Payton Hughes

Small Business Consulting Services

Business Planning

Identifying your goals is the first step to achieving them. Business planning, written or not, is a must for all businesses but many people feel overwhelmed and afraid of the process. It doesn't need to be overwhelming and unless you are applying for financing, you may not need a formal, written business plan. Emma has worked with many business owners who need help to plan the future of their business. Working together on goals (long and short term), recording them and reviewing them often brings about success. Some clients prefer to continue on their own and others prefer to have ongoing support and encouragement to meet their goals and objectives.

 

Non-profit organizations are slowly beginning to recognize the importance of "business plans" and Payton Hughes Consulting can assist with that process.

 

Marketing

Like businesses planning, marketing plans can seem overwhelming but organizing your marketing strategy and ensuring it is meeting your goals is very important. Together we can identify the best marketing strategy for your unique business, set budgets and goals, implement the strategy and measure the results.

 

Analysis of Business Operations

So your business is ticking along. You have goals and plans, and you follow them. Something still doesn't feel right. Maybe cash flow is poor or wages are too high. It is time to have a good look at your business operations to see what is going wrong. Having an outsider come in and ask the hard questions can be very enlightening, and together we can identify the problem(s), identify solutions and implement them.s

 

Pricing

For some companies, figuring out what to charge for their product or service is the hardest thing to do. Often we have an emotional attachment to our product/service and may end up charging too much. Others find it hard to "justify" charging an appropriate amount for their product/service. An outsider, one with knowledge and experience in product/service costing, can help to de-personalize the process, ensuring you are charging enough to make a profit, but not so much as to price yourself out of the market. Other issues you may want to consider addressing are: discounting, sales, promotions and price increases.

 

Systems Development

Setting up efficient business systems is one of the keys to business growth, employee satisfaction, productivity and profitablity. Sometimes it takes an outsider to come in and assess the system, identify changes and help with implementation. Some businesses need assistance in all areas, and some in only one or two:

• Office
• Financial
• Management
• Manufacturing
• Customer Relationship Management

 

Investing in efficiency is one of the best decisions you could make. If you think your business could benefit from having effiecient business systems in order to improve profitability, please contact Emma.

 

Websites

Emma has many years experience working with websites. Although she refers her clients to professional website designers for website building, she is available to assist you with assessing your website's useabilityand marketing effectiveness.

 

Website Promotion & Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

For clients who depend on their website for business, SEO and website promotion is essential. It is not enough to build a website, you must tell people that you have one (it would be like writing a book, keeping all the copies on a shelf and not telling anyone you wrote it). Website Promotion involves the tuning up of your web pages using search engine optimization (SEO) and then announcing the presence of your site using search engine submission services.