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Grab the gain and avoid the pain to make life easier

SEASONED entrepreneurs generally come in two categories – one is the bedraggled, hassled, stressed businessman who looks years older than he actually is; the other is calmness personified – he is successful but always has amazing holidays and lots of times off.

I’m sure we’d all prefer to be the latter but what can you do to help you in that quest? Here are some tips:

1. Plateaus – these are key times

Every business reaches plateaus during its growth.

SEASONED entrepreneurs generally come in two categories – one is the bedraggled, hassled, stressed businessman who looks years older than he actually is; the other is calmness personified – he is successful but always has amazing holidays and lots of times off.

I’m sure we’d all prefer to be the latter but what can you do to help you in that quest? Here are some tips:

1. Plateaus – these are key times

Every business reaches plateaus during its growth. For example, the time when you first need to employ someone, when you out-grow your premises, or when you need to put a management structure in place. Your costs suddenly go up until you can replace it with income.

When you reach an important plateau like this, it is important that your business is at a high level of profitability because the next step costs money, and probably also soaks up your time.

Before you commit to such a step, it is a good time to review your business and make some changes. You can try things when business is good, which means you can quickly ditch things that don’t work and do more of the things that do. Then take the next big step because you will know what is going to be successful.

2. Review Pricing

So many businesses charge too little, and some businesses lose market share by being too expensive. There is an optimum pricing level but it can be difficult to find. This should be something that is reviewed regularly and there should always be some experimentation going on – try out new pricing policies on new customers, for example, or a small group of existing customers.

3. Review your customers

Most businesses have nightmare customers who provide most of their aggravation but not much of their profit. You don’t have to say yes to every customer – sometimes it can be good to shed the worst 10 per cent and replace them with a higher quality 10%.

There are lots of other tips but the key thing is to be in control of your business. If you know where you want to get to and know how you are progressing towards that aim, you can then make proper, rational, and ultimately successful decisions.

Elsby & Co can help put you on that path. For practical, common sense and beneficial help, please contact Carl Elsby on 01604 678470.

Companies mentioned in this article

Elsby

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