Too many business owners hire too cheaply. This is flawed thinking and instead; they should be hiring the best. They should also invest in the technology and expertise that allows them to streamline procedures and to eliminate the necessity to duplicate processes wherever possible as the company grows. Business owners often forget to check on their receptionists to make sure they’re remaining polite to customers and doing their job in a timely manner. If you have a receptionist that’s rude, puts people on hold too long, or has a habit that turns off potential customers, then you’re losing money at the front desk. The receptionist is often in charge of your business’s first impression, so you should routinely check on them when least expected to see if they’re doing a good job or not. Your business likely spends a lot of money to hire and train new employees. You want to find people who will stay at your company for as long as possible. A consistent staff makes a big difference in the productivity of your workplace as well as your image in the eyes of customers. People enjoy seeing a friendly and familiar face when they enter a business.
You can fix this with several steps. Pay more attention to your hiring process. Take a bit longer to find the right applicant. If you don’t get good vibes from the first five applicants, interview five more. Train your employees as thoroughly as possible when you first hire them. They’ll learn enough on their own after a certain amount of time on the job.
Bosses doing too many things themselves:
As a business owner there are things you do better than anyone you know, and so you continue to do them yourselves and procrastinate the hiring of others to handle those tasks, or you avoid paying for quality, saying “If you want it done right, do it yourself.” This is flawed thinking that doesn’t allow your business (or even your own capabilities) to grow. If you’re making $100K a year and you find out others in your role are making $125K a year you’re suddenly unhappy, but when you really address the strategy of your company, you’ll recognize the ways to increase your efficiency, your team’s productivity, the reach of your business–and your profitability and income–without working more, simply working more strategically and better with the resources you already have, or are within your available reach.” As an entrepreneur, time is your most valuable resource. No matter who you are or what you do or where you come from, everyone has 24 hours each day. Routinely question how wisely you’re spending time working on your business. Where is time being wasted? How can you make better use of your time? One example is morning commute. Instead of listening to music on the way to work, you could listen to a personal growth podcast. Or maybe you waste time on meeting with people you know you’re not going to do business with.
Lost time is lost money, so make sure that you’re making the most of your time. After you’ve discovered how you spend your time, the next step you will want to master is to learn the difference between what’s important and what can wait. Successful individuals create to-do-lists that contain only 3 or 5 of their most important tasks before they go to bed. In the morning they start tackling the most important and hardest, task first. Once that task is completed, they cross it off and move on to the next item. For instance, if your website or app is buggy, then fixing that code is more important than writing your daily post. After all, what’s the point of publishing a blog post if no one can read it because your site isn’t working properly? Keep in mind, if you don’t cross off all of your items, then transfer them to your list for tomorrow. You’ll feel better knowing at least your most important task was done today.
You aren’t tracking your marketing techniques well enough:
If the marketing campaigns are living in the 1990s, then so are your customers. You have to stay up to date with the times. Don’t try beating people over the head with corny catchphrases. Nobody responds to that type of advertising anymore. Direct marketing campaigns are now much more nuanced compared can help you update your marketing campaigns to appeal to modern customers. You’ll still need to check for spelling errors and improper wording. But you’ll find better layouts and improved communication with customers that will buy your products and services. It’s time to stop wasting money on boring marketing campaigns. You probably have Google Analytics set up, but are you using it? What are you learning from it? Most small businesses I talk to don’t have good answers to those questions because they don’t know how this tool works. Take some time to learn via Google’s free online Analytics Academy. There’s also a lot of confusion around Google’s pay-per-click advertising platform, AdWords. I love AdWords, and I find it to be a very effective marketing tool. However, many small businesses simply buy ad space without examining how those ads perform, and that can lead to throwing away a lot of money. This can be easily fixed. Start by setting up conversion tracking for your ad campaigns. The AdWords system allows you see how effectively your ads lead to customer activity such as phone calls, website purchases, downloads and more.
The worst advice financial managers give to business owners is to tighten your belt and cut back on spending, but they can’t tell you where. Or, in a similar vein, they tell you to augment your business cash flow by getting a second job. If you’re a dentist and you take a second job, you’re no longer my dentist, this is a reduction mentality instead of a production mentality and is fundamentally flawed. If you used that time instead of working at another job to properly focus your attention on your business just a little bit more, you’d succeed.
Invest money for growth:
Money you take out of the company (that doesn’t relate to your business) is money that can’t be used for investment and business growth. You’re likely to be tax on money you take out, so the real value of the money you keep in the company is even greater. That’s because it will be untaxed or offset against tax, depending on how it’s used.
If you think your business is going to grow in the future, it makes sense to use some of your profits to help that growth. The more money you invest sensibly into your business, the more likely it is that your company will grow. And that means you should be able to pay yourself more at a later date.
One-on-One Coaching:
Business coaching is a popular service to offer right now, so make sure you hire a qualified coach to manage your business blue print. Its always-good idea to hire a coach that has business experience, a business mentor that will help you figure out what skills or experience you need to have to manage your business and train your employees.
Bookkeeping and Tax Help
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I know from experience that hiring a bookkeeper can revolutionize a business. A Bookkeeper is the most important person in you business, to hire someone to take care of bookkeeping entirely. If you have to pay anyone top dollar I would highly recommend that it should be your bookkeeper! Now, my expense receipts are neatly organized months in advance and ready for my accountant. How’s that for early preparation? Not only has a bookkeeper saved me time throughout the year, I know this winter I’ll be able to focus on expanding my business instead of hunting for receipts. Bookkeeping also allows a business owner to have a greater understanding of how much progress has been made. You can look back and see patterns and draw comparisons with previous business years. This can provide a greater understanding of the areas within the business, which makes a profit and where costs might be trimmed. This kind of financial analysis can help you to avoid problems in the future.
