Your daily business

One big joy of being an entrepreneur is the excitement of letting your ideas flourish by building up a business around it. But the originality and quality of your idea will not grant you any guarantees for long-term success. When the initial rush has vanished, it’s your ability to run your daily business that’s crucial for your success

Use your time wisely

As an entrepreneur or a small business you can easily get caught up with unproductive details and routines. You get more time to focus on your core business (programming apps, dressing hair, building new homes, etc.) if you hire or outsource support functions such as bookkeeping, facility management, lunch, and maintenance.

These days, there is a wide range of apps, programs, and online services that will help you structure your work. Many routines that steal your time can be automated using technology. For instance, you can stay up-to-date with your earnings, costs, and payments with a few swipes on your smartphone and set-up automated transactions. 

If you invest a bit of time in setting up a solid structure powered by technology and backed by outsourcing a few processes (for instance, you’ll easy find bookkeeping assistance scaled for your needs) you’ll get more time at hand. These services aren’t free. But in the longer run the investment will most likely pay off.

Stay competitive - be easy to deal with

The world is in motion. And so is your market and consumer habits. Many businesses are founded as a response to certain trends or a sudden window of opportunity. But it’s in a trend’s nature to change. Have you considered if your business today will be competitive in tomorrow’s market?

Just like you have to make constant adjustments of your business model, product, marketing, organisation, etc. to stay relevant to your customers, you have to offer easy purchase of your products. Right now, many successful e-commerce businesses (and physical shops as well) offer easy mobile payments. Trust us, letting your customers choose their preferred payment method increases sales.

We as a bank can help you overcome the challenges you’ll most certainly meet. We can give you tailored advice for your company and line of business on how to identify changing market conditions and how to respond to them. And we can suggest tools that will help you overcome seasonality, prioritizing your time, and structuring your cash flow.

Know your seasons

All businesses have high and low seasons. Even yours. It can be difficult to respond to the shifting demand. Thus, many small businesses suffer from a large gap between earnings and costs in the low seasons as well as lack of capacity in the high seasons.

Financially speaking, it’s important to smooth out the fluctuations. In terms of staffing you could consider if your current balance between employees and use of temps/freelancers is solid and sound. And on an overall level you should secure a steady cash flow for your business throughout the year, for instance by having fixed structures for savings and loans

Cash flow is king

One of the reasons why startups fail is poor cash flow management. Actually, it’s not rare that companies that keep up a steady revenue stream must give up their business due to shortage of liquidity. In other words: If you can’t pay your suppliers, salaries, rent, and other daily expenses, your business will most likely be shut down. 

There are various factors that affect your cash flow. We can help you keep track of your current and future liquidity and assist you in creating a healthy structure around your billing and payments.

Read more about how handle cash flow challenges.