It's the end of another financial year, and typically this is time for businesses to take stock of where they are at, where they want to be and make plans for the year ahead. So what should you be thinking about at this time of year? Here are three business resolutions that you might want to consider for the next financial year.
Set goals
Did you set goals for last financial year? If you did, now is the time to review and see whether you met them and if you want to continue them for the next financial year. By setting goals you can more easily check how you're tracking and see if what you're doing is getting results. Goals are especially great for marketing. Without a clear goal that's measurable you can end up wasting a lot of time and money on unprofitable marketing strategies that just don't work.
Streamline processes
Now is a great time to set up project management software or think about your business processes and how you could do things more efficiently and in less time. This is especially useful if you manage a team but even solo businesses can benefit from structured processes and workflows.
This something I have been working on for the next financial year and I'm finding it makes a huge difference. If there are emails you regularly send (for example to new leads or to follow up on invoices), just taking a few minutes to create a form template you can quickly tweak and send can save you hours over the course of the year. I have also just switched to using Asana for project management and this is fantastic as it puts all my projects in a single place, creates a calendar of things to do and generally helps me keep track of everything without going crazy.
Consider outside help
If you've been a one man or woman operation for the last year, is it time to start looking outside for a bit of external help? While outsourcing can cost you money, it can also save you money over the long term by allowing you to focus on bringing in more revenue for your business, instead of spending hours of your time creating graphics on Canva or trying to figure out your BAS.
When deciding what to outsource and what to DIY, it can help to think about what the activities are that you spend the most time on that aren't bringing you in any revenue. For some people (like me!) it's things like accounting, website updates and designing social media graphics. For someone else it could be chasing up unpaid invoices or blog writing. How much would it cost you to pay someone else to do those tasks? And how much time would it free up for you to spend on the work that does bring you income? If you do the calculations you will often find it makes good financial sense to outsource those areas that are not your speciality.
A new financial year is a great time for a fresh start. What are your NFY resolutions?
If you're keen to streamline your content marketing next financial year, I can help! Drop me a line to have a chat about your copywriting or content marketing needs.