As you grow your entrepreneurial venture, you may realize that you constantly need to keep your eye on business upgrades. This is especially true if you run an online business where things are constantly changing.
The question then becomes, how on earth do you find time to do these business upgrades? Between social media changes, better technology and better tools for online marketing, there’s a lot to cover!
To be honest, I don’t think anyone has an answer for this. However, I do have some tips based on how I run things in my own business. Here’s how you, too, can find the time to do upgrades in your business.
Do upgrades that won’t require another upgrade.
The last time I upgraded my email marketing software, I did it with the long haul in mind. I went with Infusionsoft precisely because I knew and upgrade would mean corporate level type stuff. In other words, I’ve upgraded the most I can when it comes to email marketing.
When doing business upgrades, you may want to start thinking with the long term in mind. Depending on what stage of the business you’re in, this could end up saving you time, money and headaches down the road.
Here’s what I mean. While Infusionsoft was way more expensive than the last email marketing service I was using, I knew it would save me a ton of time because I had a CRM, e-commerce, and affiliate management all in one place. Additionally, I knew where my online business was headed, and I did not want to have to fork over a ton of dough to my designer and a developer a couple of years down the road to update the website to incorporate a new email marketing and e-commerce system.
Granted, you can’t always do this because you do have a budget, but it’s useful to do it where you can.
Do business upgrades during the slow season.
One of the biggest mistakes I made in my business was starting a rebrand and system upgrade in the Winter which just so happens to be one of the busiest times of year for my business. It was a mess.
Fortunately, now I know better so all my tech and social media upgrades happen during the summer. Additionally, updating anything on the backend or improving old blog content also occurs during the summer.
Do upgrades for your business as you go along.
My team and I discuss small administrative and techy things the third week of every month. This is when we check in to see if our systems and automation are actually working. It’s also when we discuss possible future business upgrades.
By keeping this conversation going from month to month, we can take care of the little things as we go along and we’re no longer shocked when we have to do a big upgrade because we saw it coming.
Final Thoughts
Business upgrades are an essential part of growing your small business. As time goes on, you need to make sure things are running smoothly. By using these tips, you’ll always find the time for these upgrades.
