Driving to my golf outing today I realized it was the 9th of the month already and I haven’t even considered a topic for my monthly blog. Then I remembered advice I gave someone earlier in the week about giving yourself grace. Maybe things aren’t as bad as they seem. Maybe you’re a rock star and you aren’t giving yourself proper credit. It is good to step back once in a while to view things from a different perspective or to surround yourself with someone who will give you a good perspective.
Create Structure
As a small business owner, I often get caught up in too many ideas and not enough time to work them all through. Challenging is the word I use to talk about owning a business. Let’s think about some of the things you cannot ignore when you own a business. First off there is handling the money. Tracking invoices, expenses, mileage, collections, profit or loss. Set up systems to help make this a regular occurrence. When I was first organizing my business, I set up processes for myself to follow. Created spreadsheets to collect information. Created an invoice template and a process for assigning client numbers. These processes keep me from having to reinvent the wheel at the end of every month.
It is also helpful to create habits to collect the information you will need down the road. I read “Atomic Habits” by James Clear earlier this year and like to use the habit stacking method. I am not perfect, but having a process in place definitely helps keep me on track!
Know Your Strengths
Marketing is another big part of owning a business. How will you get the word out about your business. Meet the right people and say the right things. It takes lots of practice defining your ideal customer and knowing what you can and cannot do. It would be easy to fall into a pattern of not posting on LinkedIn and skipping chamber luncheons, but those are the seeds that make your business grow when you are tending other parts of your business.
For me I am most creative in the morning and try to do my writing and create content then. I started this blog sitting in the pavilion at the golf course waiting for the festivities to begin! I didn’t want to lose the momentum I had created while driving so I captured my thoughts in my notes to save for a day when I have time to complete the blog.
Partner with an Expert
The last big piece of owning a business that we’ll explore here is having employees. On top of managing yourself, now you also have to direct and keep productive employees. Whether it is one or many employees, they will challenge you on all of the processes and procedures you’ve created or the lack thereof. When managing I always like to have a handbook to manage against. It doesn’t have to be elaborate or heavy handed, but it needs to give your business a map of how to get where you are going in an efficient and compliant manner.
According to my research, the average small business owner with employees spends about 18 hours per month on HR compliance matters. That is 18 precious hours that could be spent on working in the business doing what you are best at. HR compliance is not always black and white. It helps to have an expert in your corner to help you create best practices and allow you to work your business. I would love to be your Fractional HR Expert!
I suggest partnering with the Small Business Administration (sba.gov) to help get your business off the ground.