Sunday, May 13, 2012
Spring Cleaning Your Business
Spring is in the
air with blooming flowers and warm showers. Spring is the time to open your
office windows to allow fresh air to come in. Don’t forget, your business should
get that breath of fresh air also. Simple things can be done to refresh and tidy up your company. Why not start with the
technology? There are technological improvements that may well pay for
themselves in speed and efficiency.
Technology is
continually evolving, allowing for more choices to upgrade both your current
software and hardware. All security and protection programs should be
continually updated in your office so that each desktop is running the latest
version. It is very easy to adjust the setting on these programs to enable them
to automatically update. This is manageable, time saving protection for your
office computers. Additionally, file backup is a lifesaver for most businesses
when it would seem that all is lost.
Update your backup
program and hardware as often as you update operating systems so that they are
able to work in sync. Backups allow for an extra measure of safety and allow for
less space to be occupied on your hard drive. With less space used on your hard
drive you may be able to shift your focus to cleaning up and organizing your
files.
The quicker you
actually work on organizing your files, the less time you will have to spend in
the future to do this. If it has been almost a decade since you have done a
cleanup, or even looked at any of the files on your computer, the cleanup will
take awhile. Start reorganizing files, as soon as possible, and save yourself
the mess to clean up later on. Have you taken a look at your printer lately? A
really hard look?
A printer is one of
the items on your desk, most taken advantage of, because its care is not your
primary focus, as are other parts of your desktop. Consistent maintenance is
the key to keep your printer working, not crossing your fingers. Clean out the
paper trays, make sure everything in the printer is moving smoothly and check
for software updates. These are basic steps to keep your printer working well.
So you have cleaned up electronically, how about taking some time for cleaning
your physical workspace? Get some compressed air and cloths and clean off your
whole desktop, from keyboard to screen, to make sure that they stay functioning.
Now that you have spent money to spring clean, about taking some time to save
some cash.
In
order to run a business, there will always be expenses. When was the last time that you thought of ways to
get rid of expenses? That does not mean to throw out all expenses, but rather to
lose those expenses that are of no use to your company. You can first eliminate
any expenses that you can’t defend; whether it is to your customers or your
stockholders. As the old saying goes “money does not grow on trees”. So when
your overall costs exceed your profit, your plan
cannot be to go to your nearest garden and pick
off some extra hundred dollar bills. A working plan is to look at your daily
tasks, to see which tasks you can eliminate to save time and
money.
Why not take some
time to make a list of all the activities in which you’re engaged, and put the
activities up to a cost benefit analysis to see which items
are:
- Actually bringing
in a profit (new customers, new leads, or new products)
- Necessary to keep
you in business.
- And needed by your
customers
When was the last
time you examined your business from top to bottom, physical presence vs.
virtual presence? Is it up to the standards listed above?
It may be hard to
evaluate yourself and your business which you have built and nurtured. Here a
few tips to help with the spring cleaning:
- Evaluate your
business from the eyes of your customer; what items would be high points and what
items would be low points? If you are unsure, ask them personally to see their opinion of your website, brand, stores, and
customer service. Also you may have to look through their eyes in respect to
your business’ current partnerships.
- There is no point
in having professional partnerships which do not help your business. Do not just
throw away all of your partnerships to make a buck. Look at what you
bring to the table in each partnership and compare it to what your partners
bring. Look to see if it is worth saving the relationship, or if you should quit
while you are ahead. If not ahead, is it time to cut your losses? If it is
worth saving, find the things that need to be changed in order for the
partnership to work more profitably.
- Organize and make
room. Our business has a goal of clearing
out the filing cabinets to make more office space. We have, slowly,
worked on this process. Progress has been, and is being, made.
There is no need to
try and spring clean everything this spring,
but gather some ideas of what you can accomplish and how you can move forward,
when time allows. With all of these cleaning possibilities, do not forget that
you are not a machine. Make a conscious decision to disconnect for a while and clear your mind by walking away, so that
when you come back you will have the stamina and a clear head that is needed
to complete your spring cleaning list.
posted by Angelica Endres at
12:15 PM - permalink
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