What to Do at the 5-Year Mark of Owning a Business


Congratulations! You’ve made it to a point which over 90% of new businesses never see. You have conquered the five-year mark of being open for business with no signs of slowing down. And now you’re wondering what to do next. This is a unique problem and a good problem to have as a business owner. After all this time, you may be wondering what you should be doing to help your business and whether you are doing enough to keep up the momentum. When deciding what to do next, it may be a good time to stop and take stock in where your company is currently and where you would like to see it grow over the coming years.

Where do you see your business in five more years?

This is an important question to ask yourself. When thinking about how to move forward with your business, you will want to take a few days to plan out where you see your business heading. Do you want to have more employees? Do you want to open more locations? Do you have a desire for efficiency? Once you have an idea of where you want to go, it will be easier to make plans and goals along the way to hit that target mark. It can be easy to get caught up in the business and forget to make future plans, now is the perfect time to refocus form a strategy.

Evaluate your efficiency

You have been in this industry for a while and things have been going well. However, in the technological age, you can never lag behind for too long before a competitor will innovate and change the industry. Try to do some research on your current efficiency and emerging technologies. Explore whether there new devices, programs, or applications that will help increase efficiency. If there are new types of equipment or machinery you can use, consider small business loan options for securing such technologies. A business with five years of history is attractive to lenders and they will want to help you continue to succeed in your field.

Go through “the bad”

It can be difficult to examine the things we’ve done wrong and accept that we could have done things differently. However, after five years it’s important to take a fresh approach to dealing with old problems. Go through employee exit interviews to determine whether there need to be significant changes to your staffing procedures. If you’ve had accidents on the job, decide if you made the appropriate adjustments and whether there is capacity for other similar incidents to occur.

Honor your long-time employees

This is an accomplishment for your entire business and your long-time employees deserve recognition. Whether you choose to have a party, offer a financial reward, or simply provide more amenities around the office, letting workers know they’re appreciated goes a long way. When you take notice of your employee’s hard work they will be more likely to stick around and continue their tradition.

Celebrate!

Seriously, this is a major accomplishment. A giant percentage of businesses do not remain open after just a year of operation. There have likely been ups and downs, as well as times where you wondered if all the hard work was worthwhile, but now you are here. Take the time to be proud of all the effort you put in over the last five years and use that to motivate yourself towards the next five.