Well for all the Monty Python fans out there, hopefully, you just sang the title and it brought a wee smile to what is, frankly, a pretty bleak outlook at the moment. Bad weather, COVID, fuel costs, inflation, winter ills and chills, staff shortages, the list goes on.
Sadly, I am already starting to get the calls from companies who are either packing up entirely, or are significantly downsizing. And, if you aren’t doing so already, I would strongly recommend that you take a long hard look at your business and ensure you are in the best possible shape to avoid being pushed into making those hard decisions, or, worse yet, being forced into liquidation.
We can’t control the weather, but what can we control?
- Are you paying for things you don’t need/use? – this may sound obvious, but it is amazing how quickly all those small value automatic payments add up. I was looking at my personal outgoings and between regular charity donations, Netflix, Apps, prime video, I managed to clock up over $200 per month on things that I didn’t necessarily need. For my business, the regular payments are much higher, so add up even quicker.
- Are there alternative options which are more cost-effective? NB cheaper is not always better, for example, I use Workflowmax, Xero, Mailchimp and Debtor daddy. Yes, there are cheaper options, but these systems are all integrated with each other and the cost of actually resetting the integrations would actually negate any cost savings
- Are my team giving the best return on their time spent? 10 minutes per day = 40 hours per year or 2% of your annual payroll spend. If your team are spending time doing things which don’t return benefit to the company then this is a lost opportunity and money. It is not about working harder, but about making sure what everyone is doing is providing the best return.
- Do some clients need to be fired? Late payers, time-intensive clients (for low return) and low margin clients may be making you busy, but are they actually contributing to/or taking away from the bottom line?
- What are my rework and productivity rates? If you don’t measure these things already, I would recommend you look at ways to start measuring them as the results can be quite scary (NB Point 3 above)
- Am I having unnecessary face-to-face meetings? With the cost of fuel and the time needed to get to and from face-to-face meetings, think carefully about whether these are truly necessary
- Are some parts of my business profitable, but others are not? If you answered yes, then either ditch the non-profitable, or think long and hard about what the benefit is, and when you need a return to be shown
- Cut your payroll spend – this is the biggest cost in virtually every business, but you do need to demonstrate you have done everything to avoid it if considering redundancy. I will be speaking more about that in the next newsletter
Business Case for Change
This month’s free webinar is about building the business case for change, and the following webinar is about Restructuring and Redundancy. You do need to demonstrate your business case, though, with a bit of luck the process of reviewing that business case will actually create sufficient change that you avoid the need for redundancies.
Call for help
This is a tough time for everyone, but please do give me a call on 021 741 544 to chat about your situation.
Or sign up for our document library with all the templates you need for only $399 + GST per year, or the DIY expert package with unlimited phone and e-mail support for $129+ GST per month (minimum 12 months)