Written by: Kc Rossi, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Sustaining through inflation trends requires small businesses to heed and adjust to a variety of issues. Unfortunately, rising costs, supply chain issues, and the impact of global conflicts are all out of your control. However, there are ways to safeguard your company, and it begins with essentialism.
Essentialism is about getting to the heart, “the essence” of what is most important. Greg McKeown speaks to four key elements of essentialism in his book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less — essence, explore, eliminate, execute.
Here are 4 essential steps to cope with inflation as a small business —
1. Essence: Determining your company's strengths helps to focus on what is crucial. This applies to products, services, employees, and clients. Getting a clear picture of which elements produce the highest return on investment is the first step in protecting your assets.
Action — Pull reports from the last year to analyze your metrics. From there, prioritize your top producers, providing clarity on where to spotlight your efforts.
2. Explore: Investigating opportunities that ensure the health of the bottom line is next. As the cost of goods increases, raising prices has to follow to maintain profit margins. Regarding employee retention, offering incentives both financial and otherwise, such as childcare and healthcare benefits, will give you a competitive advantage. Lastly, pampering the A-list clients doesn’t translate to excessive spending. Personal outreach and authentic connection go a long way.
Action — Determine your current cost of goods sold and adjust your prices to maintain your profit margin. Formulate and implement employee benefits. Schedule ways to delight your
clients.
3. Eliminate: After careful review, most companies would agree that several areas of the business could be reduced or eliminated. Stepping back and evaluating what changes can be made to increase efficiency, reduce overall costs, and improve workflow is prudent. Eliminating redundant positions, installing, or optimizing lean manufacturing operations, and removing products that aren’t essential can help.
Action — After analysis, remove anything that doesn’t add value.
4. Execute: Once you have determined where your strengths and weaknesses lie, it’s time to implement. Part of the implementation process can include ways to diversify the company. For example, a products-based business can consider augmenting its offerings by adding an online education or consulting component. In addition, adding channels that have been less affected by inflation and supply disruption can both fill the gap and increase customer satisfaction.
Action — Commit to adding one revenue channel to diversify your portfolio annually.
Inflation calls for creativity to sustain a successful small business. Looking at each of the essential operations that are in your control, from admin to sales channels, can help make internal shifts. Distilling the essence of your company will set you up to thrive in all economic conditions.
Kc Rossi, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Kc Rossi is a Business & Leadership Coach who helps mission-driven CEOs and entrepreneurs optimize their performance, productivity, and profits.
She’s been a full-time entrepreneur since 1991 and has built six and 7+ figure businesses. Kc is a Certified Mindset Coach, Emotional Intelligence Practitioner, and trained in Neuro-Linguistic Programming, which allows her to bring deep insight to her coaching.
Kc is the Founder of The Soulprint Method®, a holistic approach that harnesses mindset and emotional intelligence to build a profitable and soul-aligned business without burnout.
She is the host of Women Developing Brilliance® — The Spirit of Business; a show dedicated to cultivating confidence, increasing visibility, elevating vibration, and leading with purpose.
When she is offline, you can find her whipping up plant-based eats or hiking the Finger Lakes Trail in Upstate, New York.
Kc is an Executive Contributor of Brainz Magazine. Her work has been highlighted in ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, Thrive Global, SmallBizDaily, International Journal of Professional Holistic Aromatherapists, Female Entrepreneurial Association, and The Smart Girl Tribe.
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