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Starting your own business is no easy task. You end up working all hours of the day, you feel guilty if you ever take breaks, and sometimes it can be touch and go as you wait to see whether or not you’re actually going to succeed. But here’s the most important factor: it’s also one of the most exciting, challenging and interesting things you can ever do. But once you’ve started up your business, what happens next? Here are a few things that you should remember to do after you’ve been in business for a year.

Keep Your Best Employees

First of all, when you have good staff it’s crucial that you do whatever you can to keep them working for you. Finding people who really understand your business is rare, so you need to offer incentives like promotions, raises and bonuses to make sure that they feel valued and that they work hard for you. Make sure that you listen to all your employees’ ideas and take them into account. If they feel ownership over the company and over their work there, they’ll be more likely to work there for longer.

Retain Your Clients

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Let’s face it, getting clients is easy when compared to how much work it takes to actually retain them. Customer service is absolutely key to the success of a small business – the personal touch is the number one thing that you have over bigger businesses, because chances are you won’t be able to provide the same level of range or convenience. Make sure that you’re always easily contactable and that you use social media carefully – your company voice is very important so make it professional yet idiosyncratic, and get someone to check all your tweets for spelling and grammar issues before you send them out. Working with your clients and being personal with them is the best way to keep them around.

Crank It Up A Gear

Once you’ve been going steadily for a year and you’re starting to make a good profit, it’s time to reinvest in your business in order to make it bigger and better. If your technology isn’t great, invest in a new server; if you’re working out of a tiny mouse-infested hole somewhere, try to find serviced office space so that you can expand a little and so that your employees can work in comfort. If you have a site, why not consider redeveloping it to make it more user friendly? It’s time to get creative.

Take A Break

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Finally, if you’ve been working non stop for the last year it’s time to take a holiday. By now, you should have people that you trust enough to keep the business chugging along for a week while you get out of the country and find some sunshine for a few days – or while you just spend a week finally getting some sleep in your own bed! When you’ve started your own business, it can be so busy and frantic that it’s easy to burn out, but if you’re smart you’ll ensure that it doesn’t happen to you by taking a little time away. You’ll find yourself raring to go by the time you get back.