By Evan Vitale
How “healthy” is your business?
That’s probably a question you don’t hear a lot. While we try to take care of ourselves by (hopefully) eating right; exercising; getting enough sleep, etc., as business owners we need to make sure our business and organizations are equally as healthy so they can survive; fight off “viruses” and make a profit each year.
Here’s a checklist of sorts to help you conduct a self-examination and overall evaluation of your business’ health:
- Your staff – do you have excellent people on board to help you take your business to the next level? Are they performing to their full potential? Do you allow them to work freely or are you micro-managing them every step of the way? How are you keeping them motivated? Do you need to let someone (or more) go? Do you need to bring on more employees this year?
- Resources – review your business and marketing plans for the upcoming year. Update them as necessary. Review your risk management and make sure you take care of you (the owner). Have a plan in place in case something should happen to you or to a valuable management member on your team.
- Company operations – is a clear plan in place for growth and team development?
- Finances – review your company’s cash flow. This is the lifeblood of your business. What’s coming in and what’s going out (how much and when).
- New ideas – are you innovative and do you have good ideas to help fuel growth? Make sure that you know what’s going on in your industry and stay up-to-date on business trends. Study your competition and keep up with what they are doing to earn business (and possibly take business away from your company).
- Technology – always changing, but you need to ensure that your company is up-to-date with software and hardware needs in order to be more effective. Even a minor computer problem with your bookkeeper can cause things to slow down.
Did you find areas needing improvement?