Today’s guest post comes from Bruce Poling from The Joinery Coach and here he’ll be sharing his top tips to get your Business Recovery Plan implemented and working for you.
The first thing to remember is that this is not “business as usual” for anyone – not just the manufacturing industry. But we do need to keep in mind that the current situation will not last so it’s important to focus on the future and start taking charge of what we can control in order to create the future we want.
The main goal during this period is to ensure your business doesn’t just survive, but that you thrive, so that means you need a strategy for the short term that also takes into consideration your main business goals for the longer term.
Most businesses sit in one of three categories;
- Strategy focussed: actively working on the business and doing well in most areas
- Unfocussed: still taking the same approach as always, not motivated to make changes
- Fear focussed: struggling (and not just because of Coronavirus) and paralysed
No matter where you sit in the above categories there are three clear steps you can take today to start to take control of your future.
- Dig into your finances so you know exactly where you stand
- Get your Profit & Loss statement up to date
- Limit or cease any low return-on-investment expenses
- Stop any unnecessary payments
- Focus on future income
- List all jobs and your expected income for the next three months
- Have a clear understanding of who is likely to pay (and who isn’t)
- Negotiate with suppliers for extended terms
- No defects
- Ensure all work is 100% defect free
- Ensure all work is done on time
- Don’t give customers any reason to hold back payments
Now is the time to be checking your procedures and processes – what can you be doing within your business to continue to build trust and help your customers connect with your business? You can grow connections and gain trust by sharing your day-to-day life in the business, investing in team training, raising the bar within your business for service and delivery, and focussing on the needs and values of your clients.
If you don’t already have a Strategic Plan, now is the time to write one. Don’t make this plan overly complicated – a single, A4 page should contain all you need to know. Your Strategic Plan needs to include:
- Specific goal/s
- Revenue targets and time frames
- What resources are needed to meet the goals
- Identification of weaknesses or barriers to success (and steps to overcome them)
- KPIs so you can track your progress and ensure the time frames are achievable
This is also an ideal time to write a Marketing Plan which should detail the ways in which you will utilise your marketing strategies to achieve the goals in your Strategic Plan. Again, this doesn’t need to be a lengthy document – you should be able to outline the main points on a single page. Your Marketing Plan needs to include:
- Your target market (demographics, geographical location etc…)
- Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) – what makes your business different, why do people buy from you, what expertise do you offer?
- Long and short-term goals
- How will you measure success
- A clear time frame for each marketing campaign or strategy
We can’t pretend today’s circumstances aren’t challenging but that shouldn’t stop us from focussing on the future and making plans now that will position our businesses to be in the strongest possible positions as we head out of this situation and back into the “new normal”.
About the author: Bruce Poling worked for many years as a cabinetmaker and ran his own successful joinery business. After selling his cabinetmaking business in 2002, he segued into business coaching and now applies his passion for the industry towards helping other joinery, furniture and cabinetmaking businesses reach their potential. He offers a range of programs across Australia to suit the varying needs of all businesses, including the hugely successful Joinery GPS Program. For more information visit thejoinerycoach.com
