Happy new financial year!
I know it doesn’t have the same excitement as December 31st – there’s no champagne, no Auld Lang Syne and no fireworks. The only hangover is the one on your balance sheet (which is hopefully in the black!).
But, like the first of January, the first of July is a time to look forward and not back. It’s time to examine your business with fresh eyes and come up with the changes needed to make improvements.
Disruption is incoming whether you like it or not. Here are seven new financial year resolutions to follow in FY19!
Clear Out The Clutter
Just like a physical spring clean, July is the perfect time to reflect on what is and what isn’t working. Much like you would personally, you need to sit down with your team and talk about your internal processes and procedures. From paperwork to operating systems, meeting etiquette and the role of leadership, the way your staff interact and how you track progress and success. This all needs fresh evaluation.
Take a look at your company handbook and don’t be afraid to cross out what you feel is not adding any value. Start with a blank page, keeping in mind the current market as well as your customer behaviour.
Share The Love
Your business, like most businesses, have customers as your driving force. They hold most of the power and provide you with all of your opportunities. Relationships between your staff and your clients are crucial, and at a time when trust between brand and buyer seems at its lowest, there’s a great opportunity to refresh the love between existing or potential clients.
On a whiteboard, write down how to deepen that relationship. To bring the spark back. Without going overboard, know their every move to better understand their wants and needs. The relationship between your business and your customers is indeed symbiotic, but you need to be doing all of the heavy liftings.
Whether that’s a message on their birthday, or a check-up call where you don’t talk about business but rather the customer themselves. It’s the little things that customers remember. Putting in a little can produce a lot.
Get Fit
There’s no denying the fact we’re all very reliant on our devices. Advancing technology is at the forefront of most business strategies, alongside increasingly dynamic competitor playing fields that continue to evolve.
It’s no secret that growth comes from innovation. With more and more pressure on business, you should look at a different approach to all things IT-related. This is in order to keep up with the endless flood of all things new like AR, VR, software platforms or the cloud.
Get Out More
The travel bug shows no signs of letting up, with Aussies going further away more of the time, and that type of travel is shifting at a global level.
Travel is more than taking a break. It’s about experiencing new places, new cuisines, music and landscapes.
Your business needs this mindset. In order to future proof and remain relevant, you need to look past your bubble and whenever possible get out into the real world and experience brands just as consumers do. I’m not saying book your executive team on the next flight to Paris, I’m saying if you’re travelling then do so with a purpose.
Take the time to research how businesses in your niche operate in countries other than yours. How does a business that does what you do, do it in Canada? Or Saudi Arabia? What are their approaches, how do they talk to their clients?
Look past your local competitors for ideas and think much, much bigger.
Lose Some Weight
Contentious, but it needs to be said. In a business context, this is about taking the time to think about which areas of your business could benefit from shedding old habits and behaviours.
There are so many companies holding on to past success and archaic strategies and mantras.
When you look at it, there are ‘fat’ layers within your business that are slowing down certain process and the ability to respond to constant market pressures. This sluggish behaviour is what will cause you severe problems in the future.
Identify processes that you want to improve, and go on a ‘diet’. Cut down on the things that you know aren’t helping – whether that be software, processes or certain employees. Then start exercising – training staff to close the knowledge gap, cutting down three-step verification down to two, and trying out new software or systems.
Making changes isn’t easy. But you should see today, July the 1st, as a fresh start. Write down in permanent marker the changes that need making and ensure you as a decision maker dedicate a part of every day going forward to achieving those goals.
And who knows, maybe on July 1, 2019, you’ll look back and see just how far you’ve come!
