Are You Playing It Safe?

Focus your energy and your business on key initiatives this year

With the economy expected to show signs of a slow recovery starting in 2010 according to the Bank of Canada’s Press Release (January 21, 2010), what is going to be your focus for the coming year?

If you’re like most of us in business, you’re just finishing two of the toughest years in recent business history. Two years that you’d rather not have to do again for a very long time. For many of us, revenues have been down, in many cases expenses continued to rise (especially if you didn’t take proactive steps to cut costs last year) and for virtually all of us, profits are not what they used to be.So with that behind us, what is it that you’re going to focus on for the year ahead? If you want to have the biggest impact on your business’s short and long-term health, I suggest focusing your energy and efforts on a few key initiatives, and that’s it.

For many business operators that I speak to, it seems that the top initiatives that I hear most often include:

• New marketing initiatives to grow sales.
• New product lines to expand sales opportunities to existing customers.
• Keeping expenses lean to conserve on cash.
• Finding new banking arrangements.
• Conservatively expanding business into new segments of the market.

What I’m not hearing would include:

• Expansion plans that require additional overhead.
• Major capital expenditures.
• Hiring more staff to help grow business.

It seems that most people are certainly playing it safe. I think everyone in business is generally optimistic. Staying status quo or maybe squeezing out a slight increase in sales and profits tends to be the norm for 2010.

Where do you sit with your business?