SPRING IS THE TIME TO REGROUP
Sit back from day-to-day business and ask what you can do better
Spring is a time of renewal. It’s the perfect time to review and refresh your business plan to make sure that you are meeting your expectations and goals. — Sarah Adams, vice-president, small business, for RBC
After three years of running her vegan sauces business, Kailey Gilchrist, founder of NONA Vegan Foods, says this spring is the perfect time to regroup.
When she started the business, she said things tended to be chaotic. “By the end of my first year I realized I had to plan things out a little more so I put a business plan in place and got a loan and a mentor. This year it’s all about fine-tuning and refocusing.”
NONA Vegan started as a home-based operation with a few friends helping out. Over time she moved on to renting a commercial kitchen and hiring staff, including a marketing manager. “As the years went by, I realized this was more than a passion project. I actually had a viable business idea. That makes things very different.”
In that time, she has learned that your business trajectory can change dramatically, so you have to be prepared when that happens. For example, when Whole Foods decided to carry her products after two years of operation, it happened much sooner than she had planned. “Whole Foods was 10 years out in our business plan,” she said. “We reached that goal in two, so our infrastructure had to catch up with that.”
This time around she has taken time out to reconsider the “why” of her business, she said. “I wanted to revisit the overarching reason why I’m doing what I’m doing and what I need to fine-tune to get all my ducks in a row. Now I’m going over everything, rehashing plans and working out budgets.”
While change can come at any time in a business cycle, spring is the perfect time for most businesses to take stock and do some housecleaning, said Sarah Adams, vice-president, small business, for RBC. “Spring is a time of renewal. A lot of people come out of hibernation and are putting more energy into spending. It’s the perfect time to review and refresh your business plan to make sure that you are meeting your expectations and goals.”
Business change isn’t just about managing sales and revenues. Fluctuating energy prices, legislative and tax changes, a weakened dollar and technology innovation can all turn even the best-laid business plans upside down.
A spring tune-up should also include a review of your compliance requirements, says Anna Gontcharova, policy analyst with CFIB (Canadian Federation of Independent Business) in Toronto. “It’s a really good time to look at the laws and regulations that can affect your operations and make sure you are doing your due diligence.”
CFIB, for its part, has done much of the heavy lifting in terms of reviewing regulatory changes and provides a number of resources to help businesses understand their position, including a compliance checklist.
Like any efficient household, spring is also a time for de-cluttering. “Think of it as cleaning out your closets from a business perspective. Find ways to be more efficient, look for electronic options for payroll and invoicing, or online banking tools for managing day-today cash flow or receiving payments from customers,” Adams advises.
Good housekeeping also means reviewing your payables and receivables to find what’s working, what isn’t, and what changes you need to make. You might want to consider rewarding and recognizing clients who show a solid history of paying their bills.
“Also look at your customer base. If you have a high concentration of certain types, diversifying your revenue streams is always good for business,” Adams said.
Above all else, be realistic in terms of where you are today and where you can take your business, cautions Dominik Loncar, entrepreneur-in-residence for Futurpreneur Canada in Toronto. “Can you step back and ask if your revenue model is working? Are your growth projections realistic, or will things stay the same?”
An equally important question is if something isn’t working, what are your options? “You may need to work on internal processes or strengthen terms with suppliers,” Loncar said. “Or you might need to off-load some functions that you’re not good at to someone else. More often than not, it’s just tweaking some operational things. Not about discovering the next great idea.”