Housekeeping - Audit your business

Ideally once a year you should do an audit of your business.

Be critical and ask questions such as:

• Is the business on track financially?
• Are you achieving your objectives that you intended?
• Is there parts of the business which need focus?
• Are there opportunities which you haven't been able to capitalise on?
• What is holding your business back?
• Do you have the skills to take the business to the next level?
• Should you sell some or all the business?

Finally make sure you ask are you enjoying what you are doing?

This should be a frank and open discussion with your staff and business colleagues and will involve reviewing feedback from customers and other people.

Your should also include in this your personal friends and partner.

With this information make a decision about where you are going and where you want to be in a year, two years or more.

We have been doing this at Rainbow Tourism as we realised we need to focus on our core gay and lesbian business and also need further funds to make it grow. We have decided as part of this review to sell a large number of domains which were used in previous businesses and also sell the Pink Pages.

These decisions are never easy as you can always see the potential but ultimately you have to make a decision of where to focus ones energy.

So when did you last do a business audit?

Making Connections

I have just been at the IGLTA convention in Las Vegas and one of the key outcomes is the importance of making connections with your target market.

While there is a cost to coming to conventions one of the big benefits is that you can meet a lot of people face to face. Knowing someone personally makes a huge difference when you are wanting to engage in a business relationship.

This means for the gay and lesbian travel market you need to join organisations such as IGLTA, find local gay and lesbian community groups which you can support and find ways to connect with the local gay and lesbian community.

For example if you were in my home city of Sydney you might consider joining the following organisations:

IGLTA - International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association
GALTA - Gay and Lesbian Tourism Australia
SGLBA - Sydney Gay and Lesbian Business Association

You should then consider supporting a gay and lesbian community group. To make sponsorship effective you have to have a clear understanding of what you want from the organisation you are sponsoring and what you can offer to the organisation so it is a win/win situation for both organisations.

You should also consider obtaining some assistance with the market - there are pitfalls and by seeking help you can avoid some expensive mistakes - so if you are wanting to engage with the gay and lesbian traveller contact people who can offer you a marketing plan. RainbowTourism.com is one company which can assist you in this area so please feel free to contact us.