated invoice system. When a payment is due or overdue, this will send out automatic reminders to your clients until they pay. Some accountants will even call clients who are very overdue with payments.

  1. Improve your business strategy

Yes, your accountant can help you figure out where you want to go and what’s important. They will work with you to set realistic personal, professional, and financial goals, and then they will measure your progress to help you achieve them.

  1. Budgeting and forecasting

Working off a vague set of numbers can result in irreparable damage to a business. With an accountant, you can work to an exact budget where you know exactly what is coming in and going out, and how much money you have to reinvest, and all in real-time. As well as having the figures at your fingertips, you will also know your figures that you’re aiming for and how long you could last in a crisis.

  1. Writing and pitching loan applications

Applying for a loan is a tedious and difficult process, but not with an accountant. They can pull together your numbers to help you write a solid application, not to mention give you the forecasting figures that will win over any loan officer.

  1. Help you with recruitment and payroll

Should you hire a full-time employee or outsource? Will your bottom line benefit more from a salesperson or a technician? Can you afford to hire and train a new employee? All these questions are important and should be handled with confidence. An accountant can help you make the best choices for you and your business and make payroll easy.

  1. Set up your cloud accounting software

Accountants aren’t stuffy number crunchers who speak a different language, they are tech-savvy and future-driven. Using the best tools out there, good accountants can help you automate your business’s accounting so that you’re always on top of your finances wherever you are. As well as implementing this software in your business, they can also train you to use it confidently.

  1. Help your business run more efficiently

In addition to accounting software, accountants can also help you unlock the power of other applications so that you can start working smarter, not harder. They can help you increase productivity with your invoicing, payroll, customer relationship management, staff scheduling and time-recording etc, and integrate all these tools together to create an effortless workflow.

  1. Improve your inventory management

Many business owners don’t realise how much money is lost due to poor inventory management. What an accountant can do is help you identify the cost of holding inventory and how much revenue is lost, so you can start to place accurate (and cost-effective) orders.

  1. Help you plan for the future

Do you want to sell your business in the future? Do you have a succession plan? Do you want to retire early? All these questions need to be addressed and planned for early on in your business journey. As well as helping you develop a plan for the future, an accountant will keep this larger goal in mind and will help you stay on track.

  1. Listen and support you

A good accountant will become an essential part of your team. They will be your financial advisor for all aspects of your life and will be there to listen and support you whenever you need them (not just appear in your life at the end of the tax year).

  1. Give you peace of mind

Your business, your finances, and the welfare of you and your family are probably the three most important things in your life. An accountant can help ease this pressure, giving you the reassurance and confidence that everything is being done or is planned for. The result? Peace of mind and being able to sleep soundly.

Laptop with flowers

12 ways to increase profit margins (and thrive in business)

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Your profit margin is how much money you actually get to walk away with after a transaction is complete (revenue – costs = profit). It makes sense then, that businesses who want to grow, focus on increasing this margin. The bigger the margin you have, the more you will thrive and be able to power through challenges like the economic climate that we find ourselves in today.

So how do you do it? How do you increase your profit and master your margins?

  1. Identify what is not working – before you can fix something, you need to know what’s broken. Take an objective look at your business and your processes and identify the gaps.
  2. Streamline your processes – the faster you can provide a service, the faster you can generate revenue and increase your profit margin. Where can you speed up your processes to trim costs without impacting quality? I.e using cloud accounting software.
  3. Discover any areas where there is waste – where does your business spend money? Are you losing money through inefficiency or waste? Can you reduce your expenses?
  4. Market those higher-end services – what services sell best and deliver the highest profit? Prioritise these in your marketing and focus your efforts on pushing these more.
  5. Aim for incremental growth – try not to get ahead of yourself. Set yourself small goals and you’ll find that you’ll make consistent, and more importantly, sustainable progress.
  6. Focus on building your team – a happy, motivated, and productive team, one that supports your growth goals, can make a world of difference to your profit margin.
  7. Be innovative in your strategy – if the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s how to strategically innovate our service. What are you not offering your target audience that they really need? What can you replace in the service that you’re offering now?
  8. Cross-promote to increase your credibility – if you get a good response from running webinars or writing content, think about ways you can cross-promote with someone influential in certain topics. Not only does this increase your credibility, but it capitalises on the other person’s time, money, and resources too.
  9. Identify other pillars for revenue – is there a service that brings in the majority of your revenue? If there is, try to see what other areas you can focus on to build another revenue-generating pillar. You don’t want your strategy to be dependent on a single pillar (what if that pillar fell down?). Your aim should be to strengthen another area or two and this will increase your margin too.
  10. Create a loyalty programme with your clients – your clients know, like, and trust you, and they are your best advocates. They are your free sales team, so help them spend more with you and tell others about your services. How can you create a loyalty programme to reward them?
  11. Raise your fees – if you haven’t had a rate increase recently, you have an easy way of increasing your profit! Just make sure to approach this right, conveying your increase in value rather than your profit margin.
  12. Outsource certain tasks – a great way of increasing your profit margin is to outsource some lower-value tasks to freelancers or contracted workers. You can use them only when demand is high or part-time.
money

10 ways to improve your business cash flow

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For a business to grow sustainably (and to successfully make it through the financial bumps in the road), cash flow needs to be a priority. And not just when times are tough and cash is tight. Making sure that you’re maintaining an optimal level of cash on hand at all times; this is essential to success.

So how do you do this? To improve your cash flow in the immediate but also for the long-term, here are 10 essentials.

Know your break-even figure

You need to know what number you need to reach each month to cover all of your outgoings. Once you know this, you can make better spending decisions and keep your cash flow at its optimal level.

Create a budget and stick to it 

While profit is important, you also need to focus on spending. Create a budget to ensure that you’re making more on each sale than you’re spending – this can help you be more mindful about where your money is going and it can help you make impactful changes.

Build a cash reserve

Set aside any excess money you make every month into a business savings account. Financial experts recommend keeping 3-6 months’ operating expenses in a cash reserve, but you can decide how much you want to keep available.

Automate your bookkeeping 

Using software such as Xero and QuickBooks can help you improve your cash flow. You can send out invoices immediately, get your clients to pay via Direct Debit, reconcile payments easily, and generate reports with a click of a button.

Offer discounts for early payments

If you have certain clients who pay late and miss payments, offer them a 2-5% discount if they pay early. Not only does this incentivise them to pay, but it also ensures that you don’t suffer from dips in your cash flow too. Win-win.

Negotiate extended payment deadlines with vendors 

It’s good to set up extended payment deadlines in the event that you can’t pay what you owe vendors right away. For example, you could negotiate a 60-day turnaround for all payments or include a clause in the agreement that allows later payments a certain number of times in the year. While it may not be needed, it is good to be prepared in case you ever need to use this option.

Consider financing (when it makes sense)

Your focus should be building up a cash reserve for emergency situations like the Coronavirus crisis. This means that, in a situation where you have unexpected expenses or you need a large sum, you should consider short- or long-term financing options instead.

Consider leasing supplies, equipment, and real estate instead of buying

While leasing may end up being more expensive than buying in the long run, choosing to lease supplies, equipment, and real estate for a certain amount of time will help you to maintain a steady cash stream for day-to-day operations.

Seek advice from an accountant 

The best way to improve your cash flow is to seek expert advice. Whether it’s getting an accountant to advise you on spending and saving or hiring them to completely manage your financial matters, they will help you make the right financial decisions. After all, you have to spend money to make money!

Improve your inventory

What is your inventory turnover? Surprisingly, there could be a lot of cash tied up in your inventory so check your inventory regularly. Are you buying too much? If so, sell it at a discount and start buying less of it. This is something that your accountant can help you figure out.

While it’s obviously very important to improve your cash flow right now (thanks Coronavirus), it is also essential for your business to have a healthy cash flow all year round. Keeping a robust cash flow takes vigilance, but it will help protect your business during turbulent times, not to mention, it will also help you sleep soundly.

goals + Habits = success

Goals + habits = SUCCESS

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Two sports teams both have the goal to win the game at hand, but only one can. This shows that just having a goal doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to achieve it. To win or achieve your goal, you need to have the right positive habits day in and day out. In the case of the sports team, it’s the one that trains regularly, eats healthy every day, and has the right mindset to keep going when times are tough.

To help you understand why many of us don’t achieve the goals that we set out to, this article explains why daily habits are the key to getting us to where we want to be.

Goals are great for short term accountability…

Have you hit a weight loss goal but then gained that weight back on not long after? Have you resolved to quit something or to start something only to revert back after a few weeks? Have you ever trained to run a marathon but then never run much after that?

If you can relate to one of the questions above, it’s probably due to one of these 5 reasons:

  1. Goals are temporary – they are great for an initial push but people tend to revert to habits.
  2. Goals can negatively affect motivation – if you don’t reach them within a specific timeframe, they can make you feel bad.
  3. Goals limit you – not many people surpass their goal as they are satisfied once they’ve hit it.
  4. Goals demand discipline – discipline can be hard to maintain over a long period, so when people lose it, they tend to give up all together.
  5. Goals can be unrealistic – if the initial goal is unrealistic, this can lead to a loss of motivation and negatively affect performance.

While goals are great for short term accountability and for that initial push to improve performance, on their own, they don’t help you to sustain this performance.

…habits are what help us sustain performance in the long term

Just like the long-term success of a sports team, it’s having the right habits that is key; having the right habits to support their goals.

When it comes to business, if you want to grow sustainably, you need the right mindset and the right habits to sustain your performance over time. So how do you do this?

  1. You need to set your goals – when setting both personal and professional goals, don’t forget to use SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound).
  2. You need to shift your mindset – know your ‘why’ for setting this goal/s and think of this goal as a marathon and not a sprint. You won’t achieve it overnight so be okay with doing a little each day.
  3. You need to develop the right daily habits – split your one big goal into short term goals (e.g. monthly and weekly goals) and focus on hitting these. Plan these activities into your schedule and link them with existing habits already as this will make it much easier for you to get them done.

Start achieving what you set out to

If you set yourself goals AND put in place the necessary habits you will need to achieve them (just focusing on getting a little done each day), soon these will build and you’ll see your business moving forward.

Remember the sports team. You might win one game or hit your goal once, but the key to long-term success is having the right mindset and daily habits.

Spinning top and planet

How to pivot your business so that you stay in business

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As we keep plunging deeper into a global recession, it can be tempting to panic and dither with decisions, but that’s not going to help. In fact, it’s the businesses which move quickly that will survive and thrive during this time.

So how can you be one of those businesses? One that actually grows during a recession?

In short, you have to adapt (and make quick decisions!). Here is how to pivot your business to make sure you stay in business.

A 7-step guide to pivot your business

Get into the right mindset for decision-making

You won’t make good decisions for the future of your business if you are in a scared, stressed or anxious state. Take time out, prioritise self-care and deep thinking time, and you’ll make far more creative decisions for it.

Think about what you can change for the good

You may need to adapt your business to survive, so think about what you can change to become relevant. Can you change your product or service? Can you change your intended marketplace for your product or service? Can you change how you deliver your product or service?

Do your research

The answers are out there, so do your research. Ask and listen to your clients – what are they telling you they need? From your own experience, what is your business or friends and family wanting or needing to buy and why? How are habits and hobbies changing as people stay home more? What is social media telling you that people are doing or thinking about?

Conduct a STEEPLED analysis to look ahead

Try to think about what this ‘new normal’ will look like. Use the STEEPLED analysis and think about what each factor will mean for you and your business (e.g. follow each example with a ‘so what’ for your business):

S – Social – e.g. more people are staying/working at home.

T – Technology – e.g. more older generations are adopting technology to stay in touch.

E – Environment – e.g. people can see it recovering.

E – Ethics – e.g. can’t be seen to be profiteering.

P – Political – e.g. will this change Brexit, Tory government etc?

L – Legal and regulatory – e.g. how will rules, protocols change?

E – Economic – e.g. what happens with a recession?

D – Demographic – e.g. higher than the average death rate.

Evaluate your potential options

Once you have done your research about the current market and you’re in the right mindset to adapt your business, you now need to evaluate your options. For each option, think about:

  • How connected is it to your ‘why’ or ‘purpose?’
  • How easy is it to implement?
  • What will change or stay the same?
  • If you chose to move forward with this, what would you and your business have to do?

Conduct a risk analysis

Once you have chosen what option you are pursuing, conduct a risk analysis:

  • Consider some ‘what if’ scenarios – e.g. what if schools close again and people have to work and provide childcare?
  • Review your risks – e.g. operational, reputational, project delivery, political, environmental, financial etc.
  • Rank these risks – are they high, medium or low risk?
  • Review their impact – what would be the impact on the business if this risk happened?
  • Outline your red lines – which risks can you accept or avoid? Which risks need to be managed?

Put together your business plan

Last but not least, if you’re going to pivot your business towards success, you need to have a plan. So what is your “to-be?” What are your new goals and achievements? Once you have these, you need to outline:

  • How you will measure your progress.
  • How much investment you will need.
  • Who you will need to support you with this.
  • Who in your current circle of people is critical or now not needed.
  • Your first steps to making this happen.

Don’t wait any longer, act now.

You need to decide now, what you want to happen with your business. The longer you leave it to make a decision with what to do with your business, the more chance you won’t have a business going forward.

As we said previously, it’s the businesses who make good and quick decisions who will survive and even grow during the recession. Be one of those.

Girl holding a wad of money

How can I increase my profit margin?

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As author Dough Hall correctly put it, “if your profit margins aren’t rising, chances are your company isn’t thriving.” Makes sense when you think about it. If your profit margin is the actual money you get to walk away with after a transaction (your revenue minus your costs), you want to be continually improving this number.

To help you increase your profit margin, especially at a time where you’re unable to increase demand, here are 10 strategies that you can start with.

Raise your fees

This is the most obvious way to increase your profit margin as the more money you make on each sale, the wider your margin. If you haven’t raised your prices in a while, consider doing so.

Reduce operating expenses 

Think about how you can streamline your operations to reduce costs. Can you lower your overheads by reducing wasteful spending? Would you benefit from automating administrative tasks?

Upsell services to existing clients

Your clients already know and trust you, so they are going to be significantly more receptive to other offers that you have. Upsell your other services that they could benefit from and you’ll see this is a great way to improve your profit margin.

Increase the productivity of your staff

Increasing the output of your staff is a great strategy to increase your profits. From setting the right targets and motivating them to training your staff and helping them develop the right skills, you can do a lot to boost their performance.

Identify and fix bottlenecks

In which areas are processes too slow? In what areas is there waste in your business? Bottlenecks cost you money and decrease your bottom line so comb through your processes and see what needs to be improved. Examples of waste are not utilising talent, waiting for work from others, and poor communication channels.

Invest in savvier practice management software 

While cloud-based systems and software cost initially, they can save a lot of time and money when it comes to those administrative and manual tasks. If you train the right staff on the right software, things like client enquiries, relationship management, email management, invoicing, and social media scheduling become a lot less painful.

Improve inventory turnover 

Markdowns are known profit-killers, so avoid them at all costs. One way to do this is to better manage areas like inventory. Review your inventory turnover and make better decisions around purchasing, sales and marketing, and you’ll reduce the need for markdowns.

Increase the perceived value of your brand 

You need a strong brand, one that centres around the emotional and lifestyle values of your target audience. If you have a brand that connects with your audience and you position yourself as the go-to-expert, you can charge a premium for your services.

Improve your bottom line

You don’t have to make drastic changes to increase your profit margin and it’s not all down to increasing your demand either.

The best way to continuously improve this number is to make effective tweaks to your business over time. They may seem like small changes in the moment, but these all build up and pave the way for wider profit margins!

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How can I use webinars to win business?

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Webinar marketing is all about hosting online workshops to build a relationship with attendees and to promote and increase credibility for your business.

What’s great about webinars is that they are a win-win for both parties: attendees learn valuable content and, if you do it right, it markets or achieves a sales outcome for your business. Sounds good, right?

While webinars are a great tool to use to win business, if you don’t do it right, it can end up costing you a lot of time and effort for little reward. So this is the point of this short article. We want to show you the 3 essential steps for how to use webinars to win business.

Step 1: start with the end in mind

If you think about what you want to achieve from your webinar before you start, you can make sure that it is relevant and that it is a topic that is in demand. Before creating your webinar, explore these 4 questions:

  1. What is the purpose of my webinar? Is it just to inform clients, to stay front of mind or to sell an additional service?
  2. Who do I want there? Is it for existing clients or potential clients or both?
  3. What pain points are my audience motivated to solve? What are their biggest challenges at the moment?
  4. When will they attend a webinar? When is the most ideal time for them?

Step 2: get people to sign up, turn up, stay till the end, and to buy from you

For your webinar to be successful and for it to win you business, you will need these 4 essential processes in place:

  1. How I will get people to register – your webinar needs a catchy title and objectives that promise value and raise curiosity. You also need to pick a time and day that is best for your audience and use an email marketing tool to assist with registrations.
  2. How I will get people to turn up – streamline a process for sending email reminders to attendees (we send a total of 5 reminders to ours) and call warm prospects or people you want there.
  3. How I will get people to stay to the end – keep your attendees engaged and make them want to stay. You can do this by making the webinar highly interactive (especially at the beginning); tell them the agenda, promise something for those who stay to the end, and make it about your audience and their issues.
  4. How I will get people to buy – you need to show your audience their ‘ideal’ scenario and position your product/service as the solution to getting them there. You can do this by including case studies of clients who have had the same or similar issues and how you’ve helped them to take action and resolve them. You can also include statistics, show them the different options available to them, and have clients actually on the webinar to advocate for you in real-time.

Step 3: use the right technology

Technology can make or break a webinar, so make sure you are using the right tools. Tools that will assist you and make your life easier rather than tools that limit you. If you want to win business from your webinars, you need to be using the following technology:

  1. Webinar or online meeting software (e.g. Zoom, Microsoft Teams etc)
  2. Decent broadband and ideally a webcam
  3. Automated diary booking system (e.g. Calendly, AcuityScheduling etc)
  4. Registrant data collection tool (e.g. Eventbrite or the other event software)
  5. Bulk email marketing tool (e.g. Active Campaign, MailChimp etc)

Webinar marketing is a great way to win new business and to stay in front of your existing clients. You just need to know how to create a relevant and engaging webinar that your audience is interested in and you need to make it as easy as possible for people to remember to turn up and buy.

How to change your Mindset to trade through a recession

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The global pandemic has hit everyone hard, the knock-on effects of which will be ongoing for the years to come. So how do we make it through? How can we keep trading successfully through the recession? While there are many changes and improvements you can make, the most underrated one by far is your mindset. By simply choosing the right mindset, you can not only survive in the recession but you can thrive in it.

How to change your mindset to successfully navigate the recession

It’s very easy to dwell on the doom and gloom when it comes to the current state of the economy, but what does that do? How does that help us to navigate through the recession so that we can come out of it stronger and more successful, and ready for the economic upturn? In short, it doesn’t.

Here are a few ways that you can change your mindset to a more positive one. One that facilitates growth and success in a time where we need it most:

1, Remember that the economy is cyclical

It’s important to remind yourself that the upturn will come. The economy is cyclical. Yes, we are currently in a downward spiral but there’s still business out there. Businesses are still doing business and they are looking for help. That’s an opportunity for you to try and grab some of that opportunity.

Be creative – how else can you offer value? What does your target audience need help with the most?

2. See this as an opportunity to review and improve

It may be difficult to see but the recession is an opportunity to put everything under the microscope and see whether you can do it differently. In some instances, you could even find a way to do things better. This is a massive opportunity for businesses and one that will go as quickly as it has come.

3. Appreciate that recessions are cleansing times

It might not feel like it now, but recessions are cleansing. If you find yourself less busy, is it because you’ve just weeded out the time-wasters? Many businesses have reported that the recession has forced them to focus on what really matters and as a result, they are focusing on their core business and what they are good at. They’ve found that the clients who were producing the most ‘noise’ have gone and they actually have time to focus on tasks that help their business to grow.

4. Reconnect with your “why?”

We’ve been forced to look at our businesses in a different way so re-evaluate. Why are you doing this? What is it that you are doing it for? What does it actually mean? Reconnecting with why you started is a great way to re-ignite the fire. It’s a great way to self-motivate and to start being proactive.

5. Surround yourself with people who support you

The last way to get the right mindset is to appoint a war cabinet. What we mean by this is surround yourself with people that you trust, people who you can lean on and who can advise you to get through this time. If you choose the right people to have around you, who you can vent to and laugh with, and who can lift you up, it’s really easy to choose the right mindset and to make positive changes.

Believe that you can and you will

Mindset is really all about attitude and you can choose it. If you think you can, you can, but if you think you can’t, then you can’t. It really is that powerful.

If you think that you can grow through this recession, you will, not because of magic but because of the decisions you make and all the things that you’ll put in place. So how can you change your mindset during this recession? How can you innovate and offer more value so that you can grow?

If you would like some more advice on changing your mindset please click here to get in touch. 
Or feel free to use our chat box —>

4 ways to recession-proof your business

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Unless you have somehow managed to avoid the headlines, I’m sure you’re quite aware that a deep dark recession is coming our way. In fact, it’s practically knocking on our doors. As if this isn’t bad enough, the knock-on effect is causing issues too; relentless client queries being a big one. So how can we weather the storm as business owners? How can we be one of the ones who come out of it stronger than ever and ready to grow when the economy bounces back?

4 ways to recession-proof your business

1, Change your mindset (and quickly)

Henry Ford said “whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right” and it’s true. If during the recession, you think that you are going to come out of it, then you will. Just make sure to surround yourself with people who support you and reconnect with why you started your business. It will make a positive mindset so much easier.

2. Increase your marketing activity

The temptation is to cut marketing to save on some costs but that will do more harm than good. The recession will show some clients that they aren’t getting the service that they want so how can you expect to win them if you’re not marketing yourself?

Increase your marketing in the right areas. For example, refresh the copy on your website, review your marketing to see what is working the best, send out weekly emails to your clients, call them every month, call prospects who went cold to see how they are doing, and increase your activity on your LinkedIn.

3. Make it easy for your clients to pay little and often

Clients will say they have no money (they are struggling too), but you will find that they do for the right service. If you swap your services for ones that they really need now, they will see you as essential and they will pay for your service. You can also help them in other ways such as switching them over to a direct debit payment method or by giving them a payment holiday on their normal monthly payments.

4. Increase your practice efficiency and reduce your overheads

The best changes that you can make for your business during a recession is to cut your overheads in a way that will increase efficiency. For example, what can be automated or eliminated? Automating certain processes will cost initially but they will increase productivity. The same goes for things like outsourcing and offshoring.

Don’t forget to involve your team in this process. Ask them every week what they think can be improved on and you’ll see that they will have some great ideas.

Another task that you can do which will cut overheads is to get tough with your long-term debtors and low-performers. If you tackle these head-on during the recession, you may find that costs will reduce while efficiency soars.

Do you have a scalable business model?

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Nobody starts a business to see it crashing after a couple of years. No one wants their business to stay small forever or to have to throw in the towel when a recession hits. Every business owner wants their business to generate sustainable revenue, one that funds the lifestyle that they want and creates a comfortable future for them. So how do you do this? And how do you know if your business is scalable?

What is a scalable business?

Firstly, to know whether your business is scalable, you need to understand exactly what that means.

To quote Investopedia, scalability is defined by “a company’s ability to grow without being hampered by its structure or available resources when faced with increased production.”

To put it simply, a scalable business is one that can handle and perform well under mounting workload or scope; it is one that can grow through new geographies and markets without falling apart.

Man thinking
measuring tape

How to check you have a scalable business model

With the current Covid-19 recession, if they haven’t already, businesses need to be checking that they have a scalable business model. If they haven’t, then they need to be implementing one.

Here are a few questions that you need to be asking yourself:

1. Is your bottom line growing faster than your top line?

2. If you went on holiday for a month, would your business still grow?

3. Can your current systems/processes/ways of working support your business being twice or 3 times as big?

4. Can your current ways of working produce predictable new client wins?

5. Can your business win work without you being involved?

6. Is there enough of a market place for your firm’s services to scale to the level you want?

If you answered yes to all of these questions, you have a scalable model in place. If you answered no to some or all of these questions then you have a bottleneck that is limiting the growth of your business and you need to address those areas.

Build a scalable business

The difference to surviving the recession and thriving in it is whether you have a scalable business model. There are plenty of fast-growing, cash-burning companies that are going to be vulnerable during this time, but if you have a flexible model in place, then you can not only adapt to the turning tide, but you can also grow comfortably when the economy is on the upturn again.

Here are a few tips on creating a business that can sustain the level of profitability as sales volume grows:

  • Refine the company’s growth trajectory
  • Communicate and enforce a growth culture
  • Define specialist jobs clearly & set and monitor goals
  • Set and monitor goals
  • Hire strategically and invest in technology
  • Streamline processes to boost efficiency
  • Build trusted partnerships
  • Give significant importance to marketing
  • Tactically outsource