Posts

Is Your Business Sinking? 12 Holes You Need To Plug

/in /by

StrategyDriven Managing Your Finances Article |Failing Business|Is Your Business Sinking? 12 Holes You Need To PlugMany entrepreneurs become so invested in their struggle for success that they forget a crucial reality which is business failure. Startups tend to collapse, and only a minor portion of them manage to stay afloat after a few years. But business owners – thanks to their enthusiasm for innovation – ignore the fact that cash-flow can make or break a business. If your business encounters money problems, you’ll find yourself in a financial crunch. That’s when you need to make some tough decisions about your company’s commercial future for protecting your sinking business. Are you considering packing up due to monetary complications? Don’t! Just follow these simple checks and save your brainchild.

Cash-flow leaks you should fix

A failing business is every entrepreneur’s nightmare. Many business owners incline to surrender when faced with the possibility of a near-failure. Though some accept monetary impediments as another challenge to examine the effectiveness of their business strategy. These courageous individuals manage to anticipate when the next iceberg’s coming and save the Titanic with their careful calculations. How to become one of such individuals? Here are some simple tricks that’ll help you avoid sinking:

1. Review your finances

A quarterly review of your company’s cash flow can help you apprehend any financial threat in advance. It’ll also allow you to consider your income, net profit, and expenditures. Reviewing your expenses is probably the single most important technique that may prevent bankruptcy. Moreover, avoid reaching a decision impulsively. The intuition is unreliable; hence trust data-driven decision-making. Craft your budget carefully, and then faithfully stick to it.

2. Curb needless spending

Your marketing department is the lifeblood of the whole organization. Though spending money excessively on advertisements may lead to financial downfall. Failure to arrange promotional campaigns strategically is a money-leaking tactic. If you aren’t marketing to your niche, the money’s just going down the gutter! Also, don’t waste funds designing a custom website without premature marketing research. In short, there’s no need to spend on stuff your company doesn’t need.

3. Try online tools

Modern digital tools help business managers, freelancers, and even homeowners organize their finances effectively. It’s better to purchase cost-effective online accounting software with unlimited support and expert advice. It saves your time so you can focus on other important business matters. These tech tools also make communication and collaboration among colleagues easier. You can share documents and information to enhance productivity and diminish time-wastage.

4. Focus on what’s important

Building on the previous point, spend only on projects that are making your company profitable. When Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, he discontinued the Project Newton that drained $100 million from the company. And that’s just one of the failed products canceled by him besides the Pippin and the Cube. On the other hand, your company must focus only on money-making products/services. Don’t try to bring innovation when the project lacks interest among your target audience.

5. Cut extra costs

Eliminating all discretionary expenditures must be your topmost priority. Reduce anything that seems unnecessary or mere wastage of an almost-bankrupt company’s funds. No more summer holidays or birthday parties! But that’s just an easy decision. The most challenging choice is laying off hardened employees. But, if there’s no alternative available, firing your folks can be a cruel but inevitable policy. Also, consider lowering costs on office supplies or shipping expenditures.

6. Prioritize what to pay

Your payment options vary according to their respective importance. That’s why it’s necessary to prioritize which payment must be issued first and which can be delayed. Pay the vital obligations first, not clearing, which can collapse your business. For instance, paying your employees’ salary is essential because you can’t afford their departure from the company. Paying your vendors and suppliers is your next priority. Similarly, paying taxes should be on the top of your list of expenses.

7. Reshape your fiscal plan

Rethinking your entire cash-flow management can help you avoid bankruptcy and find methods to enhance your productivity. How to perform this action? Try SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis. It’ll provide you information required for strategic planning and identifying undisclosed holes you haven’t plugged in yet. You also discover marketable opportunities – internal/external – which you’ve failed to use for maximizing the company’s profitability.

8. Strengthen your networking

Networking shouldn’t be underestimated! It’s the life-support your company sometimes needs to survive obvious failure. Your connections come to your assistance and bail you out when the ship’s sinking. Your associates help enhance business awareness and finding better clients for your organization. Make friends not just with shareholders but also with your customers. Utilize promotional gifts (pens, purses, or air fresheners) to raise your company’s profile.

9. Your customers do matter

Receive utmost feedback from your customers. Their opinions are important, and you must continue creating products that solve their problems. That’s why you need to collect information from consumers and analyze this data to modify your services. Surveys are beneficial tools for gathering information. Focus on what your consumers want, not what you wish to sell. If your services don’t resonate with the customers’ requirements, you might lose these people to your competitor.

10. Safeguard your assets

Your assets might be your last hope when your company encountered unavoidable collapse. Protect these assets since these are the lifelines you might need to save a failing business. This stuff you own can generate cash flow in the future and improve your organization’s financial situation. For instance, you can sell the machinery owned by the company or rent office space temporarily. These assets can become your much-needed backup for the business.

11. Trust your team

Your employees are your most precious asset. But it’s your responsibility to ensure their correct utilization. Employees who’re working just for the paycheck might not be the right choice for your company. You need to connect with them and ascertain that they understand your business model. Your workers must be dedicated individuals who’ve committed themselves to success. Train them to become more efficient and listen to their recommendations to promote communication.

12. Cherish the risk

Entrepreneurship thrives on risks and challenges. Some business owners prefer playing it safe during a time of crisis. In reality, avoiding risks may diminish your productivity and tamper with your innovative essence. Making brave decisions is often the route to save your failing company. When Private White decided to release branded products, they faced the responsibility of handling inventory and marketing. But this decision ultimately contributed to their growth and popularity.

Conclusion

As an entrepreneur, you might’ve speculated the most dominant reason for business failure. Here’s what the experts agreed upon after a careful investigation. According to the U.S. Bank, 82% of small businesses collapse due to poor cash-flow mismanagement! No wonder there’s an 80% chance that your company’s toast after two decades of service. Moreover, startups crumple since around 80% of them begin with insufficient funds or haven’t created a well-established business strategy. In short, money problems can rupture your smooth-sailing vessel and leave you a veteran of financial bankruptcy. So, avoid financial losses and develop a fiscal awakening. Follow our suggestions and avoid failure.

5 Tools To Invest In To Help Grow Your Interior Design Business

/in /by

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Interior Design Business|5 Tools To Invest In To Help Grow Your Interior Design BusinessAll businesses need the tools to function properly and your interior design business is no different. From handling client queries, managing your team (or yourself) to drafting ideas for the next project, it all requires assistance. Making sure you’ve picked out the best tools for the job is important because it makes your job a lot easier as a result.

With that being said, here are five tools to invest in to help grow your interior design business.

Use 3D Interior Design Software For Clients

When it comes to bringing an idea to life, whether it’s your own or through the client’s own vision, it’s good to see it in a 3D format. For some clients, you may find that showing them a sketch or flat design of their space is not really helping secure they’re faith in you.

However, being able to present them with a close visual of what the space will turn out to be like, is going to be more effective. That’s where a 3D interior design software is going to come in handy because it helps bring that vision to life in the best way.

Picking the right type of software though is a difficult one because there are so many to choose from. It’s all based on what you need and require. For example, you might find one that is affordable due to having multiple employees. Or it could be that you need something more complex in the effects and choice it has when furnishing a 3D space.

You’ll be spoilt for choice as there are many on the market. There are some reputable ones like Foyr Neo for example. This one offers good value for money and it includes a free 14-day trial. As well as incredible design tools and over 50,000 built-in models to pick from.

When investing in your interior design business, having visuals to refer to and work on before putting the plan into action can be very helpful. It can also be the difference between securing another client or having little to no work coming in for the following month.

Showcase Your Portfolio With A Website

As an interior design business, a lot of your business comes down to showing visual examples of your work. When you start out, it may be word of mouth or simply knowing those who’ll happily pay you to design for them.

However, when you create a website to display all your recent work, it can be a great insight for any potential clients to see what you’ve done previously. A website is easy enough to make, especially as there are plenty of platforms that allow you to host and design a basic one at least.

It’s worth getting a designer though to design your website if you’ve not got the technical knowledge to do it. Being able to use your website as a way of promoting your services is something that will come in handy now and further down the line.

You should also utilize your social media platforms too as a way of advertising your interior design business. Connecting this up to your website is great for cross-promotion. Invest in a website and it hopefully secures yourself some additional clients, paying you back time and time again.

If you’re seeking inspiration on what websites to choose for hosting your website on, then Wix and WordPress are all worth looking at. They’re certainly the best place to start when needing reputable platforms that most people use nowadays.

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Interior Design Business|5 Tools To Invest In To Help Grow Your Interior Design BusinessOrganize You & The Team With Business Management Software

When handling a team, it’s difficult to manage everyone when you might not all be in the same place at once. With an interior design business, employees might be out meeting clients, sourcing materials and overseeing projects. With that said, there might not be a lot of time spent within the office environment.

What’s needed in that case is a software that you can easily manage the entire business on. This might be a communications platform that’s combined with project management. This combination is usually the best because it allows for your teams to communicate with each other in real-time and to also manage any joint projects.

Keeping the team organized is important and is part of the job that you have as an interior design business. If you’re a solo business owner and have only yourself to look after, then this tool can also be useful for you too. You might want to get one that’s more focused on the project management though.

The better streamlined your business is, the easier everything becomes. There’s plenty of specialized software out there that’s been made specifically for interior designers in mind. From managing projects and crafting reports, it’s good to have as much at your disposal as possible. Automating your time-consuming tasks can also be done when you have a project management system in place.

If you’re trying to invest in your business, then it’s essential to use this tool to help keep things running like clockwork. And time is something you need when running a business. The more you have left to spare, the better!

Remember Everything With Note-Taking Apps

For interior design businesses, retaining clients and having a good reputation to get new ones is obviously important. With that being said, everything you do needs to be impressive from the initial client meetings you have, to the final reveal of the project you’re working on. Using technology to your advantage, it might be worth looking into a note-taking app to help capture all the relevant information needed.

For example, if you have a number of client meetings where you’ll be walking around a site. You don’t have the luxury of sitting down at a table to note everything down comfortably. Therefore, a note-taking app on your phone or electronic device, allows you to type or at perhaps record voice notes, as you go.

By doing this, you don’t miss any important information and that information might be key to impressing your clients. It’s something that as a business, the rest of your employees would benefit from too.

It’s also helpful for those who perhaps don’t digest quick conversation so easily and having that option to take notes or record the meeting can be ideal. When your clients are critical for business, it’s important to do everything you can to make sure all their needs and requirements are met.

If you’re after some note-taking suggestions then Evernote is a great choice as well as Apple Notes for any Apple users.

Manage The Books With Accounting Software

Managing the books is something every business needs to do and it’s something that can be vital in keeping your company afloat. For a solo business owner, you may be in the position to outsource but for most, it’s a one-person does all job when running it by yourself. That means that you’ll need to have something in place to keep everything in check.

The same goes for a business with multiple staff as not only do you have to deal with the expenses of the business but you also have to pay your staff. If you don’t have the right software in place, then things go wrong. For bigger interior design businesses, you may have multiple software platforms in your finance team, so it may be good to streamline this.

Accounting software like Quickbooks as an example is great for accounting. You can see what comes in and what goes out, draft invoices and process expenses efficiently. Having it all under one roof can be a lot easier to manage and it’s something that’s easy enough to understand.

For many business owners going it alone, it can be hard to handle a part of the business that maybe you’re not skilled in or particularly familiar with. When it comes to accounting, it’s not typically everyone’s speciality, so it’s good to have something like Quickbooks to rely on.

With platforms like this, they usually have a subscription service or perhaps a one-off fee which you pay for a lifetime membership or download of the software. It’s a great opportunity for those who need a bit of flexibility or are looking for something for the long-haul. Regardless of what you go for, it’s certainly something that you need and should think about getting.

Another problem with finances in a business is that it’s important to keep cash flow healthy and that doesn’t always happen. With clients paying late or problems out of your control, it’s important to have a good system in place that keeps it all moving forward as it should do.

These are just a few examples of what tools to invest in when it comes to your interior design business but there may be more that you need and find suitable. It’s good to pick what is going to not only help you in your interior design business but what will also make your business processes as an interior designer, a lot easier.

WorkFlow Optimization Begins with You: 3 Types of Software No Business Owner Should Forget to Implement

/in /by

Optimize the Workflow of any Business with Software Implementation

StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Articles | WorkFlow Optimization | WorkFlow Optimization Begins with You: 3 Types of Software No Business Owner Should Forget to ImplementMost businesses are started because a person or a group of people have a particular passion, and they want to use that passion to drive their work. Bill Gates and Paul Allen shared a passion for computers and technology, and Microsoft is the result of their work. Steve Jobs had an interest in electronics and gadgetry and his vision was to put a computer in the hands of everyday people. While passion may be needed to get a business idea off the ground, there are several other aspects of a business that needs to be managed well for it to succeed. Workflow is something that needs to be organized and efficient, but it might not be the area of passion for most business owners. There are several types of software that can help optimize workflow and put businesses on a path to increase efficiency and overall success.

Project Management Software

The initial stage in a workflow process for most businesses is some sort of consultation, request, or order from a customer. Paper forms are still common in the business world, and these forms can cause a disruption in the workflow process. Paper forms can be misplaced, they can sit on a desk for long periods of time, and they represent a very inefficient way for employees to communicate with each other. Regardless of the size of a business, the communication between employees is critical to how efficient the business will run. Implementing an order management software system as part of an overall workflow solution can be a positive step toward making things run more smoothly. Project management software can create a proposal for a customer which can lead to a purchase order. The purchase leads to an invoice, and many systems have credit card processing built in to complete the transaction.

Accounting Software

Businesses need to manage money coming in as well as money going out. An accounting software like designdocs can help with paying bills, collecting money from customers and payroll for employees. One of the biggest advantages in an accounting software system is the ability to run specific reports that make the overall financial management more effective. Detailed proposals for customers can be generated quickly along with invoicing for those customers. Overall company financial reports and tax reporting documents can also be generated much more quickly and accurately with the help of a software program. The American Payroll Association concluded that companies not using software systems to help with workflow will spend twenty-five percent more time working on accounting tasks.

Communication Software

In the midst of all the work being done, there needs to be an easy to understand the system in place for all employees to know what needs to be completed, and when the work needs to be finished. This is critical when information needs to move between people in different departments that are all working on the same project. When there is a gap in communication between people, that can slow down or disrupt the flow of work. Having a system where everyone can access the same documents, reports and customer notes will encourage teamwork and promote a more cohesive environment.

Optimizing workflow with software has the immediate benefit of organizing the workload for employees in a way that makes it very neat and user-friendly. This puts employees on a path that is going to decrease the frustration and inefficiencies that can come with a paper system. In the long term, workflow optimization can increase inefficiencies and help businesses see more success.