The first days of Spring are upon us, and we are welcoming in a season where many people adopt the ‘spring clean’ mindset.
For anyone running their own business, this is the ideal moment to take stock and carry out a business spring clean. But how?
In this article I’ll outline four small changes which, when combined, can help provide the green shoots towards business growth.
A literal spring clean
A clean and tidy office space is key to removing stress and inspiring creativity. So, a literal spring clean for your office or workspace is a great starting point to get you and the team in the right
mindset.
Ditch a professional cleaning firm for the spring clean. Instead, get the team together and spend an hour tidying and cleaning the office. It’s a great way to bring everyone together and to achieve a cleaner and more encouraging workspace.
Ask everyone to tidy and clean their desks, organise draws and folders, and throw away unneeded clutter and old paperwork.
When throwing away unneeded items, consider donating them to a charity shop or if they’re unusable try to recycle or dispose of them sustainably where appropriate.
Marketing & social media
Spring is a great point to reflect on your external messaging. You need to be reactive and constantly evolving with your marketing and social media schedules.
It’s overly optimistic to think you can plan a schedule for 12 months of content and believe that nothing will need to change throughout that time. There are constantly changing trends, so use this moment to decide what they are, and spring clean your schedule.
I would suggest the marketing and/or social media team sit down and have a brainstorming session to assess how the schedule has been performing so far. Be critical and ask what needs to change moving forwards for the rest of the year.
Admin spring clean
You may have spent January and February avoiding a number of tasks. Now is the time to spend a few hours actioning unread emails and deleting irrelevant ones. Revisit missing information on spreadsheets, save and organise documents and folders putting them in the correct place, schedule meetings, update phone/contact lists and chase up outstanding
communications.
Most of us have a number of outstanding admin tasks that we keep putting to the bottom of our to-do list every day as they don’t strike us as immediately urgent and important. If you keep doing this,
they never get done. Take time now to do this and, by the summer, you will have an admin system in place that works more effectively.
Brand spring clean
Possibly the most beneficial type of a business spring clean is to consider adapting and evolving your branding and service offering. This is obviously a bigger step that needs more planning to execute, but it’s vitally important and if done correctly can revitalise and grow your brand value.
Keeping the exact same service offering and branding year after year can show a lack of market research and lack of a willingness to adapt.
The reality is the world moves on, and if your branding and service offering is the same in 2024 as it was in 2014, there’s a huge problem. I would offer a
similar assessment even over a five-year period.
Ask yourself: is there more you could add to your service offering that current or potential clients need or want to purchase?
And consider: does your branding need updating to be more relevant to your target audiences?
It’s so important to stay current and up to date to keep you on par or ideally ahead of your competitors in terms of relevancy.
We recently rebranded and relaunched our service offering here at Champions (UK) plc to polish our
service offering and meet the ever-evolving needs of our clients.
The author of this article is Matthew Hayes from Champions (UK) plc
Champions (UK) plc – Your Growth Partner | Business Consultancy
For the latest headlines from the City of London and beyond, follow City Matters on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
