Organizing Your New Business in 2014

The ink is barely dry on your new business cards, but your new business is ready to receive its first customer and sale. Before you get started and before your business becomes a hotbed of furious spending activity, you might want to take the time to properly organize the venture you plan to run. Organizing your new business doesn’t have to be a chore. Below are a few steps that you can take right now to get a head start on your new business organization that will alleviate stress and keep your business moving even during times of strive. Without organization, you might quickly get in over your head and that can cause you to want to quit outright. Take the time to organize so that 2014 becomes the year that your business not only starts, but also becomes ultra-successful.

Office Organization

Organizing your new business should always start with your office and everything you will need to access as your business progresses day-to-day. This includes your desk and everything on it, any filing cabinets that may be used and their files, and even your computer and all the files that you must access; make sure everything that you must reach for, touch, use and select are within easy reach and always locatable.

As your new business gain speed, you may at times find yourself running around like crazy. Organizing your business at the onset is the best way to avoid burnout and high levels of stress when business is good, but hectic.

Day-to-Day Processes & Goal Setting

You may have in your mind’s eye a list that you must follow every day to get the job done, but write the list on paper anyway. Having a physical checklist of your daily processes will help you stay on track during those days when you’re frazzled and ready to tear your hair out. They can also prevent procrastination. Checklists can also help you pass the business to someone else one day if you ever think of selling. Lastly, having a checklist of must-dos will help you remain on track even when you feel like quitting; which every business owner experiences at some point or another.

The checklists you write should include all the steps that you need to take daily, weekly, monthly and yearly; and they should also include a series of goals that you are working towards. Set lots of minor goals that are easy to achieve and work up to major goals that will take time to complete. The checklists and constant goal meeting and setting will make you feel as though you are consistently improving, which is important if you hope to achieve the optimal business mindset.

Customer Service & Marketing

Your customers are the ones keeping you in business and keeping them happy should be your number one priority. Keep a spreadsheet of your customers and any information that will help you offer them exceptional levels of personalized service. Notice the word ‘personalized’. Your customers don’t want to feel like another number; they want to be seen as special and unique. Treat them that way by calling them by name and by communicating with them in ways that show that you are paying attention and that you value each customer as if they were your last.

While you are keeping a spreadsheet of your new business customers, be sure to create a separate one for your marketing efforts. Your day-to-day processes may include one or more marketing processes, such as social media postings or newsletter blasts. You will want to include the marketing methods you use, the dates and the results of those methods. Organizing your new business in this way will give the added benefit of allowing you to test the efforts you put forth, enabling you to hone your marketing over time for even better results.

Accounting, Invoicing, Banking and Taxes

If you don’t use a spreadsheet for organizing your business finances, at least use some type of software. Quicken is a good example of a program that will help you keep track of payments, expenditures, invoices and your 2014 new business taxes. If you want your new business to be successful, you will want to track every dollar coming in, every one going out, and every receipt from the beginning of the year until the very end. This will not only make tax time easier, but it will allow you to see where improvements need to be made to improve cash flow and the success that your business achieves.

Insurance & Risk Assessment

Earlier it was mentioned that organizing your new business was important in case you ever wanted to pass your torch to another; but what if you are ever ill or otherwise incapacitated and you can no longer run your business on your own? Organizing your new business will make sure that anyone taking over for you will be able to do a good job in your absence. You will also make it easier to shut your business down permanently or temporarily until you are ready to come back and take the helm once more.

For the above reasons and to increase your chances of achieving 2014 new business success, speak to an insurance agent about business interruption and other business insurance packages. Then make sure to keep your business portfolio organized just like everything else in the off chance that the worst case scenario ever comes to be.

With the above tips and the right business plan, your new business will be a force to be reckoned with in the New Year.

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