Applying external learnings to part of your business
It’s vital to scrutinise the advice you receive and decide what’s suitable before you apply external learnings to your business.
Assess whether your technology will support business growth
As your business grows, it pays to consolidate tools. Get the right tech solutions and they will streamline operations and enable growth.
Assessing your own strengths and weaknesses
Knowing your strengths and weaknesses creates an opportunity for you – and your business – to grow. Our five-point plan will get you started.
Breaking ambitious goals down into manageable targets
Follow our five-step action plan to find out how you can break ambitious goals down into manageable targets.
Build an online presence for your business
Building a strong online presence will help to drive more traffic to your business, increase company awareness and showcase your expertise.
Build stronger relationships with loyal customers
Developing a plan for building stronger relationships with long-term customers will make sure your business prospers.
Building a network from scratch
Building a network is about making valuable contacts who can provide guidance during critical moments. Our action plan will show you where to start.
Building trust in your employees
Use our action plan to help gain the confidence to delegate tasks to employees and build your trust in their abilities.
Step 4 – Buying with confidence
Calculating the ROI from implementing new technology
The first data point you get about a new technology is often the cost of a tool – and that can be intimidating. What’s less clear is the return on that investment (ROI).
Choose a business process that could be automated
Identify the parts of your business where automation could be beneficial and understand where the human touch is still necessary.
Collecting data to improve your business
Collecting the right data helps to support decision making and facilitate accurate forecasts. But all too often, businesses end up with quantity over quality.
Communicating your vision for success to employees
Find out how to communicate your definition of success with employees to help turn your vision into reality.
Create a marketing plan for a new group of customers
Targeting a new group of customers? Our five-step action plan explains how to adapt your marketing strategy.
Create an environment to improve leadership
Recognising that there’s always room for you to develop is the first step to improving as a leader; the next step is to create the right environment.
Create career paths for your employees
With career progression the consistently top-ranked reason why people leave jobs in Britain, showing that your business can provide stimulating and rewarding career paths is essential.
Create your company's future leaders
Creating a cash flow forecast to navigate unpredictable times
A cash flow forecast is an important tool to navigate periods of uncertainty. Our five-point plan explains how to refine your approach.
Creating a culture of effective communication
Follow this action plan to establish clear lines of communication in the workplace and encourage better collaboration across your team.
Creating a roadmap to evolve as a leader
Being proactive about the steps you need to take to develop as a leader means you can support your company’s growth. Follow our five-step plan to create a roadmap for your development.
Creating a set of company values
Company values can act as a motivator for staff and give them a strong sense of purpose. Follow these five steps to create a set of company values.
Creating an effective remote workforce
Creating an inclusive work environment
While an inclusive workplace won’t happen overnight, there are steps you can take today to demonstrate that you understand the value of inclusivity.
Creating effective targets for your employees
Goals provide clarity and help to galvanise your team around the company’s objectives. Our five-point plan explains how to set effective targets.
Step 3 – Creating your shopping list
Decide which digital sales channels will work best for your business
With so many digital sales channels available to businesses, find out how to select the ones that serve your needs.
Define what success looks like for your business
Follow this step-by-step action plan to help you define what success means for your business.
Define which business needs digital tools could support
There’s a wealth of digital tools available to support your business needs, but how do you know what’s right for your business before you invest?
Defining your USP
It’s harder than ever for businesses to stand out. Defining your USP allows you to quickly communicate what makes you different.
Develop the right approach to health and wellbeing
Develop your digital skills as a leader
Identify what digital skills are important in your leadership role and find the best learning method, from online resources to training and events.
Develop your goal setting and planning routine
Working on your routine adds rigour to the planning process and makes sure your team can work effectively. Get started with our five-step plan.
Developing a new product or service
Creating a new product or service for your business and not sure where to start? Follow our five-step action plan.
Developing a recruitment process for scale
Improving your recruitment process increases the quality of your hires. It’s a crucial part of scaling. Here’s how to get started.
Discover which parts of your business need more support
A step-by-step action plan to help you understand the parts of your business which are slow or inefficient and how to provide the right support.
Embed your USP in your company culture
If you’ve developed a unique selling point (USP) and want to ingrain it in your culture, our five-step action plan will help.
Empower your best people to do more
Encouraging employees to give feedback on company leadership
Getting honest feedback from employees is important if you want to develop as a leader and run your business or department effectively.
Establish your company culture
Figuring out what new roles can plug skills gaps
Our five-step action plan will help you identify the skills gaps your company has and build job roles to fill them.
Filling the skill gaps in your business
Step 6 – Getting your money’s worth
How to identify core products to scale
Finding a standardised, simplified and repeatable product or service allows you to simplify processes and lower costs. Our five-part action plan will help you get started.
Identify a new target customer
Identifying new customers prevents an overreliance on existing clients and can connect you to valuable opportunities. Use our action plan to get started.
Identifying and overhauling outdated processes
Poorly performing processes impact productivity and sap employee morale. Follow our five-step plan to fix systems that aren’t working.
Identifying communication barriers in your business
Fixing issues with communication will prevent bottlenecks and make your team more productive. Follow our five-step plan to get started.
Identifying growth opportunities in your current customer base
Creating more value for existing customers provides a sustainable way to grow your business. Follow our five-step plan to figure out the opportunity.
Identifying which digital tasks should be outsourced
Avoid sapping internal time and resources by identifying which digital tasks could be outsourced.
Implementing processes to support employees’ mental health
A subject as important as mental health requires a carefully thought out approach – small business leaders need to develop processes to support their teams.
Improve communication within your team
Improve the way you performance manage staff
Improve your employee appraisals process
Appraisals are a process conducted in very varying degrees of quality by businesses of all types. Done well and they provide clarity, direction and a renewed sense of purpose.
Improve your hiring and onboarding
Finding the right people to hire, and then getting them contributing in a meaningful way quickly, is a vitally important job for a business of any size.
Improving your accountability as a leader
Implementing a system to hold yourself accountable ensures you’re making progress, rather than simply flitting between tasks.
Increasing overall staff engagement
Introducing an incentive scheme
Step 2 – Justifying your budget
Knowing when it’s the right time to scale your business
How do you know it’s time for the next step in your company’s growth? It’s a big question. Our five-step guide will help refine your thinking.
Learning to prioritise your internal strategies
Use our five-part action plan to prioritise your internal strategies and improve your accountability as a leader.
Learning to recognise warning signs in your business
Learning to recognise warning signs in your business is crucial to stopping issues from developing into bigger problems.
Leverage your online presence to grow your customer base
Once you’ve built an online presence, the next step is to leverage it to grow your customer base.
Leveraging research to understand the business landscape
This action plan looks at how business leaders can use different types of research to build a better understanding of the business landscape.
Make a decision about which technology is right for your business
Once you’ve identified the business needs new technology could support, it’s time to research and choose something that’s right for your organisation.
Making an informed decision about investing in your business
Use our five-point guide to help you identify the business investments which will have the most impact in the long-term.
Step 5 – Making it work for the team
Making your vision and values part of your culture
Once you’ve set your company values, how do you embed them within the culture and keep them front and centre of your business?
Managing a challenging member of staff
Measuring whether an internal process is fit for purpose
If you’re worried about how efficient a process is, our five-step plan can help you work out whether or not it’s fit for purpose.
Nurturing your support network over time
Having a trusted network of people is an invaluable resource for business leaders. Our five-step action plan shares advice on nurturing your network.
Onboarding new employees remotely
Onboarding is critical to getting an employee up and running as quickly as possible – and it’s doubly important when they’re working remotely.
Planning finances during periods of growth
Financial planning is crucial during periods of growth. Our five-step plan will help you manage finances and take advantage of the opportunity.
Predict future trends in your market
Follow our action plan to learn how to predict future trends that could affect your business.
Predicting what skill sets your business needs to develop for the future
Want to know what roles can create opportunities for your business? Follow our five-step plan to get started.
Preparing for a new investment in technology
Once you have made a decision on using a new technology, the next step is to plan how it will be implemented.
Reducing turnover of contract or freelance workers
If you rely on contractors or freelancers, it’s worth investing time in retention – there are big productivity gains to be had.
Set a research question to shape data collection
Embarking on data collection without a clear plan can leave you with swathes of information that’s irrelevant or unusable. Setting a research question first gives the process direction.
Setting expectations during delegation
Clearly setting expectations when delegating can alleviate your anxiety and give your employees the best chance of succeeding.
Setting marketing goals and analysing results
Our five-step action plan explains how to start tracking your marketing activity and make sure it has an impact.
Step 1 – Setting your objective
Sharing company financial information with employees
What information should you share with employees and what’s the best way to communicate it? Use our action plan to help you get started.
Streamline your sales process
Your sales process is the engine that powers the business. Maintenance and improvements are essential to making sure it runs effectively.
Taking action to overcome a problem in your business
If you’ve found a potential problem in your business, the next step is to decide on the actions you’re going to take in response.
Turn your staff into brand advocates
Understanding where you add the most value as a leader
Our five-point action plan will help you identify where you add value, so that you can be more effective in your role.
Using data and feedback to shape your business planning
Getting input from stakeholders and experts strengthens your business plan. Use our five-step action plan to get started.
Using data to inform decision making at your business
Using data to inform decision making at your business is a no-brainer – the biggest challenge is getting into the habit of doing so.