Make sure your information is up-to-date

The festive season is now well and truly over. So, do you still have some Christmas decorations up? Perhaps some tinsel and a Christmas tree around your office?

Or maybe there’s still a sign still on your shop window saying you’re closed between Christmas and New Year?

If so, it needs to go. Right now.

The reason your humble correspondent is advising you to trash the tinsel is not because Old Taskmaster is an insufferable grump with a deep antipathy to any form of human goodwill or merriment – well, at least not entirely.

It’s because, now you’re back trading in 2014, it is communicating out-of-date information about your business to your potential customers.

And, like the sign out the front of the Parts Unknown Football Club asking for players for the 2012 season, the surest way to make yourself look like a two-bit operation is to present your customers with obsolete information.

Unless you have a Tardis, wormhole or other suitable time machine on standby, your website or pamphlets quoting out-of-date prices or product lists can be damaging to your business reputation. Worse, it can even potentially lead to a letter from your “friends” at the ACCC or the office of fair trading asking about your alleged misleading advertising.

Meanwhile, having out-of-date contact information on your business card or website cost you valuable customers who are otherwise ready to make a purchase.

So it’s worthwhile periodically looking around any physical office or shop you use, as well as on your website, social media pages and blogs, for any information or messages that might have passed their use-by date.

And the ideal times to do such a periodic check is immediately after either any major staff changes, any significant change to your contact details or trading name, any major holiday or event you’ve strung up any special decorations for, and after the start of a new year.

Which means right now.

So Old Taskmaster says this: Check all your marketing materials – online or offline – for any outdated information. Be especially careful to note any references to ‘2013’, ‘this year’ or ‘next year’.

If you spot anything, make a note of it and then make sure you get it corrected!

And get those bloody decorations down while you’re at it!

Get it done – today!