Whether you’ve taken your talent and your fortunes into your own hands by joining the gig economy and becoming a freelancer, or whether you’ve chosen to build a thriving business out of your skills, it’s important to keep one eye on tomorrow’s challenges. As essential as is for you to be able to juggle the myriad operational and organizational challenges that today brings, it’s just as important for you to be able to weather what the next 3 months, 6 months, 12 months or 5 years will bring. After all, you’re in this for the long haul and you know that success today doesn’t necessarily guarantee success for tomorrow. You need to know that your business will retain its appeal (and its customers) when you’re ready to retire and hand the reins of your beloved business over to someone else. In order to do this, however, you’ll need to put measures in place that will future proof your business without channeling your well earned products into speculative spending that has no guarantee of paying off.

Here are some pointers to help you do exactly that…

Invest in expertise when it comes to IT

The right tools are essential in any business. Most businesses in their early days work out exactly what kind of tech they will need fairly early on and establish a method of using it that works for them. While this is absolutely fine, an agile approach to IT is essential in order for you to be able to adequately cope with your ongoing needs for tech solutions, digital storage and cyber security. Thus, investing in managed IT services is essential. A good IT company will regularly audit your operations to ensure that your tech solutions are working optimally for your business while allowing it to make changes to adapt to tomorrow’s challenges.

Retain your existing customers while engaging new ones

You adore and appreciate each and every one of your clients or customers and every person who does business with you is a gift. However, you know that as important as it is to keep your existing customers coming back time after time, it’s also essential to keep finding new and innovative ways of attracting new custom to your business. Don’t be afraid to take a page from the Uber playbook and incentivize your existing clientele to bring their friends, family members and colleagues to your business.

Encourage customer feedback and take it seriously

Your customers are not only your source of revenue. They’re also an invaluable source of insight that could steer your business towards long term prosperity. Thus, it’s vitally important to glean their perspective on what elements of your business are working for them and which are not. While you can quickly exhaust yourself trying to be all things to all people, if numerous customers offer the same insight this could be used as a reliable roadmap for future success. You should also employ a bookkeeper to help you to keep track of what your customers are saying with their wallets. Keeping an eye out for alternatives to products that aren’t selling or ways to bring best sellers to new markets will also help you on the way to future prosperity.

xoxo, Karmen K

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