Cutting down on the amount of money you lose each month or year is a priority when you’re running a profitable business. It’s your responsibility to keep on top of your finances and highlight areas where you’re potentially losing more than you should be. A great business owner will accept they have some issues and deal with them. Over time, this will gradually enhance the health of the company. But there are sometimes things that can affect a business without the owners realising. Consider these three ways your company could be losing money and find some valuable solutions or avoid them altogether.
Staff Sickness
Sometimes illness cannot be avoided and as a business owner, you have to adapt to when you’re staff call in sick. But if patterns are emerging and a member of your team is continually sick, it can have a negative impact on your business’ finances. This is due to sick pay for the individual, finding and paying replacement staff and the administrative costs. If this is continual happens it can also lower the quality of your product and services that could mean you lose custom too. To solve this issue, you could outsource from Health Assured’s absence management solutions for example. Outsourcing can help you to monitor your staff’s absences easily and effectively. It’s important to set up a policy regarding being absent and also talk to our employees. There may be an underlying issue you could help them deal with.
Not responding quickly enough
Customers will frequently be contacting you with queries about your product or service. It can be overwhelming to be continually answering emails and calls, but not replying promptly can lose you a great deal of custom. Your customers may tire from waiting for a response and go elsewhere for what they require. Avoid this altogether by planning some time during your day to contact your customers. You can speed up the process by creating email templates, but always make sure it’s personal by using the client’s name. For calls, ring them back when you say you will and again always use their full name when addressing them. You’ll find these simple techniques go a long way when you’re trying to finalise a sale.
Filling and Paper
Whatever kind of business you run, it’s guaranteed you will have some sort of filing system for your paperwork. It’s also likely that you and your staff will use hundreds of pieces of paper each week to keep your business running smoothly. Both of these are essential, but their overall costs are costing your company a lot of money. The simplest solution to this is keeping accurate records backed up online for efficient storage. Also, stop using paper and convert to emails and online documents for memos and invoices instead. This will save your money on copying, shredding and storage solutions, meaning you can use that money elsewhere.
These solutions will help you make a real success of your business and improve your financial standing. Thoroughly analyse your expenses and outsource services to help you pinpoint current problems. By tackling these head on, your business will become more lucrative and profitable, which is an excellent result for any business owner.