Ways to Improve Your Business in 2019

February 01, 2019
Recent News
Century Linen Services

With the start of every year, the “New Year, New Me” phrases thrown around are inevitable. But come February, the habits begin to dip and by summertime, everyone’s pushed off their resolutions until the next year.

This trend in goal-setting can be frustrating and deter you from making any changes. But what if your business really did take a step back to get a fresh look at things? And what if the changes that you made are things you can hold yourself accountable to throughout the entire year?

The key to developing a strong set of goals that you’ll be able to meet is to not only focus your goals on what you’d like to achieve such as meeting a certain quota of new customers, but instead on clearly written-out steps that you can follow on a consistent basis to bring you closer to that number.

Taking your business to the next level could in turn help you increase sales.

Focus your energy more on what you can do this year, and not just on what you hope you can achieve financially. By making structured changes that improve the quality of your services, making your staff happier, increasing your audience, and improving your business’s relationship with your clients, you’ll likely naturally see more money coming in because your business has focused on improving itself at the core.

Therefore, the best way to make a larger profit throughout 2019 is to focus on improving the quality of your services and your marketing strategy. To make things easier for you, we have broken this concept down into bite-size pieces so you can clearly determine what changes your business can make this year.

Here are our steps to improving your business’s overall marketing strategy in 2019:

Step One: Set clear business goals.

While setting specific numbers up as goals won’t help you actually achieve those numbers, it’s still beneficial to figure out what you’d like to see happen in your business. After all, you can’t figure out what changes you need to make without knowing what it is that you want.

But instead of using a certain amount of money as a goal, instead consider what your business is currently missing or could improve on that would bring in revenue. Could you be bringing in more new customers? Are you having trouble retaining customers? What would cause individuals to not return? Is it that your establishment looks run-down? Or that your employees seem unhappy? Or maybe customers just simply don’t know about any of the specials that you are running?

Honestly answer these questions and then:

Make a clear plan for what tools and steps you’ll need to accomplish these goals.

We’ll dive more into this through the rest of the steps in this post. This plan should help you determine specific actions you should take, such as if whether you need a new linen supply or more individuals on staff, or you need to expand your online presence.

Take a look at your budget.

Evaluate your current expenses by analyzing where you may be overspending. This is crucial to determining where you can cut back and how much money you have available to spend on business improvements.

Step Two: Start investing in quality products and services that will improve your business.

While this may seem counterintuitive to developing a better business budget, it’s integral to think of savings in the long-run instead of just in the short-term. And this could be savings in areas that you hadn’t even thought of, such as worker productivity.

For example, if your staff currently launders your business’s linens, you may be taking time away from your employees that they could be spending interacting more with customers, promoting your business online, devoting more time to maintaining the tidiness and organization of the workplace, etc. Along with this, let’s hypothetically say that they do not have enough time for laundering along with their other business duties. If that’s the case, then they may not put in their all to make your supply as clean as can be, or you may have to spend the money to hire extra staff to handle this cleaning duty.

Not to mention the importance of the way that your linens look to customers. You want to make sure that you are getting a quality supply that is laundered properly, is always ready when you need it, and doesn’t detract from your employees’ productivity.

What we suggest is to look around your business and evaluate the products that you currently use. Do any of them need to be replaced? Or are you missing anything? From there, before you even find a new supply, you should evaluate how you will maintain it. Look to see if there is a company in your area who will do all of this for you, like the linen services that we provide at Century Linen.

Step Three: Create a safe and comfortable work environment for your employees.

Continuing the subject of employee productivity, it’s integral that your staff is comfortable while they do their job. Not only for the sake of caring about the people that you work with, but also because their comfort and happiness on the job impacts the way that they do their work and the way that they interact with customers.

When we discuss comfort, we’re talking about everything in relation to the atmosphere your employees work in, from the clothes that they wear to the cleanliness of their workplace. And it’s not just a matter of comfort. These factors can also impact their safety. Chef apparel can help prevent burns in the kitchen, properly-maintained scrubs can help protect staff from disease and illness, floor mats can help prevent slip-and-fall accidents, etc.

While you’re looking around your business for what products you need, also look for potential safety hazards and areas that just don’t look their best. Is dirt frequently getting tracked into your business? Are you constantly finding spills on your floors? Do you keep running out of bath tissue, soap and hand towels? Are your employees constantly complaining about how uncomfortable their uniforms are? At Century Linen, we also provide uniform and facility services.

Step Four: Find ways to actively engage with your customers.

So now you have the right products and services that you use to help run your business more efficiently, to make your business look better and to make your employees happier. While a key to successful marketing is to provide quality services, it’s also to make sure that you are communicating positively with your customers and that you are reaching them.

So, focus on quality customer service. While technology is advancing and being tech-savvy can provide benefits to your business, don’t lose your business’s ability to communicate effectively in-person as well. Make sure you hire individuals that have a positive attitude and make sure each person on your team undergoes training on dealing with all types of customers.

Once you’ve enhanced your business with elegant linens, minimized your employees’ stress, elevated their productivity, made your business cleaner, you’ll be well on your way to a great 2019.

While we can’t help you with content, what we can help you with is making your business look its best. From linens to uniforms to mats to cleaning supplies, at Century Linen we have what you need to stick to your goals.

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