Having made your first sale and, with the right marketing, many more, you need
to be able to manage your home business so you can keep up the momentum and
grow at a comfortable pace.
To achieve this, you will need to focus on the three elements that underpin
any successful business - customers, new business and administration.
Customer care
Its obvious, but always deliver a quality product or service, on time and
within budget, as the consequences of failing in this regard sounds the
death knell of many a new business
Get feedback from your customers so that you can keep a check on what they’re
thinking and changes they’d like to see. This could be in the form of
testimonials or a customer survey. There are a variety of software packages
available to help with customer relationship management (CRM), the most
well-known of which is probably Salesforce - a tool to help maintain
good relationships with existing customers and also win new ones.
New business
Be creative and always be on the look out for new avenues of opportunity. Be
proactive in generating new clients, but remember to take care of existing
customers. Why? Because it costs less to win repeat business, than it does
to find new clients.
Alos, if your customers are happy, they’ll say good things about you and this
kind of word-of-mouth marketing is every business owner’s dream. Its a
service that cannot be paid for and is invaluable as a way of winning new
clients or customers.
Administration
The piece of the triangle is about keeping the finances in check and the books
up-to date. Stay on top of cashflow by issuing invoices on time and
employing a system in place that alerts you if payment hasn’t been made.
Keep your invoices clear and simple and include only basic details - the less
cause for question on the invoice, the faster it will be paid. Similarly,
settle invoices promptly; suppliers will be grateful and repay you with good
service.
To balance budgets and the books it is worth investing in some accounting
software. Priced at between £50 to £100 for ‘starter’ versions, these
packages offer sales and expense tracking, invoice templates, bank
reconciliations and basic book-keeping.
(Quickbooks - quickbooks.intuit.co.uk,
FreeAgent Central - www.freeagentcentral.com
and Sage - www.sage.co.uk are among some
of the most popular packages)
Spending equal amounts of time on each of these three areas will ensure your
business is kept almost perfectly in balance.
Emma Jones is the founder of online home business company Enterprise Nation
(www.enterprisenation.com)
and author of Spare Room Start Up – how to start a business from home.
