(Newswire.net — September 20, 2020) — The first year that a business is operating is an incredibly exciting and stressful time. There is so much that you need to build while still balancing your finances and keeping your customers happy. One of the main keys to success during this year is to avoid burnout. You need the right team, equipment, and business plan to stay on top of your work. Check out these five keys to ensure the health of your business.
1. Make sure your data is secure.
In 2020, every company has data. Even if you are just a small business, you have access to your employee’s personal information, marketing insights, financial records and passwords. If your business is online, you may also have access to a customer’s email address or credit card information. The more data you have access to, the more you need to ensure that your systems are secure. After all, if a customer’s email address is hacked after shopping with you or an employee’s personal information gets leaked, you’ll lose credibility. That would be a huge hit, especially for a small business. You can’t afford to stop your business because of a phishing scammer hacked its way into your system.
Data science and database management are complicated and crucial, so you should work with a professional consultant to make sure it’s done right. A company like Life Raft can make sure your cloud is secure and even provide training and insights to your team members.
2. Hire the right talent.
The employees that you bring on to help your company grow can make your break your business. Too many employers hire based on a “gut feeling,” or bring friends of friends on board without checking out their abilities. Your business may be small, but you can still develop unbiased and effective hiring policies to make sure you bring on quality employees.
Sifting through resumes and interviewing candidates can feel like a full time job in itself, but there are services that make it easier for you by improving your job postings and filtering through applications to find quality candidates. You can also use a service like GoodTime, an online interview scheduling platform, to schedule interviews in bulk if you need to hire multiple workers. With the right people, you can move your company forward.
3. Make sure you pay your team.
It might sound silly to mention paying your employees, but many companies struggle with cash flow during their first year. Vendor payments can be late, invoices pile up and your employees are left waiting for their paychecks. If you can’t pay your staff, they won’t be able to help you. They have rent, insurance, and grocery payments of their own and can’t stay on for free. A few things that can help in this regard are making sure to run everything through a business bank account, installing accounting software and using an online check printing service to make payroll easier. This ensures that your team members get paid on time, which makes them happier and more motivated to build your brand.
4. Create a marketing budget.
During your first year, people need to know who you are. Decide how you want to grow your business, either through social media, SEO, paid advertising, public relations or a combination of these.
Keep a monthly marketing budget and set goals for reaching new audiences. Track your new customers versus returning customers and see how their behavior changes. A healthy business needs a mixture of new clients and loyal shoppers to keep growing, which you can curate through your detailed marketing plan.
5. Learn the basics of finance.
Regardless of whether you are opening a cupcake shop or international technology firm, you will encounter financial documents that you need to understand so that they can inform your decisions. While your bookkeepers can organize your finances and explain what they mean, it helps to have an understanding of your own.
Consider signing up for an online course or in-person weekend class to learn the basics of accounting. You don’t have to become an expert on commercial tax law, but you can use accounting software like Quickbooks to help balance a budget, forecast sales and make sure your promotional efforts have a strong return on investment.
You may feel overwhelmed by the amount of work you have to do with your new business. However, each lesson you learn brings you closer to success. With these steps, you can stay in a good place financially and mentally.