You’re familiar with the idea of a checkup — It’s likely you see a doctor for an annual exam, hit the dentist twice yearly for cleanings and bring your car in for regular service intervals. These checkups go a long way to ensuring you and your car run well for a long time. So why not your business?
As we approach the midway part of the year, June is an ideal time to pause and conduct your own mid-year checkup for your company to identify potential issues that might be small now but could grow into something larger if left unaddressed.
Below are seven ways you can perform a successful checkup to ensure smooth business operations for the rest of the year and beyond:
1. Review all your web/domain ownership and renewals — This issue happens more than you might think — A company thinks their web domain or hosting is on autopilot, but without a checkup you fail to realize potential problems, such as a new web company not migrating the hosting account, an expired corporate card, an incorrect contact person or even outdated mailing addresses. To avoid facing the headache down the line of trying to reactivate a domain or even needing to buy it back from someone who snatches it, spend a little time in June to ensure everything is current with all your hosting and web accounts.
2. Audit your overtime — Any business owner knows no two years are the same; staff changes, needs shift your team makeup morphs. Have you been spending too much on overtime? Finding yourself constantly short-staffed for busy times and you need to ask employees to put in extra shifts? Out of control overtime can completely decimate your annual profits if left unchecked. Use this time to examine overtime use to date and sit down with HR to determine how much it is over/under expectations and make staffing adjustments as needed before this element becomes a major budget buster.
3. Examine your capital needs — Looking towards the back half of the year and into next year, try to anticipate your potential capital needs. Are you planning an expansion? Major renovations? Even if your plans are more fluid in the future, use this mid-year checkup to examine all your upcoming large expenditures and make sure you have access to the capital you may need. Spend time lining up or increasing a business line of credit or options for corporate credit cards with the best benefits for your spending needs.
4. Re-evaluate your existing debts — As a complement to a review of potential capital needs, take some time to look at your existing debts and capital outlay. Do you have loans that can be consolidated? Paid off? Refinanced? Mid-year is a good, quieter time of year to sit down with your CFO, CPA or banker to examine all the places you are making debt payments. Previous loans might be eligible for refinancing or if your business has grown since loans were acquired, you may qualify for new loan programs now — It’s worth it to spend some time to find out, potentially saving you tens of thousands or more in interest looking forward.
5. Take a look at your pricing — Especially if you have not altered prices for some time, examine all your pricing across the board and look to see if items or services need to be adjusted up (or down in some cases). Review your competitors’ pricing and evaluate how you stack up. Has some raw material come down in price that might have been inflated higher in the past few years? Is there an opportunity to offer clients a discount on a service that you have now streamlined? It is important to not just evaluate which items need to go up due to costs but which could maybe go down a bit to create customer goodwill.
6. Get vicious with old inventory — Especially if you are a seasonal business that sees a bulk of sales in the fourth quarter, this is the perfect time to examine what inventory just isn’t going to move, is outdated, obsolete, etc. Consider a warehouse or outlet sale if possible or even examine donating inventory to a potential charitable organization if need be. Clearing out unproductive inventory will allow you to maximize space and production for usable inventory moving into your busiest season.
7. Start a list of the year’s highs and lows — When you get to the end of the year, many owners and managers like to look back over the year’s milestones and accomplishments. Take some time now to start that list while your first half of the year items are freshest in your memory. Most importantly, document as much detail as possible on your wins for the year so far (your best social post, greatest customer feedback, etc.) as well as your losses (what totally flopped? What backfired?). Being honest about both sides of this list will help you focus your goals for the second half of the year and in to 2024!
