Looking to the future in business, despite what stock market pros and your bank manager would have you believe, isn’t anything other than an educated guess. It makes you nothing more than a sharp-suited version of Mystic Meg, staring into your crystal ball and seeing sod all, but making a guess anyway.
Of course, very little of this matters if your business is riding high on a wave of cold hard cash. But once those funds begin to dry up, your credibility will wane quicker than Goldman Sachs circa 2008.
The business world is ultimately little more than a spin of a roulette wheel, and you’ll be lucky if your chips are on the right numbers at the right time.
There are, however, a few calculated guesses you can make to improve our business prospects and increase your fortunes. Here are just a few.
Make your workplace versatile
Your workplace premises is boxier than Amir Khan and about as appealing as roast pigeon with E coli. There are, however, numerous ways to improve the layout and overall look of your office.
And this isn’t a mere question of aesthetics. If your office looks shoddier than a used car salesman, you’ll struggle to lure in clients and have a workforce distinctly lacking in productivity.
If you want to design an office that’ll impress both clients and employees, you’ll have to get inventive. If you’ve got an outdoor section of your facility, for instance, then you could invest in an outdoor mezzanine from a well known supplier and add some pizzazz to your workplace’s layout.
And if you’ve got a lot of space to play with, be sure to erect plenty of dividers and place artworks intelligently around your space.
With these changes installed, you’ll enjoy a greater level of trust from your clients. After all, who wouldn’t be impressed by a workplace that looks like a palace?
Cut out middle management
In his book Utopia of Rules, political commentator and economist David Graeber writes about the pernicious affect that middle management has had on the effectiveness of various companies.
In some cases across the globe, middle managers have even been overthrown by workers who have then turned their warehouses into self-sufficient enterprises.
While all this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hire any middle managers, it does mean that you should always try to have as few layers as possible between yourself and your lowest tier of workers.
This will make your employees feel more connected to you and won’t create a bottleneck between you and the information you need.
Got any more ideas about how to increase the profits of your business? The let us know in the comments below.