Establishing a successful business requires one to find a need in the society and standing up to meet that need. As we sail through the last quarter of the year 2019, we need to reflect on progress made in our businesses and work on how we can utilize the opportunities available to boost your business. With the business world changing so much from time to time, it is becoming hard to keep up with trends. The following are seven tips to take your company into the third quarter and beyond:

1. Take Time Out to Think About Your Business

As a business owner, you can get distracted by small, everyday tasks. Emails and phone calls eat up your time and stop you from actively guiding your business. Getting bogged down in routine duties can cause your company to lose what makes it unique. Instead, take time out to think about where your business is heading.

Taking time out helps you deal with present challenges as well as plan for the future. Consider, for example, when Toyota wanted to enter the American car industry. Toyota’s management understood that American car manufacturing lines were more productive. They took time out to research what American production lines did well and combined that information with their strengths. Then, they were able to manufacture cars for a fraction of what American assembly lines could.

With big benefits available from taking time out, how can you make time to plan the next steps of your business? Put it on your calendar. Schedule time every week to focus on the bigger picture. This time should be a top priority, so don’t let anything else creep in and steal it away. Once you have got it on the calendar, what should you think about during this time?

2. Figure Out Your Business’s Wins

Every company has goals, but some are more important than others. Certain problems are essential for your company’s success. These goals need to be the focal point of your business plan. Deciding what your business needs to accomplish reveals which goals are vital. It also singles out the goals you can put on hold or toss out.

How can you figure out what your business wins are? Determine what your company needs to succeed this last quarter of the year. The 80/20 rule is a good starting point for this. Part of the 80/20 rule states that 20 percent of your accomplishments account for 80 percent of your success.

So, look for goals that will have a significant effect on your company. Make them the focus of your priorities. When you are re-examining your business goals, you may find out that what you are using is not contributing to your company’s success. How can you deal with that?

3. Decide What You Need to Put the Brakes On

We have all tried something only to realize it did not work out as we expected. Business is not exempt from failed expectations. It is full of them. After putting a business tool in place, you may forget to check its effectiveness.

If you do not check on it, you may not even realize that one of your business tools is not working. If you are wasting time and money on things that are not working, you are draining money away from valuable tools that could support your goals. For example, if you keep throwing money at a marketing strategy that is not working, you are wasting cash you could use to improve your marketing. To avoid waste, you need to keep track of how well your resources work. How can you do find out what’s not working?

The easiest way to find what is not working is through the process of elimination. Look at what your company uses for marketing and sales, and then assess what is working. Improve or discard everything else.

4. Improve the resources you are not fully utilizing

Sometimes you get so caught up in new things that you forget what you already have. Your company might have talented personnel or fantastic tools that are capable of much more. If you only look at your plans for the future, you could ignore your business’s assets or under-utilize them.

Neglecting your business’s resources and employees wastes time and money and keeps your business from reaching its full potential and frustrates employees that want to show off their skills. How to improve on the resources you are not fully using Examine what your business already has. Review your employees’ skill set and analyze your website and marketing.

If you are not taking full advantage of something, create a strategy to help them reach their full potential. Pay special care to one aspect of your business that is usually underdeveloped: your customer experience.

5. Enhance Your Customer Experience Clients are your company’s foundation.

Their experience can have a big impact on your profit margin. Among customers, 87 percent are very likely to buy again when they have a good experience at a company. But, the customer experience will suffer if you cannot see past the day-today duties of owning a business.

Customers have a sea of businesses to choose from. If you want your business to last, you will need to build a loyal customer base. Outstanding customer experience can make that happen. How to enhance your clients’ experience Scrutinize every inch of your customer experience by creating a customer journey map.

A customer journey map is a diagram that shows how your customers connect with your business. You can illustrate your customers’ journey by pinpointing where your client interacts with your company. Then, analyze how well your business is handling those interactions. Focus on improving the interactions that mean the most to customers.

6. Update Your Social Media Strategy

Social media can do a lot for your business. The right social media strategy can keep regular customers happy and attract new ones. Over 70 percent of customers who receive a good service experience via social media are likely to recommend the company to others. But, social media success does not happen overnight.

Like any other part of your business, social media needs to have a strategy. Social media will only help your business if you use it the right way. Because social media trends and algorithms are always changing, your strategy must be flexible. If you keep up with the changes, you will be able to connect with your customers in a way they feel is relevant and sincere.

7. Do the things you have been putting off

People love to procrastinate, and business owners are particularly susceptible. With all the little things that need to get done each day, you can easily trick yourself into thinking you are too busy for something important.

You may put off tasks that you feel are too big to accomplish alone. Procrastination causes serious problems. When you put off completing vital tasks, you can lose money. In fact, 40 percent of procrastinators have experienced financial loss from their procrastination. Procrastinating can also affect your health. Leaving things for later causes increased stress because you can’t help but worry about unfinished work hanging over your head.

If procrastination is such a pain, how then can you beat it? Set priorities, and do the things that need to be done first. If you feel overwhelmed, delegate some of your tasks to your employees or hire some outside help. If you are feeling uninspired, take a little time to research the task before getting started.

With these seven tips under your belt, are you finally ready to take your business to another level.