In every business, there is a moment when things look shaky. It could be that sales are at a record low. Business may be interrupted by an “act of God” like a hurricane or global pandemic. These moments in time can make one feel very insecure.
Fortunately, there are ways to build stability into your business – and strategies for handling times of instability that you can use right now.
How to Build Stability into Your Business
If you are like most business owners, you got your business off the ground by working hard and pushing through barriers. Now you have a going concern with clients and employees who depend upon you.
With so much riding on the continuation and growth of your business, it is vital that you make the company as stable as possible.
Here are four steps you can take to build stability into your company now, as you go about your everyday activities:
1. Identify the department that seems most chaotic or which would be most negatively affected by instability
Even when things are going well, most companies have one department that feels unstable or a little chaotic. If that’s not the case, choose the area that will most likely fall apart if things become unstable. This department could be sales, HR, customer service, or some other area.
2. Organize that area
At Business Success Consulting Group, we work with our clients to create stability by documenting and implementing organizational systems. We have discussed various ways a business owner can organize an area in past articles here and here – and in our “Systems Simplified” podcast.
3. Test out the organizational changes you’ve made
Ensure that the systems you have created actually work. Test them out by running through them with your team. Missing steps and overcomplications will show up when you test everything.
4. Repeat these steps for each department
Create stability throughout your company by running through the above steps with each consecutive department. Building practical systems into your business allows your company to provide consistent value to customers and makes each employee’s job a bit easier.
Adding organizational processes to your company toolkit also creates stability when things outside of your business go haywire. This allows you to focus on the real issue and problem solve – without also having to put out fires within your company.
How to Deal with Instability Right When it Occurs
Do things feel shaky right now? Let’s deal with that instability immediately. Here is a brief overview of how you can deal with instability right away:
1. Look over your business metrics holistically
Take a look at your sales, income, new client orders, repeat client orders, refund requests, P&L, and anything else that affects your business.
Ask yourself, what part of your business is not performing as expected? How does that department affect other departments? Is there one area that is really underperforming?
2. Decide what you will do to resolve the current instance of instability.
You need to resolve this instance of instability immediately. So, what are you going to do?
Most business owners dive right into the problem department – and that may be what you need to do. You may need to hire outside help or make hard decisions about an employee.
Do everything you can to make things stable once again.
You likely know this drill. In fact, once a crisis is averted, many business owners will leave it here until the next disaster. That is what makes them feel as if they are constantly putting out fires.
That’s why we take it further to the next step:
3. Once the current situation is resolved, make long-term changes
We often step in to help businesses that are cycling through those first two steps of crisis management. The changes we most commonly see that need to be made are organizational.
Systematizing your business and instituting processes and procedures that reflect this reorganization is a vital step in completely resolving a crisis. Instead of cycling through the crisis aversion steps above, scroll back to the steps listed under “How to Build Stability into Your Business” and perform those actions.
We are here to help, so contact Business Success Consulting Group if you are ready to take this third, vital step.
