Prepare your business for the BOOM!

Ok, business owners, let’s get real.

You want the boom of customers and income. You want the brand awareness. You want it all.

You can have it, but first, preparing your business for growth is a must on your business to-do list.

In this week’s Monday Marketing Minute, I reference a few systems that need to be healthy and sustainable in order to support business growth.

Here they are:

1. Customer Management Systems

How are you inputting and managing your customer information? You will need to make sure this system is strong and healthy as you grow. Some of my clients use Excel. Some use online management systems like Insightly. Some use integrated systems that can incorporate multiple aspects of their business, including accounting and invoicing.

Either way, you are going to need to be able to organize your customer data in a way that easy to track, easy to find, and easy to learn. I often recommend including fields in your system like a Notes field. A simple notes field can be a game changer for communications. More on that in a minute.

If you want to learn more about which systems might be good for your business, shoot me an email and let’s chat.

2. Accounting

Oh boy. This can be a messy one. I have run across many business owners who have piles of receipts that need reconciling, but they never get to it. I have known business owners who continually ask for extensions on their federal taxes because they are doing it themselves (and some of them have been in business for more than 20 years, yet refuse to hire this out).

Bottom line here. If you don’t enjoy doing your accounting, why do it? I often recommend business owners hire at least a bookkeeper to get their receipts in order for tax time. It lowers stress (yes, please) and creates more time in your day to get your business done. That sounds good, doesn’t it?

Plus, when you hire a professional to take care of this part of your business, you are likely to get it done right the first time. Period.

When your business grows suddenly and unexpectedly, you need to be ready for extra accounting duties and maybe another tax bracket.

3. Communications

This one is my favorite. How are you going to continue to communicate with all of your current and new customers? Your fan base is building! It’s a great problem to have, however you need them to keep you front of mind, so how will you do that? Hmm, how?

You will communicate with them. Perhaps it’s a social media thing. Perhaps a card in the mail. A phone call. In any case, you need to create a communications protocol that will allow you to check-in with all of your new customers- and show some love to those who have supported you from the start.

Back to the Notes field, this game changing field in your CMS will help you stay current on what your customers’ interests are or what they might be interested in buying down the line. How will you know what to put in the Notes field? By listening well and taking, well, notes!

Communication = Appreciation. Know it. Do it.

If you want to learn more about small business marketing, check out my small business marketing program, The SMART Marketing Method.