As the autumn leaves begin to fall and the scent of pumpkin spice fills the air, October presents a fresh opportunity for business owners to revitalize their enterprises. It is an important time of year as it sets the stage for a successful final quarter. Not to mention, with the hustle and bustle of the holiday season just around the corner, taking proactive steps at the start of October can make all the difference in achieving year-end goals.
October starts on Sunday. What steps should you take to get the month off to an excellent start?
Forecast your sales for the month.
How were sales last month? How were sales this month last year? It’s important to make note of your sales figures for each and every month of business so that you can forecast your sales for the following months. Your objective, of course, should be to outdo your previous sales numbers.
“Nothing kick-starts a small business owner into planning mode better than doing a sales forecast,” insists SmallBizTrends.com, “Whether it’s a healthy forecast or not, the process of thinking about your pipeline, prices, costs, revenue per unit/sale, is a natural segue into thinking about what has to happen to help you achieve your goals.”
Clean up your email inbox.
How many of us are inundated by ever-growing lists of unchecked emails? Naturally, it’s important to tackle all messages so that your business never receives the reputation of being unreliable. However, it’s understandable if it’s difficult to get to every message every day. Don’t let another month go by when you accumulate too many emails to handle. Make it a priority this week to clean up your email inbox.
“An overflowing inbox is one of the biggest sources of stress at work,” writes Ashira Prossack on Forbes.com, “Leave this stress behind…by starting off with a fresh, uncluttered inbox. This is not the time to simply select all of your emails and mark them as read. Thoroughly go through your messages keeping two things in mind – is it urgent and can it be deleted? “
Talk to your customers.
We know that the fall season has only just begun. However, before you know it, the holiday season will be upon us. It’s certainly not too early to start talking to your customers about what you can do to satisfy all of their shopping needs in the months to come. Don’t hesitate to start quick chats with visitors of your store in order to grow your customer relationships. It should help to spike interest in your brand.
“Customers are a great source of planning inspiration,” says SmallBizTrends.com, “It doesn’t matter whether you run a landscaping business or software company, your customers’ needs and challenges can help inform your service or product strategy. Ask to hear about the negatives, too — your plans should also include a focus on performance improvement.”
No matter how you choose to start October off, it will continue to be important to give your customers payment options. At Divvia, we offer a wide variety of high-quality payment terminals that allow Canadian merchants to accept credit cards and debit cards. To learn all about them, please don’t hesitate to call us at 1-877-748-2884 or send us a message on our Contact Us page!
