Despite our best efforts, our businesses do not always perform the way we want or expect them to. From time to time, it becomes apparent that the only way to save a business or to make sure it can be successful is to restructure it. There are a number of ways this can be accomplished and things that can be done to make the process go more smoothly.
- Emphasize your business’s quality over its quantity. When it comes to your company’s size and the products you make, maintaining your quality is much more important than maintaining the quantity. In terms of products, if you have to cut back on the number of options you offer or the variety of items you sell, that is better than compromising the quality of those products or services. It is a good idea to really look at what products and services make up the bulk of your business. What are your best sellers? Focus on them. When you are restructuring your business to become more profitable and to survive this is an important step. Similarly, you do not need a workforce of thousands to show you are a good company.
- Lose the charts you have been using. When things start to go badly for a business, some people look for comfort in their organizational charts. One definition of insanity is repeating the same action while expecting a different result. These organizational charts are no longer working. When you start the restructure process, you may want to bring in restructuring consulting firms to help you rework this. This is the heart of your restructure process. You will need to become more creative and flexible to make this work for you and your business.
- Be more collaborative. Get everyone in your business together and hammer out your immediate, short term and long term goals. Bring in everyone in your company to get ideas about the best way to move forward. You never know where good (or bad) ideas are going to come from. Do not limit yourself to listening to people based on their current title or role in your organization. When you embark on the process to restructure your business, you should open yourself and your mind up to ideas from everyone who works for your company.
- Get input from your customer base. What do they need from your business? You need to make sure you completely understand what their needs are when they look to buy your products or hire you for your services. You can get a lot of information from looking at which of the products or service that you provide are the most popular. Similarly, you can be proactive in asking them what they think and what improvements they would like to see. If they leave you feedback, you should pay close attention to it.
- Look to others in your industry. Look at what others are doing who are on the cutting edge of your industry. Talk to them about where they think your industry is headed and see what they are working on. You should not copy other people’s work but talking to entrepreneurs, influencers and inventors in your industry can give you ideas about ways to make your business profitable and keep it solvent. Use the restructure process as an opportunity to improve what you do and what you offer your customers and clients. This does not have to be the end of your company.
- Leave your ego at home. When you start to restructure your business, you have to remember, this is not all about you. If you want to turn your business around and change it to be more profitable and solvent. For some people, it is hard to admit that mistakes may have been made but mistakes are essential to success. In baseball, a .300 batting average is considered to be excellent. That means, successful batters fail 70% of the time. The difference between failing and succeeding is the number of times you get out there and try.
When you talk to restructuring consultants, you have a chance to improve your busiess. This is an opportunity to produce something better for your customers and clients.
