Develop A Deeper and More Personal Relationship with Your Customers – Satisfying your customers should be a top priority of every business. It is crucial to understand your customers desires and to offer services and products that add value and exceed their expectations. You can gain insight into your customers by personalising your services and encouraging them to provide you with feedback by leaving reviews or completing surveys.
Use Social Media More Strategically – Social media is an excellent place to gather data about your customers that can be utilised to enhance your relationship with them. By utilising social media to tell a captivating story you humanise your business and sound less desperate to make a sale. Businesses should aim to use social media with the intention of building an online community that is passionate about the products you sell.
The best way to entice your customers to purchase your product through social media is to create a call to action by posting content that is either humorous, educational, entertaining or evokes strong emotion. It is important to share content that adds value to your customers life and most importantly entices your social media followers to join the conversation around your products by leaving comments and sharing your content with their friends.
Host Events and Give Back To Your Community – Hosting your own event can provide you with an excellent opportunity to get to know your customers and build better relationships. It would be a great idea to invite some of your most loyal existing customers and encourage them to bring their friends. Building brand awareness within your local community is a great way for small businesses to attract to new customers. Consider sponsorship or participating in a community event is a great way to give your business more exposure. Utilising cross-promotion with another small business in your local community is another excellent strategy to help your business reach new customers whilst at the same time helping support another local business.
Write Up A Detailed Budget and Place A Stronger Focus on Your Profitability – It doesn’t matter if you have 100 employees, 5 employees or if it’s just you working by yourself; when you have a business budget, it becomes much clearer on where you’re making money, where you’re spending and where to focus your time and energy.
It would be a great idea to focus on your profitability, this will help you create control around your growth, and assist you with minimising uncertainties. If you are starting out in business and currently working by yourself and in the future hoping to grow enough to be able to afford to hire more employees it would be wise to ask yourself important questions that are relevant to your business objectives such as; what your sales target must be before hiring, so you still make a profit? How many clients do you need to have before opening up a shop front? How many products do you need to sell, before you can potentially turn your side hustle into a full-time gig?
Make Sure You Have A Great Accountant to Help You Get Most Out of Your Tax Deductions – It is important to have an accountant that adds value to your business by helping you realise your tax benefits and supports you with difficult matters related to auditing, tax and payroll among other accounting services. It is also beneficial to have an accountant that delivers considerable savings regarding the day to day operation of your business.
A valuable accountant will coach you on how to improve your budgeting skills. Many small business owners learn how to spend their money effectively through trial and error. Having a well-informed accountant has the potential to offer you new ways to manage your money and reduce your number of unnecessary and wasteful expenses.
It might be good time to start looking for a new accountant if the status of your business has recently changed. For example; if your business has changed from a sole proprietorship to a limited company, you may have outgrown your accountant and they might no longer be relevant to your business structure and business objectives.
It is also a good idea to be aware of any self-education tax deductions you might be entitled to. Australian workers are currently able to claim tax deductions on self-education expenses when the education activities are directly connected to the income arising from their current employment activities. To be tax deductable the self-education must also maintain or improve the specific skills or knowledge that is required in your current work activities. Furthermore, the self-education should or is likely to result in, an increase to your income from your current work activities.