5 Things to Do After Launching Your Business

It is quite exciting to start a new business, especially with the vibes and energy that come with it. When you’re just starting, you’ll have the idea that your business will conquer the world and you’ll become the next Mark Zuckerberg.

There’s nothing wrong with some healthy ambition. And yes, you should aim for the stars. But the reality is that 90% of startups fail. So how do you run a successful venture and increase your chances of success? Here are five tips to get you started:

Keep sales and financial records

It is important to keep your books up to date from the first day of operations.

It is common for business owners to have a sales target for each month, keeping financial records gives you the real picture of where your business is in comparison to the set sales target.

On the other hand, you need to keep a close eye on your spending. Are there any hidden expenses? Are we spending money on things we don’t really need? Will you be able to pay your bills on time? If you don’t keep track of it, you won’t know.

Once your operation gains some traction, you often find there is quite a significant amount spent on things your business doesn’t need. Especially take a look at subscription services paid by credit card.

It’s easy to sign up for an online service and then forget about it. And if it’s a small amount you might think it’s not that big of a deal. But if you have multiple of those ‘ghost services’ and calculate the cost on a yearly basis you’ll find that the number you could save can be significant.

Business records can be maintained manually, computerised on a spreadsheet or kept online.

Online accounting is one of the easiest and most accurate means of keeping records for business growth.

Frequently engage with your team

So, you have moved from being a solopreneur to a startup with a growing team. To keep your employees motivated and engaged, employee engagement strategies should be utilized.

Being an employee in a start-up company goes beyond working 8–5; it means more than 11 hours of each day is dedicated to your job. In fact, it requires working on weekends sometimes. As a start-up owner, the least you can do, is to make them your employees fell all their hard work, energy and sacrifice is worth it and appreciated.

Apart from working for you, they are a representative of your business brand. You need to know and help with mental, emotional, marital struggles they might be facing that could affect their performance at work. By doing this, a sense of belonging is created in the workforce, thereby making them eager to do more and be committed. Also, you could engage them in activities outside the working environments.

Get feedback from customers

Customer feedback is one of the keys to business growth. A good way to do this is by following up with your customers and ask for reviews; how satisfied they were and how you could improve.

If you’re a CEO that is committed to make your company a success you should pick up the phone, and go out on the streets to speak with actual customers.

A lot of businesses get feedback from social media through rating, by sending out emails or point of sales feedback. Putting a call through to them is a guarantee to getting a clear message from your customers as they are more expressive than replying to your emails. By getting constant feedback, you can improve your service based on what your customers really want, not assumptions.

Search ways to continuously improve services

The world is constantly changing, so does business. You may be confident that you have the perfect solution for today’s problem, and tomorrow, another problem surfaces and it downs on you the solution you swear by has nothing on the problem. With the advent of technology, our needs are constantly changing.

Hence, as an entrepreneur, you should be open to new ways to improve your business. Adopt practices or feature that appeal to your customer needs. People are now less patient, and more connected, so if you are still using the old approach or outdated services, they can easily find an alternative.

Track your business growth

After being in operations for about a year, you are asked these questions: “Are you making a profit?” “How many clients have you had?” Do you have an accurate answer to these?

Many times, entrepreneurs cannot even figure out if they making sales or running at a loss as long as there is an inflow of money in the business account. Tracking your business gives you clear-cut of all your sales, expenses, profits and loss.

It lets you know how much goes on each expense, giving you a real-time data to make business decisions like how to sort alternatives that can save you money. You also get to compare your end of the year financial record against your targeted sales, this should be shown in percentage, either tabulated or on a graph, to give a clear understanding to everyone involved. Online cloud accounting solutions, like Accounteer, helps you grow your business using accounting data.