Whether you’re a one-man band or a 100-person business, ongoing improvement is crucial to keep you ahead of the game. Making consistent improvements to keep your business elevated and better is a great choice. It will require you to make the right choices and balance your time but you must pick the right area of business that are going to make the biggest impact.

These ten tips will help you focus on elevating your business and offer the biggest gain.

1.    Monitor trends

What’s popular changes so quickly and it will all have an effect on your business. Stay in the loop of current trends and on going issues within the industry and your local community. Then be sure to act on these when possible.

2.    Keeping score

A lot of small businesses have no idea of their daily, weekly and monthly numbers or financial trends within the organisation. It is so important that you spend the necessary time on keeping an eye on your current cash flow. If you don’t have the financial skills, then hire an accountant.

3.    Answer questions

A way to get traffic to your business from search engines is by creating useful content. For example, when people are searching in google they are often looking for answers to questions. Do your research, have a list of the most common questions that you have been asked and then create content that answers those questions.

4.    Staff motivation

You need to keep your staff happy and motivated and doing so can bring positive improvements to a business. Learn what motivates your members of staff to higher levels of performance and offer incentives to keep them happy.

5.    Limits

Know what your limits are. Every successful business owner has a clear enough idea of what their limitations are. By knowing these you can manage your resources and get help in those areas of weakness that you as a business may have.

6.    Share your website offline

Encourage people to look at your website by sharing it offline. Is it on business cards, flyers or vehicles for example? If not, then it needs to be. This might all sound quite obvious but it is very easy to overlook the simple things. Why not personalise your very own company jacket or fleece? This also projects a professional brand image and makes a great first impression.

7.    Set goals

Like keeping score, setting goals and objectives are an essential part of business success. You should set goals and use them as ongoing planning tools that ensure you carry on moving forward in your small business.

8.    Embrace social media

Social media is no longer just good to have – it is a must-have for any business. It’s a core part of how a consumer learns about new businesses, conduct research makes decisions and engages with brands. Create a social media strategy that is designed to achieve your goals and ensure you choose the platforms that fit and match with your target demographic.

9.    Image usage

Between social media and news, it can be hard to focus on one thing. Images are the easiest to overlook if they are not high res or of high quality. You need something that grabs people’s attention and speaks for your business – low-quality imagery won’t do this.

10.  Build trust

Everything you do becomes part of your business, your website, social media presence right down to the clothes you wear and the car you drive. Create great first impressions, ensure customers are informed at all times and that your business is always striving to offer the very best. Trust is important – if you don’t have the trust in your business and yourself, nobody else will.