Spring cleaning your business
As the weather brightens up and the bulbs begin emerging, it’s a great time to start thinking about a spring clean in your business.
How often in our businesses do we stop and actually clear out the dead wood, dust and mothballs? The old stuff that doesn’t bring us joy anymore?
If you regularly review the different parts of your business, that’s fantastic. But if you’ve never really given it any thought, perhaps now’s the time.
So what does spring cleaning your business actually involve?
It’s common for us to keep working away when our businesses feel as though they’re doing fine. The money’s coming in and we’re busy, so we don’t stop and look at things that might need to change.
To really spring-clean your business, it’s good to look at everything you do and impacts the day-to-day and some perhaps forgotten things too.
Take a look at…
- Where and how you’re presenting yourself online and offline.
- What does your website look like? How about your Facebook page?
- When was the last time you had professional photography done?
- What services do you offer? Have you retired any services that are still showing on your website but shouldn’t be?
- When did you last review your costs to check for anything you’re paying for that you don’t use anymore?
Getting started
To help you work out what needs a good dusting to make it manageable rather than overwhelming, try thinking of your business as a house with different rooms representing the various areas.
Perhaps you have an office or work area that would benefit from an actual clean and clearing of clutter. That could be the first room in your house. Another one of the rooms could represent your laptop. Are there documents on it that need to be filed or deleted? Do you need to update some software? Create a list of tasks for the ‘laptop’ room to give it a good clean.
Other rooms might include your Facebook page, your LinkedIn page or your website.
Even if your business is quite new, a spring clean is still worth considering and making time for. Perhaps money was tight when you set up and there may be things that you could now do better and by keeping an eye on it early, you won’t gather so much junk as you progress.
Regardless of how long you’ve been in business, this is a chance to pinpoint things that you might already know don’t work well enough. Maybe it’s your booking system, your invoicing system or the way you gather reviews. Creating time and space to look into these problems and solve some of them will make your business feel lighter and fresher and give you a new boost of springtime energy.
Spring cleaning your business diary
Spring cleaning isn’t just about the functional parts of your business though. It can also be about the energy in your business and the people you’re working or mixing with.
As an example, are you someone who goes to networking events? If you are, do you network in the same places with the same people each time? Ask yourself, is it real networking or has it become more like meeting up with friends for a coffee?
If, truthfully, it’s become more of a social event, that’s perfectly okay, as long as you’re aware of it. As business owners, we can often feel lonely working by ourselves. Perhaps replacing one of your ‘networking’ events with something new like coworking would give you social contact (whilst helping you remain) while helping you stay productive.
Spring cleaning business relationships
As well as looking at your business processes and how you’re spending your time, you might want to give some thought to the people you’re working with. Are there some who cause you a lot of stress? Perhaps they’re unreliable or don’t pay their bills on time?
Really looking at which relationships drain your time and energy can help you to make the decision to let them go.
Perhaps you’ve got a contract that’s about to renew and you want to say no. Or maybe you outsource to someone but you don’t feel the relationship’s working for you anymore? Keep in mind, the other party may be feeling the same. Perhaps it’s time to part ways, elegantly – leaving everyone feeling like they’ve won.
Spring cleaning business relationships is a tricky problem to deal with, but doing this will give you space to find new people to work with – people who are more aligned with you and your business and who’ll help elevate your energy rather than drain it.
Making space for you and your business to flourish
Spring cleaning is really about getting a sense of what you’ve kept on in your business that’s now, on some level, clogging it up.
What do you want inside your business? What makes you tick? What drains you? Thinking about these things will help you choose which elements of your business to shake off, which elements to clean up, and which new things you’d like to bring in to help you and your business flourish.
To delve into this topic further, sign up to my newsletter and received a free download all about spring cleaning your business, then put on your walking shoes and work on your business while getting those steps in.
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