What Areas Should I Evaluate?

When it comes to your business, you want to be sure to hit the key areas of your business plan. Do you have a business plan? If not, I urge you to get one quick. It does not have to be long and drawn out like huge corporate business plans but it does need to be concise and targeted for success!

With your business you should be able to better gauge the various avenues of your business.

Let’s take a look at key areas you need to evaluate and why.

1. Income streams. The first thing you want to take a look at is your income stream. What are you bringing in? Where is it coming from? Do you have passive sources of income? Are you creating programs that are drawing in an income for your business?

All of these questions are important because they will help you determine what needs to go, what needs tweaking, and what you need to keep because it just works.

2. Expenses. Where is your money going? Often times business owners do not take the time to see where the income goes once it comes in. It is important to have a system in place so that you are able to view your expenses and see if you need to cut back.

When you are not aware of what’s going on, you may find that you are often in the red and can seldom find the black because your money is going out to too many places.

If you are doing business online in any capacity this is easy to do because there is no paper trail. It is your job to create one so that you can keep track of how your money is being spent and if you are truly making anything.

3. Online marketing efforts. What are you doing online with your marketing? Are you using social media effectively? Do you have a list? Are you communicating with that list? What is your email marketing strategy? What are you doing with your blog?

Marketing online has become a very important aspect for both the online and offline business owner. Why?

Because for the most part, it is where your market is! This is why you need to take a look at your online marketing efforts. Decide what is working and what is not working. Create new ways of connecting with your marketing online.

4. Offline marketing efforts. Offline marketing is just as important as online marketing. Face-to-face interaction is still very much a part of getting the word out about your business.

Determine if you are truly networking offline to increase your bottom line. Look at where you are connecting to your market and how. Discover new ways to communicate with your marketing offline.

Maybe during your evaluation you determine that you want to start your own meetup. That is a great way to target your market and introduce your business to your local market.

Just keep in mind with all marketing that you need some sort of media kit. If it is online that media kit might be in the form of a PDF or a page on your site (we will get to the website in a few). Offline you need business cards, press releases, brochures and items of that nature.

5. Publicity efforts. What type of publicity tactics are you using? Do you create press releases? Are you using Twitter and Facebook to announce your latest product? Do you belong to Haro or some other media list? Do you do contests or giveaways?

Determine how you are reaching your market with publicity. There are many ways to get your business out into the public eye. If you are not using one or two avenues to get this done then you are missing out on a valuable opportunity to gain more exposure and increase your bottom line.

6. Website design. What is your website saying? Do you have a call to action? Does your blog have old content? Are there grammatical errors? Is the site saying who you are? In other words do you have a brand? Do you need a whole new look?

Again, we are at another critical part of the evaluation process. Your website is your online calling card. It will tell your potential customer all they need to know; and if it is not in order or has missing components your market will not know what to do.

If you are claiming to be an expert in something and your site does not show it, then people will not believe what you have to say. When you remove the trust factor, you remove the money factor as well.

It is not time for you to determine if you need to hire someone to help you get your site in order.

7. Website functionality. Another good one! Have you gone through your site to see if the links work? Are you knowledgeable about the order process? Have you taken yourself through it to be sure it works? Are there any errors in your site?

Whether you take the time to do it or you hire someone else to do it, you need to determine if your site is functioning at its optimum level.The goal here is to make sure that your evaluation is as thorough as possible so that your evaluation is as complete as possible.