The following are important guidelines for better managing your business.  If you have questions or need additional information in any of these areas, please contact Alexandria SBDC. We can also provide referrals to professional resources. Additional information can be found in our Interactive Resource Library. You can also search the Library by industry or area of need.

Review Your Business Plan

Once your business is up and running, it is important to periodically step back and take an overall look at your business and how you are fulfilling your business plan.  At least once each year, review your written business plan and update it to reflect the current state of your business and your plan for the future.  The SBDC’s Business Planning Guide is a useful tool for this exercise.

Maintain Good Records

You have taken the steps necessary to start your business in the proper manner.  Be sure to maintain required records throughout the life of your business.  This Recordkeeping Checklist for Corporations and LLCs-Alexandria includes some of the important records to be maintained for LLCs and Corporations.

Get Insurance

Be sure that your business is adequately insured.  There are many resources available regarding business insurance, including:

• Small Business Administration’s website description of various types of business insurance
• Alexandria SBDC’s Business Insurance Checklist

Hire Employees

It is crucial that small business owners take all of the proper steps when hiring employees.  There are many factors to take into consideration. See more information on hiring and managing employees in our HR resources section.

Pay Taxes

Depending on your business structure and type of business, you will owe various Federal State and Local taxes.  It is the business owners responsibility to know what taxes must be paid and to pay them on time. For more information, please visit our Taxes page.

Track Cashflow

Periodically, you will want to update cash flow projections comparing the actual results from the latest month (and later, quarter to quarter) to test the validity of your assumptions and manage your cash flow. This important function can provide a path to growing your business, expanding, answer other “what if” questions and point to possible solutions for working capital needs.

Rather than prepare one forecast, some businesses prepare several: best-case and worst-case scenarios, along with the most likely outcome. This range of possible outcomes will assist with decision making by highlighting the risks and rewards of following certain financial strategies.

An interactive sample format can be found at the following on the SCORE resources site.

Beef Up Your Marketing

All businesses can benefit from expanding their customer or client base. Marketing plays a key role in the continued success and growth of your business. Visit our Marketing and Social Media page to learn more about techniques for improving your marketing strategies.

Prepare for Emergencies

All businesses, regardless of size, need to be prepared in case of disaster. The ability of a business to get back up and running after disaster strikes is much easier if steps were taken before the disaster to prepare for such a possibility. See the SBA’s website for more information and helpful resources.