Your Business Is Failing: What Can You Do To Stop This From Happening?

Maybe not my usual subject, but it is closely related to a lot of the things I post about work life, and I definitely have experience in this. If you’ve come to this post then it might be the case that that your business isn’t doing as well as you planned. There are plenty of reasons this might be happening, and it is, of course, important that you take as many precautions as possible to stop things getting any worse. The long term goal will be to retain and improve, but at bare minimum you need to stop things from getting worse, at least in the short term. In this post I’ll cover a few of the things you can do to give your business a better chance of survival.

Get The Help Of Outside Companies Where Needed 

There might be times where you need to hire the help of outside companies to get your business where it needs to be. There is nothing wrong with admitting this, though some business owners feel as though their pride is being wounded when they have to outsource. You shouldn’t feel this way though! It’s becoming increasingly common, it’s a cheaper option than hiring an expert yourself, and you get professional help with whatever you need. For example, if you have an important pitch coming up, then you could hire a PowerPoint agency to create this for you. It takes one task off of your plate, and you know that you’re going to get exactly what you need. If you aren’t sure where to start, maybe try getting some recommendations from friends or people you trust. You could try using a Business Broker in Denver, CO, if this is where you are based. Or ask for some suggestions for ones more local to you.

Replace Poor Employees With Great Ones

If you have people who work for you, take the time to identify any weaknesses or gaps for improvement in your employees. This isn’t necessarily to say that any of them aren’t doing a good job, you may not just be getting the best work from them. Create an environment where your employees thrive and you can guarantee you will get better work from them. Comprehensive and flexible training can also help to lift your retail store performance (or whichever industry you’re in), so make sure not to neglect this area of the company. That said, there might be people who you feel aren’t doing a good job and don’t want to be there. You pay them to do a job for you and you need to make sure that they are doing this.

Once you have addressed any improvements you can make in your employees, you might decide to hire some new talent. Make sure that you go through the hiring process thoroughly so that you don’t have to go through it again in a couple of months. Hiring the right person isn’t always going to be easy and it’s not going to be a short process by any means, but it saves you a long time in the future. 

Work On The Security Of Your Business

You’re also going to need to ensure that you’re keeping an eye on the security of your business. This is something that will need to take super seriously. The last thing that you need is to be on the receiving end of a data breach lawsuit! If you’ve never heard of these up until now then you’re lucky, as they are more common than anyone would like to think. These are filed when someone’s data is stolen by an individual or a group from a company, or if the company accidentally gives away data belonging to their customers. More often than not it’s the result of a hacking against the business, but the company lost the data and therefore the fault is on them.

As such, it’s paramount that you are taking care when it comes to the security of your business, both online and offline. Online security can be managed by your IT team if you have one. Alternatively you can hire a specialist security company to look after this. Do your research and ensure you’re doing everything you can keep your business safe. Just having knowledge and awareness might help to avoid any issues down the line. If you have a physical office space or unit that your business works from you’ll need to ensure that is covered too. Offline security can include CCTV and security systems, smart locks, and even security personnel if needed.

Start Making Improvements To Your Business Site

Your business’ website can be massively important to the overall success of your company. A lot of business owners forget this, or just don’t think that it’s actually that important, but it could well be one of the biggest problems that your business faces. With the majority of people buying things online, business websites hold more importance than ever before. If your site loading times are more than around two seconds (maximum), there’s no way that a user is going to stick around and wait. Especially not when there is another site that loads faster and provides the exact same products or services as you.

It’s important to get a web designer on side to make improvements to your business website asap if you notice this is an issue. They will be able to rearrange your site so it’s easier to use, it loads faster, and so it stands out against your competition. We know that it’s probably more money that you didn’t want to spend, but it’s gotta be done if you want to see an improvement. 

Sort Your Finances So You’re Back On Track

When you run a business, one of the things that can get out of hand pretty quickly is your finances. This is due to the outgoing costs you have before you have even launched your new business. You need to ensure that you have enough money set aside while you build up rapport with customers. You don’t want to end up in the red before you have even fully opened to the public. This will take you longer to escape and you may end up snowballing into more and more debt.

It might help to have an accountant on your team to ensure your finances are on the right track. They will give you some helpful advice on where your money should be going rather than where it is going. If you don’t want to hire an accountant to use all the time, you could use a freelancer. They will cost more money in the short term, but in the long run it might work out cheaper than hiring a full-time worker. 

Build Up Your Leadership Skills

In order to run a successful business you need to know how to be a great leader. Your business won’t stand the test of time if you let it fall into the gutter! Running a business may seem like an easy thing to do, but it can be one of the hardest parts of the business world. You need to know how to run everything from stock levels to employees. Getting one thing wrong in your business could actually have a knock on effect and eventually spell the end of it. 

If you have never ran a business or managed a team, you might benefit from attending a leadership course. There are a few online courses if you prefer to do distance learning while working behind the scenes in your company. Alternatively, there may be an in person course at your local college if you prefer a more personal approach. 

Stop Underestimating The Power Of Marketing

And finally, something you need to think about when it comes to your business is marketing. There are so many marketing methods that could work for your company, however, there are also ones that won’t be relevant. If you use the ones that don’t work for your business then you are at risk of missing out on vital customers and sales. First work out which ones you want to use, these could be included in your business plan. For instance, you might want to use social media platforms. Social media is your best friend when it comes to marketing your business and your brand. A lot of people use social media on a daily basis, so its a great way of reaching your target audiences. You might even choose to spend a little money and buy TikTok followers from trusted vendor, or followers for another platform like Instagram if that’s your preferred choice, in order to expand your reach to as many potential customers as possible.

Be careful which social media platforms you chose as some might not have the numbers you need to reach. It all depends on who your target audience is and the highest demographic of each site. If you don’t want to rely on social media then you still have some of the old school marketing techniques. These include leaflets around the neighbourhood or email marketing. 

Hopefully this article has given you some top tips on how you can prevent your business from failing. You don’t want to be joining the growing list of businesses that don’t make it to their fifth year of trading. There are many hurdles that can get in your way when trying to grow a successful business. Fingers crossed you and your business stand the test of time.

LL x

*This is a contributed post. As ever, all opinions are my own.