Being a business owner is a multi leveled and sometimes multi personality, ongoing crazy train with mountain highs and valley lows intermixed. Phew!
“Never a dull moment.” they said. “Always an adventure”, they claimed.
Crazy train or not – this is your business. Your life – YOUR adventure. So buckle up!
Just as you need to visit the 50 ft view of your business – you also need to drill down into your business on a regular basis. Consider it a self inflicted business audit. Your business could have leaks you don’t know about. You could have potential issues you have let slide. And we all know that leaks – especially the unsuspecting ones are what can sink a ship.
A few things to consider …
If you have memberships and subscriptions for your business, yourself or your employees, you need to check on these from time to time. They could be memberships to online courses, subscriptions to software or access to platforms. Some may be obsolete to your business but haven’t been canceled. Some you may have outgrown. The more employees you have, the more you may find this internal audit pertinent to your business. If you are on the fence about keeping a service, reach out to the company and see if they have a lesser package or will discount your rate. It’s amazing what some companies will do to save you as a customer.
If you sell products online, do you check for failed payments or abandoned carts? This is a huge area of leaking money. If you have failed payments on subscriptions or on payment plans – they can easily get missed. You need to have these audited at least twice a month. If you have an online store make sure you setup an automated abandoned cart sequence to reach out to your customers when they have left items unpurchased.
If you change employees, do you have a procedure for offboarding? Changing passwords, cleaning up files, transferring information. Many people think this isn’t necessary or perhaps they will get to it ‘later’. We all know that ‘later’ is easily forgotten. Make sure you have a documented process for locking down information when employees leave the company. This isn’t a process out of fear – this is a process out of necessity.
A profitable business isn’t just about making money.. It’s about finding the areas to save in. A penny saved is a penny earned, right? Regardless if it’s new revenue through increased sales or found revenue in savings, it still increases your bottom line. So don’t discount the ability to find savings for your business.
Remember, just because it’s what has always been done, doesn’t mean it’s still relevant today. Keep this in mind as you schedule quarterly audits of your business.
