Reevaluating Your Business Plan
26 May, 2009, 8:00 am
Every business has slumps. Some struggle to get off the ground, others boom for several years and then hit a slow period. These slow periods have a few things in common. Understanding why your business is not performing as expected is essential to turning it around so you can reach your daily, weekly, and monthly goals.
Why Businesses Slump
Markets change, new competitors arise, and the tastes of your customers change. The American consumer is the most fickle living thing. If you are not constantly looking at your market and keeping in touch with them… well… you will lose touch!
I talk to people who honestly believe they can market to consumers in 2009 like they did in 1999. This simply is not possible. Given the rapid redevelopment of internet technology, web 2.0 has made web 1.0 tactics pointless and archaic. You need to stay on top of the market you are reaching and all the new ways to reach them.
You also need to keep up with what they want. You may be promoting products that lost their value several years ago. In today’s internet culture, you might be promoting products that lost their value last week! Remember, American Consumers are fickle.
Understanding some of these basic reasons that businesses slump is important to understanding how and why you need to reevaluate your business plan on a regular basis.
If you constantly re-evaluate your business plan you can stay on top of these slumps and never feel the full shock of these changes.
How to Re-evaluate your Business Plan
You need to look at three things in order to effectively re-evaluate your business plan.
First you need to keep an eye on your conversion ratios. What percentage of people who visit your site are actually purchasing something? You ALWAYS want this to increase. You NEVER want this to decrease. To keep your conversions as high as possible, consider editing your sales text, or improving your traffic methods. If you are running Google adwords to get traffic, maybe consider changing the text on the ads to make it clear that you are asking for a purchase decision. This will keep the folks out who have no interest in pulling out their wallet.
Second you need to make sure your traffic is staying high. Watch your monthly page views. Are they trending down, holding steady, or trending up? Which of these do you think is most favorable? Seriously, if you just said down – you need to rethink that janitorial job.
If your traffic is not trending upward, something you are doing is not paying off enough. Consider you social networking strategies, and your SEO. What can you do to get more traffic?
Third and certainly not least, you need to keep your goals clear, reachable and IN MIND. I keep my goals in front of me all the time – literally – on paper. This way I can see what it is I am trying to accomplish and never lose sight of those. When you start blowing your time away playing with StumbleUpon, you are not reaching your goals.
Whenever you re-evaluate you need to ask the question, what can I do that will help me to reach my goals more effectively?
- Does Your Business have a Strategy?
- Setting Good Business Goals
- Are You Working from Right to Left?
- Get Off It and Start Your Business
- Forming a Business Plan