5 ways to improve your business’s profitability now

Kat Soper shares her five quick tips for improving the profitability of your business, and you can get started today.

No one likes that pit of anxiety in their stomach wondering how they’re going to pay their business bills each month or wondering how much longer they’ve got in them to “stick this business out”.

If that’s where you’re at, here are five things you can do to immediately improve your profitability:

If your biggest problem is that your expenses are too high, look for money leaks.
Cancel any irrelevant or unused expenses, such as subscriptions you’re no longer using. Check that you’re on the correct level of subscription and using all its benefits or change down. For example, I just saved $300 per year by realising I was on the wrong Xero subscription.
Follow up late payers.
Got outstanding invoices? Follow them up or get someone else to follow them up for you. Include late payment penalties in your terms and add them to overdue invoices. Don’t be afraid to engage a debt collection agency or a debt buyer. Agree on your payment terms in writing before starting any work, and where possible take payment or a portion of payment before starting the work. Try to keep a consistent approach to billing and cashflow.
Follow up past enquiries.
Remember those people who enquired, and then you never heard back from them? Give them a nudge and see if they still need that problem solved. A lot of the time replying to you is burning a hole on their mental to-do list and you’ll be actually helping them out by getting back in touch. Be really casual about it. Just a simple “Hi <first name>. We spoke <when you spoke> and I wanted to follow up to see if you are still interested in <what they enquired about>. Have a great day, <your name>.
Follow ups like this produce a very high “yes” rate.
Create a compelling offer.

If its sales you need, it’s time to get creative by coming up with a compelling offer. This doesn’t mean a discount. Instead, consider what you do to add value, by offering a bundle, or encourage people to upgrade instead. The important components are that it must provide urgency (available for a limited time), scarcity (limited numbers available), or exclusivity (only for selected people). Combine all three of these buying triggers for ultimate sales success.

Get visible.
Now that you’ve got your compelling offer it’s time to get out there and tell people about it. It’s important to note that this takes consistency. One social media post or email telling people about your offer is not going to get you the results you desire. Eighty percent of sales are made between seven to 12 touch points. So ensure you’re doing everything you can to get your offer in front of the right people at least seven to 12 times. The best performing promotion campaigns are those that use a variety of different channels. So, think about how many different avenues you can use to get your offer out there.

I hope these five quick wins will prove helpful to you, by giving you some next steps to improve your business finances. Experience shows me that when they’re implemented they can have a massive difference on your results. But only if you take action.

Simon Sinek says “Words may inspire, but only action creates change”. So today, if change is what you desire, I wish you all the very best with your action. You’ve got this.

Kat Soper is a business strategist and trainer at The Helpful Academy. Join her free Business Growth community at https://www.facebook.com/groups/helpfulsystemsacademy