You may remember the soothsayer’s warning to Julius Caesar to “Beware the ides of March,” but the term didn’t originate with Shakespeare. The Romans, knew the Ides of March, March 15th, as the deadline for settling debts. It wasn’t until 44 BC, at the assassination of Julius Caesar, which made the Ides of March a day to “Beware.”

Either way, it’s a great time to remind yourself to work on a little debt settling in your business. Use your ideas of March wisely and spring your business forward and beyond your competition.

3 Ways to March into Spring

Look at the time you are paying out. Do you spend more time on your business or in your business? Do you need to do a little housecleaning, or perhaps it’s time to wake up your team and inject some energy into your March Madness plans?
Business changes quickly, sometimes by the minute! I hear about business ventures that fail all the time because the company could not be agile enough to keep up with their competition. Keep your energy level up, and be positive. Lead your team to a win.

An Extra Hour

Although we don’t actually get an extra hour in the day, daylight savings makes many people feel like they have gained more time. Use that great positive feeling to your advantage. Now may be exactly the right time to take a step back and measure where you spent most of your time.

Is your time spent “in-the-business” or “on-the-business?” Mapping out your workflow processes can pinpoint what is slowing your company down and creating a less agile workplace. If the business activities focus is looking a little packed, take advantage of outsourcing or delegating more. Freeing up your time may help you more in the long run than managing small tasks others can do. I bet there are several time-saving activities you will discover.

Another big time waster we often overlook is bad clients. It’s great to have clients, but not all of them will have the same value to your business. Run an analysis, and see which are your companies best value, and include metrics on the time you spend on them, best lifetime value, heavy spenders, and most important, which are more expensive to maintain.

Know who’s being a time suck and might strengthen your business by leaving. Plan to clean out clients that hurt your company financially, even if it’s just the amount of time you spend on them. Last year, my first full year leading this company that I had bought, I had to ask my largest billing client to leave. We are a stronger company today than we were with that large client.

Spring Cleaning

Spring is the time to clear the air and re-organize more than just your home. It’s a great time to revamp your business and clear the cobwebs in your head. Instead of breaking out a duster, reevaluate what’s working and what’s not in your business.

When was the last time you went through and vetted your expenses? Look at your utilities, office and cell phones, shipping, and do some comparison shopping. Can you lower shipping costs by switching packaging types? What plans does a different phone carrier have that may be better than your current one? Sometimes switching to a different type of light bulb can make a dramatic difference on your utility bill.

This may sound over-simplified, but ask your employees what areas need improvement or could save the company some money. Those on the front line are more likely to see things that might become tripping points.

Over the winter, your subscriber list probably grew. Nurture those leads like new growth. Draw them into your social networks, extend customer loyalty programs, whatever it takes to convert those new leads into long term loyal clients. Don’t let them be lulled to sleep with boring campaigns that will have them regret joining your subscriber list. Plus, take a look at your customer list and see how accurate the contact information is. Are the email addresses still good? What about the mailing addresses? If you haven’t heard from them in a while, it might be time to catch up with them with a personal visit or call.

March Madness

A big reason sports brands are so successful is they have built a relationship with each and every one of their consumers (fans). Being a sports fan transcends the consumer’s job, family and social status. This is the kind of brand involvement some product brands can only dream about.

March Madness is one of the biggest and most exciting events of the sports. The first tournament was in 1939, and it has been held every year since. This NCAA Division I tournament is a single-elimination tournament of 68 teams, all competing for the national championship.

The loss of productivity in the opening week of March Madness could cost employers nearly $4 billion in lost revenue in 2017, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. However, they recommend employers embrace the tournament.

“Efforts to suppress the ‘madness’ would most likely result in long-term damage to employee morale, loyalty, and engagement that would far outweigh any short-term benefit to productivity.”

This is the kind of fanaticism you and your company should embrace! Harness the March Madness energy, and use your company’s productivity as an outlet for your team. Imagine your team slam dunking a job well done with the energy they root for their favorite team. What if their brackets contained client lists and sales projections? Jerseys and team colors for different areas, with goal setting that ended in your own in office tournament. I’m sure you get the picture, and even if this type of environment isn’t a good fit for you, the energy and excitement level is.

Bringing it all together now:

Spring cleaning your business doesn’t have to involve changing everything or scrapping all previous ideas and replacing them with new exciting initiatives. Small changes that will ultimately make the biggest difference in your bottom line. Start by getting your team together with some positive energy, and identify processes you can optimize which will save time in productivity and decrease costs for the coming year.

Pick a few things that might make the biggest difference to your business. And remember, if you don’t get it all done for spring, keep going. It’s never too late to improve your company.

Until Next Time,

Your Staffing Partner, Darrin Rohr-  President, CEO and Chief Servant

Current owner of HH Staffing and Former Chief HR Officer for several successful Multinational Fortune 500 Companies. Brings fresh perspective from decades of experiences creating Great Workplace Cultures by building high performance teams while leading and managing people from all different backgrounds. HH Staffing is headquartered in Sarasota, Florida and is uniquely positioned to serve both local and national clients.