BUSINESS HOW-TO
about venturing out into the wild blue yonder, you can be sure people are wanting to book trips. Encourage your team to put in their vacation requests now so they can be approved or denied sooner rather than later. This way, if someone does get their time off denied (usually because of scheduling issues), they can work around it and find another time to take the vacation they deserve. Plus, coordinating time off ensures you have staff on hand to get the work done. You always want someone available to take calls, schedule appointments, make sales, be there for customer support, etc. Plan for the worst. When is the last time you planned for the worst? This includes natural disasters, acts of God, technological malfunctions, data breaches, and, well, everything else. Take a look at your disaster plans and discuss them with your team. Everyone needs to know what happens when a hurricane is in the forecast. This is genuinely a big deal for many of our own clients in the Southeast. Out west, it’s wildfires and power outages. There is always some disaster to plan for. Then there’s the disaster without boundaries: tech disasters. This can be anything from hardware failure (the internet goes out, the phones stop working, the server gets fried, etc.) to outside threats (malware attacks, phishing scams, data breaches, etc.). If everyone is on the same page and knows whom to call or what action to take, your business is in a much better place to survive — and with some of these threats, the question of survival is very real. So, take some time and prep your business for the summer. Then, when summer arrives, you’re ready to go with fewer worries. And, who knows? Maybe you’ll even find yourself kicking back on a beach somewhere in the Caribbean enjoying the sound of a sapphire blue sea.
perform their best without the undue stress of training, etc. Get remodels, renovations, and maintenance out of the way. Spring is maintenance season — but a lot of businesses (and homeowners, for that matter) wait for even the most basic maintenance until it’s too late. You call the air-conditioning guy after it goes out rather than having someone come out to perform routine system maintenance before peak season. And then you have to wait because everyone else made the same mistake. Talk about misery. It’s also a great time to take care of any remodeling or renovations you need done around the business. Paint the walls or install new carpet — or completely change the layout of the office. The weather is generally cooperative, and by summertime, everything is wrapped up (hopefully). Get vacation time figured out ASAP. This is something we all tend to forget about until June, July, or August. With vaccinations rolling out across the country and more people feeling safer 4 THINGS TO DO RIGHT NOW to Prep Your Business for Summer
Summer is right around the corner. It’s always here before you know it, but you don’t have to be caught off guard! That’s exactly why we wrote this article: to share a few tips to help you make sure your business is ready to meet its own needs and those of your customers over the next few months. Here’s what you need to do. Reevaluate hiring. Most businesses have off seasons and on seasons. For example, landscaping businesses are out in full force right now, and they likely need to bring on additional staff to keep up with all the work. This is a good time to take a look at your own hiring needs. Do you need to ramp up hiring or should you suspend those listings on Indeed, LinkedIn, and everywhere else you post jobs? Whichever direction you need to go, get it taken care of now. That way, if you know you need extra summer staff, they’ll be ready to go once summer is underway. Another benefit — especially if you need to hire — is that getting it done now takes the pressure off the rest of your team, and they can continue to
3
www.newsletterpro.com
BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS TO HELP SMALL BUSINESSES SUCCEED.
208.297.5700
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker