A simple, six-point checklist that you should put your business through at least once a year.
Think of it as an MOT for your business. It’s a simple checklist to make sure that things are running smoothly.
It’s easy for the day-to-day running of your business to take up all of your time.
It’s not so easy to stand back and look at the broader picture, to make sure that your business has kept pace with changing conditions and hasn’t slipped into bad habits.
Here are 6 things that you should look at least once a year, and maybe more often than that.
Prices.
When people think about their pricing structure, they almost always worry that their prices are too high and, of course, too high a price tag on products and quoting too high for pool, spa or sauna installations will drive customers away.
But offering prices that are too low can have a detrimental affect as well. It can give the impression of poor quality.
Most customers, certainly the ones that you want to attract, are not looking for the cheapest price, they are looking for the best value for money and that isn’t the same thing.
To set your prices properly, you need to have a good knowledge of what your competitors are doing and a good knowledge of the overall market.
Products and services.
We all live in a rapidly changing world. Products and services that were fine a few years ago just don’t cut the mustard today.
Right across the wet leisure market; from pools and spas to saunas, technology and design that was innovative, niche and top-end a few years ago now represents what mainstream customers expect.
If you take a look at the Wet Leisure Survey, you can see where the growth areas in your market are.
Premises.
Your showroom is just that; somewhere to show the public what your business has to offer.
For a lot of businesses in the wet leisure industry it is also a storeroom, an office and the place where the service staff keep their parts and equipment in between jobs.
An untidy, badly decorated and cluttered showroom isn’t doing you any favours. Have a look around and ask yourself, ‘is this giving customers the right impression of our business?’
People.
One of the most important things about any business is the people that work there. It is particularly true of a wet leisure business because you need members of staff that not only have the right technical skills and qualifications; you need them to be good at customer service as well.
In fact, the Wet Leisure Survey, put recruiting and keeping the right people as one of the biggest challenges that many businesses were facing.
If there are skills or qualities that some of your staff are lacking, then training and coaching might be a better alternative to replacing but you certainly can’t grow a successful business without having the right people.
Marketing.
There is no central body, or even a big brand, advertising the benefits of pools, spas or saunas to the public.
All the advertising and marketing that exists to get people interested in what the wet leisure industry has to offer is done by businesses like your own.
That makes marketing doubly important to grow your business, and twice as challenging.
There are articles on almost every aspect of marketing here on this website, and the idea is that this advice is made freely available so that you can use it to help grow your business.
The market.
However well manage your business is, there will always be things that influence its success that are outside your control.
The recession hit us all hard, but hopefully we are coming out of that.
Bad weather and in particular, bad summers, really hurt our industry. Although there are sectors of the industry that are less weather dependent – indoor pools and saunas in particular – there is nothing that anyone can do about our climate.
But you can keep your eye on the market; see what trends are coming in, which sector is strong and which is weakening.
Talking to colleagues and other people in the business is useful. The Wet Leisure Survey can give you a clearer, broader picture as well.
We hope that you found this article useful.
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