Hello!
It doesn’t matter if you are looking to sell your business within one year or five years. After all, the business was built from scratch and you put in countless hours to it.
This planning should not be left until the last minute, hoping for unrealistic amounts of money. You need to get started planning today to reap the rewards. These are seven great tips that will help you increase the value of your company.
Top 7 Ways to Add Value to Your Business
1. Set a Goal and Understand Your Value
It’s not worth stating that you want to increase your business‘ value without first knowing what your current value is and setting goals.
There are many free tools that you can use to help value your business. You may be amazed at the amount of money you can get or how far you need to go to reach your goals.
This will allow you to identify your current value. This allows you to concentrate on key growth areas, sales performance, and financial projections, which will help you plan more effectively and accurately your strategies to increase your value over time.
2. Attract more customers to diversify your client base
You can cater to many customers, allowing you to be successful in catering to different customer groups. For a wider market appeal, it might be a good idea to offer vegetarian and vegan options to your cafe. While you won’t alienate your customers, this will increase your chances of securing customers with different needs.
This will reduce buyer concerns that you are too dependent on a few customers to make a substantial portion of your income.
3. Maintain a low turnover of staff
You have many options to keep your staff happy. The ability to retain skilled employees automatically increases the business’s value.
You’ll be able to let your team run the day-to-day operations while you focus on more complicated matters. This will make you valuable to potential buyers. They won’t have to be as involved in taking over. This means they won’t have to spend too much money on training and hiring new staff.
You could try these schemes/rewards:
- Increase in the holiday allowance per annum
- Sincere appreciation and positive feedback
- Regular 1-2-1s with employees
- Real opportunities for advancement
- Flexibility is key to success as an employer
- Discounts on local shops and cafes, as well as gym memberships
Great service also means great staff, which in turn makes customers/clients happy and generates positive word-of-mouth, potentially resulting in more customers. We are now…
4. Improve Your Cash Flow
Not only will improving your cash flow benefit you in the long-term but it will also strengthen your business to benefit future buyers or investors. You can reduce the chance of losing profit over time by planning early.
Buyers will look for evidence that the business is generating positive cash flow and that it is expected to grow year on year. You can increase your chances of selling your business to great buyers if you show steady improvement in your financial records.
These are some areas that could improve cash flow:
- Reduce non-essential costs, e.g. Software you don’t use often or that could be cheaper elsewhere is a way to cut down on non-essential expenses.
- Making sure that invoices are paid on-time and having clear procedures in place to pursue those who haven’t.
- Save money with high interest rates by opening a savings account
- Conduct regular inventory checks
- Instead of buying the entire equipment, furniture and machines in full, lease it first.
5. Make a clear progression plan
It is essential to have a plan. This will outline the steps you intend to take to grow your business, increase revenue and make it more profitable. Include sections about your next steps, customer profiles and target markets, as well as how you plan on reaching your audience.
While you may get off-track as life happens and things change, having a plan will ensure that you stay on the right path and have something to reference.
6. Define Your USP And Hone In On It
What are you able to offer customers that your competitors cannot? This is an important point to highlight in your marketing efforts to make you stand out in a competitive industry. What could you do to make your unique selling point stand out?
You might speak to your existing clients and ask them why they choose you over other businesses. Was it the service they received, the personal touch they received, your unique products, their location, marketing efforts or something else? You might offer a discount or the chance of winning a prize for their answers.
7. Get to know your customers and clients on a personal level
Who are your target clients? What makes your brand unique to them? What can you do to capitalize on their needs and interests? All this information can be gathered by having regular interactions with customers, whether face-to-face or over the phone.
To gain their trust and respect, be sure to value and ask for their opinions. It’s so important to keep relationships – they are the reason your customers return to you, and they are likely to recommend others to you. The power of word-of-mouth can bring in many new customers.
Thank you!
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