Have you restarted your business after lockdown? After being closed for a while, it can sometimes be hard to getting trading again. Perhaps you’ve lost your business mojo? Or just lost momentum so you need a boost to get moving again.
To help you get into the swing of trading again, here are 3 tips which can help you ensure that you are making sales as soon as possible.
- Review Your Ideal Customer
The purpose of any business is to serve their customers. Let’s start with the basics – who is your perfect customer? Who would you like to have a customer? Who is the customer that you would like to be doing business with day in, day out?
Seth Godin talks about establishing the smallest viable audience. This concept is rather than try and appeal to everyone and actually pleasing no-one, what is the smallest number of customers that you need for your business to make the income that you need. By getting really specific the clarity of what you offer, communicate and deliver will get better.
Vague and vanilla speaks to no-one!
Once you are really clear on what they look like, you can be clear on their needs.
Even if you were really clear on this before lockdown, it is worth repeating this exercise as it is possible that things will have changed.
- Review Your Prices and Products
Take this as an opportunity to review your prices. If you have had a gap in trading then this is a great opportunity to make some changes.
The first step is to check your previous numbers. Review the data that you have and what has sold well before. Where there any seasonal variations that you should keep in mind?
The second steps is to check your costs. It might sound daft, but did these sales give you a profit? Or have costs changed as a result of lockdown. There have been a number of supply issues which have increase costs so double check everything is as you remember it!
A recent article in the Sunday Times reported that over 50% of the UKs best-known restaurants had put their prices up when reopening after lockdown.
Whilst you have your sales data to hand take this as an opportunity to review the products or services that you offer. Is it time to make changes to what you offer? In previous articles we advised taking time during lockdown to do some new product development. If you did that you may well have new products that you can launch. If not, it isn’t too late. Pay close attention to what is selling, talk to customers about what they like and don’t like about what you offer. That data along with your review o costs will mean you have a good basis for a product range review.
- Review Your Opening Hours
It is possible that your customers purchasing patterns have changed during lockdown. This may necessitate that you change your hours of operation as well. If you have to limit the numbers of customers that you can have in your establishment at any one time then you may need to open for longer. Perhaps shopping patters have changed and you need to open later or at the weekend or offer a late night in the week. You know your market so do what works best for you. Just remember it doesn’t have to be what you did pre-lockdown.
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Setting goals is a great way to fuelling your ambition. By creating a plan and holding yourself accountable, you not only make progress but also fire your inspiration. Without setting goals you’ll find that you will lack focus and direction. Sure, you’ll be busy with the day-to-day but you won’t necessarily be making progress
This free report will help you get super clear on your goals
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Why Having A Plan Is Essential
- Setting goals is a great way to fuelling your ambition. By creating a plan and holding yourself accountable, you not only make progress but also fire your inspiration
- So you’ll find you and your business making achievements you never thought possible
- Without setting goals you’ll find that you will lack focus and direction. Sure, you’ll be busy with the day-to-day but you won’t necessarily be making progress
- This free report will help you get super clear on your goals