Business Plans for 2023

The key to upscaling your small business is by setting SMART business goals and your commitment as a business owner toward achieving them.?

Goal setting and drafting financial and non-financial plans are non-negotiable factors carried out by large and successful businesses within your industry worth emulating.?

While this is a period when most big companies are currently auditing their financial performance for the previous year, it's an avenue for you to do something similar for your business at a smaller scale.

Reviewing your business performance in the prior period is a means for you to evaluate your business operations and set new and achievable goals for the current year while also coming up with new and appropriate measures to improve your business performance.

How about you take the next few days to do a stock take?

To determine how many goods you have at hand and their monetary worth, to figure out how many missing inventories you have so as to write them off, to remove outdated goods from the shelves, and devise a better means to easily track your inventory in the future.

Next, how about spending a day or two studying your customer database –is it increasing? what's the percentage of return customers? How many new customers did you get via referrals and other appropriate questions to enable you to determine customer satisfaction??

Have you gone through your records for the previous year?

How much revenue did you make in 2022? How much balance did you still have outstanding from customers you sold to on credit? How much did you spend on marketing and other expenses, and overall, how much profit did you make?

Doing all of the above would be easier if you have a proper business and accounting structure in place for your business. The absence of which will make it impossible for you to evaluate your business performance over time.

How then would you be able to tell if your business is profitable or not?

The mistake you make as a small business owner is not having an accounting structure in place. Being a small-scale business shouldn’t hinder that, rather, your business size affords you the ability to micro-manage every activity of the business the most important of which is the business's financial performance.

If you are unable to provide answers to these questions, well, your goal for this year should primarily focus on that.

I did emphasize the need to separate your business from you in my previous article. If you haven't already done that, now is the time to get your business registered and open a business account for business transactions which is one of the easiest ways to build brand credibility.

One cost-efficient way to achieve this is by registering via The Business Hub platform . With 23k, You get your business name registered, obtain your tax identification number (TIN), open a business account for all of your business transactions and you get to enjoy free banking for 3 years.?

A smart entrepreneur wouldn't want to miss out on this opportunity.

Aside from building credibility, having your business registered is a major requirement for getting a financial grant and business loan.

A financial grant from the government and organizations passionate about growing small-scale businesses is by far one of the most secure sources of free funding for your business.?

If taking your business to the next level is genuinely your priority this year, applying for a grant should be at the top of your list this year.

Do take a moment to check out this opportunity by the Tony Elumele foundation . It is one of the many business transformation grants you shouldn't miss capitalizing on.

Additionally, managing debtors is a must-do for your business growth this year.?

First, because the impact of inflation is ever-rising and the value of your money not collected now is seldom enough to make repurchases when collected in later periods.

What this means is, you should strive to ensure your customers pay up their debt within the shortest period possible and this would be only feasible if you have a debt collection policy in place. Now is the time to establish one if you don't have one already, or to better strengthen it if there is one already in place.

Because sufficient cash is crucial to running your business effectively so ensuring your capital isn’t tied down or lost with debtor should be part of your business goals this year.

Finally, you should seek out means to upscale your business, either by penetrating the existing market, introducing your product to a new market, or even introducing a new product in a new market.?

Welcome to Smart Entrepreneur

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You get to learn how to better understand the financial aspect of your business by equipping you to become your own bookkeeper and growth strategies to employ in upscaling your business.

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