How to prioritise your business strategy

Once you have chosen a strategy to make your business more profitable, you should prioritise your business goals in order of importance. It's a good idea to write down your goals and the corresponding action plan to implement and achieve them.

Good planning helps you to anticipate problems and adapt as circumstances change and allows you to set goals and measure performance. Set measurable, time-limited targets to monitor how effectively your plans are implemented, Review what you've achieved so you can learn from your experience and make continuous improvements.

Set up systems that encourage the communication of best practice in your business. For example, benchmarking different parts of the business against each other can be a useful way of identifying and sharing best practice.

Improve communications with your customers and suppliers – they can offer useful tips and advice. Your customers will be aware of any problems and can tell you what you need to improve. Avoiding customers you know have complaints may simply make matters worse and mean you lose the opportunity to improve your business.

Prioritise the strategic goals you've chosen to improve your profit and focus on the most important ones.

Strategic goals to increase sales revenue

• Increase productivity of your staff - recognise and reward staff contributions with staff performance reviews, and teach them sales skills and how to upsell products so customers make multiple purchases at one time

• Develop new product lines - survey your customers about new products

• Find new customers - new customers can help grow your business

• Find new markets - use market research to determine if you could expand your business into new areas

• Customer service - improve your customer service and develop a staff training program

• Increase your prices - check if you have priced your goods and services correctly and if you could increase prices without reducing sales

• Price discounts - consider price discounts and promotions to increase your customer base (e.g. 2-for-1 deals or happy hour)

• Retail displays - use effective retail displays to increase your sales

Strategic goals to decrease costs

• Decrease inventory - stock control is a good way to streamline your business

• Decrease direct costs - make sure you have the right suppliers for your business and negotiate for better prices or discounts for buying in bulk

• Decrease indirect costs - for example, try to minimise waste and errors in your business by training staff, or reduce marketing costs by using low-cost marketing techniques

• Decrease overheads - for example, save energy wherever possible or try find a cheaper energy supply company

• Benchmark key financials - benchmarking your business helps you compare your costs (like rent and utilities etc.) to similar businesses in your industry to see if you are paying too much

If you have a slow season, think about introducing counter-cyclical products or services to your core business to generate incremental profits and cash flow. Knowing how and when to make crucial decisions is not always easy. The Business Minder understands what it takes to help make your business succeed. Being able to leverage my expertise when making important decisions can help you with the decisions you are choosing today.