How Was Your Year?
The year is coming to an end. Before we look forward to a bright New Year, as business professionals, we need to take a look back and see how the previous year went. How is your bottom line? How good is the internal and external communication of your business or organization? What portion of your business is performing well and what could use a boost?
Evaluating Your Bottom Line
Success isn’t only determined by dollars and cents, but hopefully this year ended with a nice, tidy bottom line for you. If you’re seeing more red than green this holiday season, though, there are obviously problems that need to be addressed.
First, look internally. Where can you boost efficiency? What big bets have you made this year that paid off and which didn’t? Which pieces of your organization need shoring up and how can you make that happen?
Then, look externally. Do people know about your business or organization? Are you developing and keeping a positive image in the public eye? How are sales doing against your projections?
Checking Internal and External Communications
Strong communications are absolutely essential for business success. Good internal communications enable the moving parts of your business or organization to work more efficiently while barriers to communication lead to problems, delays, and rework. Ideally, communication in any organization should be so smooth that issues raised by the lowest-ranked employees could reach the CEO the same day they come up.
External communications can be just as important as internal ones. A business that hums along like a well-oiled machine is useless unless people know it exists and like its products or services. In the current, highly-connected world this means having people on staff that are extremely proficient at putting your message out on social media or calling in an external service like SML that can expertly guide you to success online.
Which Parts of Your Business Need Reinforcements?
If there are portions of your business or organization that are struggling–and those issues are not related to supply chains or communications hiccups–it’s incredibly likely that they are understaffed. For those situations, you need not just more hands but the right hands. Put your emphasis on securing motivated team members who are willing to communicate and work hard.
Getting the right candidate on board starts with the very first word of your job posting and runs all the way to the offer acceptance handshake. If you have an internal HR department, make sure that they are focused on securing the right qualities for staff from the start. If you don’t have an HR department, SML can help you secure the right staff for the right portions of your enterprise with HR Support.
Once you’ve looked back on the past year and identified your challenges and your success, you’re ready to move into next year armed for success. Carry your learnings in communications, managing the bottom line, and retaining the best talent forward and see how much of a difference it makes in your operation.
Σχόλια