This past weekend I spent some time spring cleaning in my house, and it occurred to me that it’s also a good time to do some business clean-up.
You don’t have to spend a long time on it, but getting more organized and refocused will help you move forward to the rest of the year. Here are three tips to get you started.
Weed out your client email list
A good starting point is reviewing your client email list. You may have been collecting names to add to that list over several years, and while it feels good to have lots of people on it, your business isn’t helped by keeping people on the list who aren’t engaging with you.
So spend a little time seeing who’s opening your emails. If you find some who haven’t opened anything for a year or more, you could simply put them in an “inactive” status. Or, depending on how much time you have, you could send an individual email to those people to see if you can find out why they’re not reading your messages.
Either way, you’ll likely end up with a smaller list, but that’s not a reason to be discouraged. It means that the people left are the ones who are truly interested in your product or service and are more likely to be repeat customers.
Clean up your inbox
This is also a good time to sort through mail, and not just the physical kind. It’s far too easy for email inboxes to pile up until you dread opening your email at all, which only makes the problem worse.
If it’s too much to tackle all at once, try setting aside a certain amount of time every day to start going through old messages. Delete what you can, and if you find that you still need to keep a lot, create folders and sub-folders as needed to organize those messages.
Keep going until you have a manageable amount left in your inbox, and then try to keep it at that number moving forward. You might be surprised at what a relief it is to have it all sorted out.
Review business plan and goals
When you first start a business, you spend a lot of time thinking about what you want to accomplish and how to achieve those goals. But after that, it can be very easy to set that plan on a shelf (virtual or physical) and forget about it.
Unfortunately, this means that you might be veering off course and/or that you’re moving ahead without any clear strategy. This makes it very unlikely that you’ll end up where you want to be.
Instead, take a little time to review those goals. Are they still applicable or do they need to be updated? Are you making the progress you want? Do you need to adjust course?
Once you’ve updated your plan, you may want to use the SMART approach for setting your goals, where each one is specific, measurable, attainable, results-oriented, and time-bound. This will give you a clear sense of direction and make you more motivated to reach those goals.
Spring cleaning isn’t just for your house
You may usually think of spring cleaning as an activity for your house or garage, but it also applies to your business. If you make an effort to get things in order, you’ll feel re-energized and ready for the rest of the year.