Step up your business game

Are you at the point with your business where you feel as though you’re about to give up? If you’re just toeing the line, but find yourself borrowing more money than you’re making, then something needs to be done to drastically change the outcome of your business.

What you do need to do is think about the many ways that you can use your knowledge, and the knowledge of others, to turn your business from one that’s on the brink of collapsing, to one that’s doing more than most other businesses are. It’s easy to think that once your business starts going downhill that your business is never going to recover.

If you look at some of the businesses who have crashed and burned this year, you might wonder how you’d ever been able to recover your business if such giants were not able to. Well, what you need to realise is that they would have continued to trade with crippling debt much higher than yours. In comparison, the money you owe will be far less and it’s far easier to recover your business.

So, keep on reading and we’ll show you how you can step up your business game and go from failing to being triumphant.

Focus on a more professional office

This is the first one that you need to try and master. The one thing that’s so common amongst small businesses is how their office life progresses. Office life can be so unorganised and unprofessional that they can be hard to manage, especially if you have employees that you’re struggling to keep motivated.

It’s funny to see how much an office progresses throughout the years. A small office usually starts with just a desk and a computer, wires everywhere and filling that needs to be done for weeks and weeks. But as it progresses it’s easy to see how much it changes. So to make it more professional, there are a few things that you can focus on.

The first is making sure that the impression you’re giving to anyone who is coming in that you’re professional and ready to be a big business. One of the things that can be so offputting to people working in the office, and to anyone coming in for a meeting, is when neighbouring offices are being so loud and inappropriate.

Office walls are usually super thin, and neighbouring with an unruly office next door can really do damage to your business. Using a sound absorbing wall panel can give you all the privacy that you need to be able to work efficiently, and have all of the meetings that you need to hold without disruption.

You also need to focus on how you run your office and how your employees think they can behave. The modern way of running an office is relaxed and calm, but if your employees are taking full advantage of this then it might be time for your tactics to change. Find that sweet spot between strict and relaxed and you’ll have a great office space.

Recovering your finances

If you’re a failing business then one of the things that you’re going to struggle to do is recover your finances. But fear not, there are many solutions that you can try to try and get your business books back on top. The first thing that you can do is try and secure investors to give your business another chance. There are rich people out there who are looking to become even richer by investing in up and coming businesses.

To impress them you’re going to need a rock-solid business plan. You’re going to have to have thought out every aspect of your business and your finances, and how the money the investors give you is going to prove that. They’re not just going to give out their money to anyone, so you need to make sure you’re ready to impress.

You can find investors by talking to banks and searching online. You may also be signposted by people within your niche who know of others who are willing to invest their money into a business. You also need to evaluate how you’re spending your money at the minute and how it might need to change.

If you’re channelling so much money into one aspect of your business, it might be that you need to take a step back with it, cut costs, and invest money into other areas that are going to help with growth. Always make sure that you have a plan to pay back your debts, rather than just investing money back into your business.

Drastic measures

Sometimes you need to take drastic measures, and this only applies if you have a team of people working for you at the minute. You will no doubt have started your company by working for yourself, hiring one by one as you needed it. Well, to protect the welfare of your business, you might find that you need to cut people from the team to try and save money.

It’s not something done lightly, so weight up the cost of what it will be like to have a team member down and whether you’re going to be able to afford it. If so, then cut a member of the team and use the money saved to first pay off crippling debts. It will ease the financial pressure and allow yourself to eventually put money back into the business. You could also cut certain services or products to help you save even more money.

Have the competitive edge

You really do need to have a competitive edge if you want to be able to win as a business. So to have the competitive edge you always need to make sure you know what your competitors are doing and how it’s working for them. You can actually outsource this to companies who will do the research for you and weigh up how it’ll work for your business. It’s a great thing to do if you feel like everyone around you is doing better.