Are you a Small-to-Medium Business serious about investing in your growth?
If so, that’s great. This is an extremely smart business move to make.
It’s important to realise, however, that growth and progress don’t just happen on a whim.
Rather, it involves a great deal of planning in advance before you’re ready to take that next step towards business growth.
See, when you plan in advance, you open your business up to being able to capitalise on the opportunities that present themselves to you.
So, today, we want to take the time to encourage SMBs like you to get ahead of the game and plan in advance so you can be ready to pounce on these opportunities when they arise.
That’s why we’ve put together this quick guide to help you properly prepare your business and your growth mentality.
In it, we’re going to explain:
- WHY you should be planning in advance,
- WHAT planning in advance looks like, and
- HOW your SMB can plan in advance now to help you grow tomorrow.
Let’s get started with the first big question.
Why should your business start planning in advance?
Put it this way:
If something, anything, were to happen to you or your business and you’re unprepared for it, then any action you take will be a reaction, and you may only have one option or one direction you can take as a result of what happened.
However, if you’re in the habit of planning in advance, then no matter what situation may arise that affects your business, you will have already outlined multiple ways to address the issue – and possibly even capitalise on it.
In short, being prepared and planning ahead opens up your options, which leads to better outcomes overall. It provides your business with an agility that you wouldn’t otherwise have.
When you take the necessary steps to prepare in advance, you actually understand where you stand as a business as well.
Think about it: if you want to get a loan and you haven’t prepared your books, or you don’t understand where all your money has come and gone in the past 12 months, you don’t have the complete picture – and you can’t be sure how a broker is going to view your business.
But if you have taken the time to get your books up-to-date, you’ll be able to see exactly where you’re at and what loan options might be available to you.
As an example, we recently worked with a client who took the time to prepare in advance and understand their current position. In doing so, they realised they had the capacity to double the amount they were looking to invest to help grow their business.
However, being prepared and understanding your position is not just about being able to take advantage of opportunities when they arise.
It’s also about you being in full control of your business.
This means you know exactly where your cash is coming and going, and you’re easily able to identify and address any red flags in your operation as well.
Honestly, we could go on and on about the benefits of being proactive and planning ahead, but now it’s time to show you exactly what that could look like for you.
What does planning in advance actually look like for your SMB?
Essentially, it all comes down to making sure that the fundamental elements of your business are up-to-date.
Think:
- Budgeting & Cash Flow
- Reconciling Accounts
- Compliance Work
It’s about putting the right foundations in place to ensure you can get an accurate overview of your business that enables you to make the right forward-thinking decisions in line with your growth goals .
- If you don’t have a clear budget, you’re not going to understand how much cash you have to spend on new opportunities.
- If your accounts are reconciled frequently, you’re not going to understand where your money is coming and going.
- If your compliance work isn’t up-to-date, you’re not going to be able to accurately manage your cash flow, as there will always be new liabilities popping up.
As you can see, your ability to plan in advance comes from first gaining a clear and accurate understanding of the fundamentals – not just from a financial perspective but from a structural and legal perspective as well.
This brings us to the final piece of the puzzle.
How can your business start planning in advance?
Okay, we’ve covered the WHY and the WHAT.
Now it’s time to look at the HOW.
How can you get started? What’s the first step towards growth?
Typically, when we are working with clients to help them plan in advance, we aim to establish a quarterly planning habit. Over time, this has proven to be the most effective way for our clients to stay up-to-date and ahead of the curve.
In these quarterly planning sessions, we always start with goals.
These goals could be:
- strategic,
- financial,
- operational,
- resource-based,
- marketing-based,
- or something else entirely.
We would also ask what you are struggling with, what’s keeping you up at night, or what you would love to be doing better. In doing so, we’re better able to address any growth planning pain points and set goals to overcome these challenges.
From there, it’s about taking these goals and building an action plan to help you progress to the next stage of growth – whatever that may be for you.
This helps to make progress more tangible and gives you a clear direction to head in.
We would also take a look at the people who are working in your business, as some businesses don’t always have the right people they need to actually make progress.
This will then enable us to determine if we need to take an active role in the action plan or simply work with your team to put the right systems in place.
We must stress, however, that if you are looking to put all of this into action and plan ahead in your business, it is a minimum assumption that your accounts are reconciled and up-to-date .
As we already mentioned, this is the first critical step before you can start planning for growth. Once you’ve got a clear understanding of your financials – including where you were, where you are now and where you want to be – then you’re ready to move forward.
Planning in advance is crucial for your business – but it’s not always as easy as it sounds.
If you’re still yet to bring your accounts up-to-date, or what we’re talking about here all sounds a bit too difficult to do on your own, then a trusted accounting firm like LMS can help you.
Here at LMS, we’re able to gain a deep understanding of your business on all levels. Through our three-tiered system, we can help your business plan in advance and prepare today for the growth opportunities that will arise tomorrow.
