Short Course- Improve Your Business

To get a business started and make it viable, requires hard work and persistence, chasing initial goals you set for yourself. Once those goals are achieved though; there is a temptation to feel secure in your achievement and resist setting higher goals and taking further risks to bring your business to the next level. If you understand what you are doing though; and push forward making good decisions, small businesses can grow to become medium size; and medium sized businesses can expand to become even larger.

It can be disastrous to grow any business faster than your ability to control it; but with proper monitoring of growth, and making good management decisions, risk can be minimised. Sometimes businesses may fail because the proprietor has been growth averse. Know your industry. Know your business. Understand that businesses do not remain viable when they stagnate. Either grow your turnover, or restructure to improve efficiencies and perhaps profitability. If you don’t change in some way, your business is at far greater risk of collapse.

This course will help you to see the possibilities for expanding your business; and understand how to make better decisions, with a greater chance of success in moving your business forward.

COURSE CONTENTS

Lesson 1: Recognising Problems - Where Things Go Wrong?
How to Recognise Problems
What Do Most People Do?
Focus on the Issues
Comparing Your Business to Your Competitors
Maintaining a Balanced Perspective
Recharge Your Batteries
Always Run Your Business as if it is For Sale
Checklist for Identifying the Problem
Finance
Product Range
Customer Service
Staffing
Marketing
Know your Competition
Checklist to Identify a Problem

Lesson 2: Changing with the Times
How Do You Do This?
1) Understanding Control
3) Adapt to Technology
5) Predict the Future
6) Know when to Get Out
6) Keep Learning
Some Golden Rules of Business

Lesson 3: Revise Financial Management
Initial Start-up Finance
Financial Difficulties in Business
1) Financial Service Providers
2) Spending
3) Payments
How to Borrow Money and Get the Best Deal
Business Costing
Pricing
Cash Flow
Ensure as well as Insure
Budgeting
Bookkeeping
Options for Improving Your Financial Position
Up-scaling a Business
The Cash Cycle – Cash Flow and Liquidity
Managing Bad Debts

Lesson 4: Revise Your Marketing
What Do We Mean By Marketing?
Raising Awareness
Convincing Them to Buy
Closing a Sale
Collecting Payment
Do You Understand the Basic Principles of Marketing?
Target Marketing
Supply and Demand
Competition
Know your Competition
Opening and Closing a Sale
Building a Client Base
Visibility and Impact
Billboards
Social Media
Websites
Newsletters
Aggressive Advertising
Blogs
E-zines
Discounts
Competitions
Networking
Re-focus Your Marketing
The Law and Selling
Marketing Strategies

Lesson 5: Revise Your Product
Choosing a Product Range
Why is the Product Not Selling?
Analysing the Product
Customer Feedback
Deciding to Drop a Product
Staff Awareness of Products
Use Accounting Practices for Stock Tracking and Stock Control
Product lines and mixes
Product life cycle

Lesson 6:  Revise and Engage Your Staff
The Individual as Staff
Employ Staff When Needed
Employing Permanent Staff
Employ the Workforce You Need, Not the Workforce You Want
Legal Obligations and Moral Obligations When Employing Staff
Who Do You Employ?
Employing Friends and Family – For and Against
Motivating Staff
Incentives
Giving Staff Responsibility
Avoiding Stress in Your Staff and Yourself

Lesson 7:  Using Business Systems to Improve a Business
Sales funnels
What is a Sales Funnel?
The Process
Ways to Create Sales Funnels
What Does a Sales Funnel Look Like?
Retail Sales and Sales Funnels
Keeping the Momentum Up
Setting sales targets
Sales analysis
why a Sales Analysis?
Other business systems
inventory Control
Striking a Better Deal - Optimising the Supply Chain
Budgeting and Budget Types
How Do You Make a Properly Considered Decision?
Solving Problems Systematically
Business Problem Considerations
Conclusion