Businesses can still tackle summer tasks

The last few weeks of summer can be a useful time for small business owners whose companies are going through a slow period - they have a chance to tackle some of those tasks they have been putting off.
Some owners use summer downtime for big projects like writing an employee handbook, while others cross off more mundane items from their to-do lists, such as entering that pile of receipts into their accounting software.
It's probably safe to say that if you haven't done your strategic planning for the rest of 2008, that should be your priority. For example, what changes do you want to make to your products or services? How do you want to adjust your marketing program? What do you need to do to meet customer expectations that may well be changing in a more difficult business climate?
''Summer is a good time to get all this stuff done, in preparation for the fall,'' said Nancy Shenker, who owns theOnswitch, a marketing firm based in Thornwood, N.Y. ''A mistake so many business people make is they wait until Sept. 1 to really gear up. They're really short-shifting themselves.''
Among the items on Shenker's summer list: developing a new business strategy for her firm and analyzing her financial statements and creating a forecast for the fall. She also assessed her staffing needs, wrote some articles and finished her company's employee handbook. And caught up on some reading.