Article How to spring clean your business

Throw open the windows. Grab the duster. Whisk away the cobwebs. It’s time to polish your business until it shines.

The feeling that often comes over us in the spring is a curious one, isn’t it?

With winter behind us and the sun’s rays finally penetrating through the clouds, we suddenly look around and see all the dust bunnies that have gathered in the corners without us noticing.

And all of a sudden we can’t bear them being there and are filled with a restless energy. The spring clean begins.

It happens with our homes, and it can happen with our businesses too! Having put off certain tasks for months, we can be unexpectedly seized by a desire to get our ducks firmly in a row.

But even if that inspiration doesn’t strike of its own accord, now could be a great time to move the metaphorical sofa and hoover underneath it. You might struggle to get started, but once you’ve got things in order we promise you’ll feel so much better.

That’s why this month’s blog is full of tips for doing a deep clean of your business and leaving it feeling all shiny and new, so you’re in the best possible mindset to move forward.

1. Start by sprucing up your workspace

Although this blog post is all about doing a metaphorical spring clean, physically cleaning the space you work in is an excellent start, and can help you get in the mood to organise other things if motivation is thin on the ground.

If you have a dedicated desk and/or a whole home office, take a bit of time out of a working day to give it a proper going over. Rather than just a standard maintenance clean, do all those things you never normally do, like cleaning the windows or moving your desk to hoover underneath.

Rearrange things a little or see if there are any new decorative touches you could add to make it a more inspiring space.

2. Clear out your inbox

Do this for your own sake, but also for the planet, as you’d be surprised at the size your digital footprint can be if you’ve got years and years of unnecessary emails taking up space in your inbox.

Clear out that spam folder and spend as much time as you can saying goodbye to all those emails you don’t need anymore.

It might not seem like much, but we promise you’ll feel much lighter once you’ve created some inbox space.

Extra points if you unsubscribe from a few newsletters you’re not interested in, too!

3. Organise your files - on your computer and in the cloud

We might start out with great intentions, but when we get busy it’s easy for that careful filing system to fall by the wayside.

Take some time to get things in order, so you know exactly where to find them.

If you store your files in a cloud of some description or other, the digital footprint issue comes into play here too, so think carefully about what you really need to keep and what you can safely say goodbye to.

4. Do a client review

If you struggle to find the time or motivation to sit down and actively review your clients, then making it part of your business spring clean could be the answer.

It’s so, so important to review your clients regularly, as you’ll learn things you hadn’t realised, and it will help give you direction and a sense of purpose.

Take each client in turn and consider all the different aspects of working with them. How to do a client review is a whole blog post in itself, but here are a few questions to get you started.

• What rates do you charge them?
• What does that work out as per hour?
• What are their payment terms, and do they stick to them?
• Is working with them worth your while, financially speaking?
• Are they pleasant to deal with?
• Do they respect your expertise?
• Do you enjoy working on the projects they send your way?
• Have you asked them for a testimonial?

For each client, decide whether any action needs to be taken. For some wonderful clients, you might not need to do anything at all. But you might decide it’s time to raise your rates with one client, say goodbye to another, or ask a whole bunch for testimonials.

Once your review is complete, do your best to actually do all the things you’ve decided you need to do ASAP before you go off the boil.

5. Chase up any invoices and update your expenses

Go back through your invoices and see if any late payers need chasing up. If you’ve got LSP.expert, using the simple send-a-reminder feature can make this process far less painful!

Whilst you’re at it, take the opportunity to review your expenses and make sure you’ve got them all safely recorded, so you’ve always got your finances firmly under control, knowing exactly what’s going out as well as what’s coming in.

6. Tie up any loose ends

Do you ever sign up for a course you’re all excited about, but then suddenly get busy with work and forget all about it?

We’ve all been there, and even if we have the very best intentions it’s easy for these things to fall by the wayside.

If there are any courses you’ve invested in but abandoned halfway through, make finishing them a priority as part of this business spring clean. Sit down and decide exactly when you’re going to crack through the content, then block out that time and stick to it.

7. Review your LI profile

You’re on a roll! Now you’ve got everything behind the scenes under control, it’s time to take a look at your online presence, starting with your LinkedIn profile.

LinkedIn can be such an incredible source of work, but even if you’re always sharing excellent posts and getting lots of engagement, if your profile isn’t up to the same standard that could be a red flag to a lot of potential clients.

So now is a fantastic time to give your profile a once-over and tweak anything that doesn’t feel quite right anymore. Your headline, banner and About section are the elements that deserve the most TLC.

Whilst you’re at it, why not send a few direct messages to clients asking them to give you a recommendation? Bonus points if you leave them one too.

8. Review your website

You put so much time and energy into your website when you created it, but to make all that worth it, you need to do some regular maintenance on it, making sure it’s always up-to-date and properly represents what you’ve got to offer the world.

Tweak anything small you find that doesn’t feel quite right, and make a note of any bigger changes you want to make in the near future, like creating a new page.

If you have a contact form on your site, try filling it in yourself to make sure it’s actually working and you’re not missing out on enquiries from potential clients.

Same goes for any internal links on your site. Click on each of them and check they’re taking you to the right place.

Of course, you don’t need to tick everything on this list off at once, but once you’ve got started you might find you gather momentum and want to keep on going until everything’s in order.

Either way, you’ll know when you’ve done everything you need to do to get your business in shape, blowing away the dust and freeing yourself up to do your best work.

If you’ve got LSP.expert, you’ll already know how helpful it’ll be for your big business spring clean. Our reports will tell you so much about your clients and your profitability, and the platform makes it easy to keep track of expenses.

And if you haven’t tried it for yourself yet, now could be a great time to change that.

Incorporate our 30-day free trial into your business refresh and you’ll see first-hand exactly why so many freelance translators choose us.