Operating a small business is a daunting task. You often are faced with hard decisions and have to look in the mirror frequently and ask yourself what can you do to make your business better?
Below we will explore some of the questions that every business owner should ask themselves when considering ways to improve their operation.
Are You Maximizing the Hours of the Day?
In a single day, we are all given 24 hours. Let’s say eight of those hours are spent in bed, two hours are spent in a car commuting, another two hours are spent on meals and breaks, and you need to spend at least four hours on regular everyday tasks like cleaning, cooking, doing laundry and spending time with the family. The other eight hours you have left should be dedicated to your business.
Obviously, everyone’s schedule is different, but as a baseline, this is pretty close to the average person’s day. Are you maximizing those eight hours you are spending working on the business?
Eight hours can go very quickly if you spend inordinate amounts of time on mundane clerical tasks like scheduling meetings, seeking legal assistance for contracts, order entry, bookkeeping, and other paper-pushing tasks. This leaves you with only a short period of time where you are actually working on tasks that will scale your business.
Thankfully, in the age of technology, there are solutions you have at your disposal to take back your day. Short of hiring more staff to take care of the small stuff, it can be more effective these days to partner with a firm that will help you by outsourcing administration.
This new phenomenon is one that is more cost-effective than hiring new staff and will take all of your day-to-day tasks away from you and give you the time you need to work on things that will move the needle. These outsourced teams will focus solely on keeping your business running while you are out finding business and making things happen.
Finding a trusted partner in outsourcing administrative tasks is easy in the age of the internet, and it could be the shot in the arm your business needs to go from slow growth to scaling at a large scale.
Are You Doing Enough Marketing?
At the heart of every good business is a genius marketing plan. What is often overlooked is just how much marketing you should do to keep generating leads and sales growth.
We often feel like we could be doing more, but really aren’t sure how to effectively market to our target audience. There are old-school options like print-ad, radio spots, and direct mailers, but we all know that those aren’t exactly the needle movers that they used to be.
Social media marketing has seen huge growth over the past few years and you’re behind the eight-ball if you don’t have a strong social media presence for your business. You should have some sort of presence that you keep up to date on every platform that you can including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. It doesn’t take more than a few moments to update these each day and reach a wide audience to generate leads.
Another new method to reach your target audience has emerged in the form of sms marketing. This is a new service offered by companies like Community.com, that will give you a personalized phone number that you can send out targeted text messages to your customers.
Businesses are using this new technology to customize product offerings to their customers, generate leads, and keep an intimate customer service relationship with their clients. It really is cutting edge and will generate better, more qualified leads for your business.
Do You Have Enough Cash Flow to Maximize Your Business?
Cash is king. That’s the motto you hear time and time again in the business world. Not having a consistent cash flow for your business can hinder growth almost more than any other factor.
If you’re living invoice to invoice in your business, you’ll never have enough inventory to increase your sales in a manner that you could otherwise. Short of securing a large investor with a big lump sum investment, there are few options that are attractive.
Luckily, there are a few solutions that you can take into consideration to move from living on razor-thin margins to moving as much product as you can get your hands on.
Ampla offers a line of credit option that businesses have at their disposal that will give you the cash flow you need to expand inventory you need to increase your sales while not overwhelming you with endless fees, monthly payments, and high-interest rates.
Repayment works hand in hand with your daily sales, allowing you to set your prices and know your margins well. Ampla will deduct a percentage of your daily sales to repay the credit line while also giving you robust tracking software so you can track your sales and cash flow. It’s a one-size-fits-all all solution that works more as a partner than a creditor.
Consider a line of credit if you are lacking the proper cash flow to scale your business. Ampla is one solution that is friendly to entrepreneurs and won’t handcuff you with monthly payments and high interest.
Do You Have Your Books Straight?
This might seem like a no-brainer, but tons of businesses fail every year because they don’t keep appropriate accounting records, sometimes not even knowing the difference between an invoice versus receipt.
Keeping close track of your expenses and your receivables is something that you cannot take lightly. If these get even a little bit out of whack, it can have devastating consequences for your business’ financials.
Given the constraints, a small business can have, it’s often not feasible to hire an accounting team to keep your books straight, so you either need to spend your valuable time doing it, or you can look for better options.
One option that more and more small businesses are moving toward is outsourcing accounting. There are online firms that will take care of every aspect of your accounting ranging from billing to collections. Settle.com will take it a step further by remitting your accounts receivable ahead of time and taking care of settling up with your customer on the back end.
This type of outsourcing, like previously mentioned, gives you back your time and allows you to focus on the day-to-day of growing your business. Additionally, it gives you consistent cash flow by speeding up the invoicing and payment process immensely.
Taking good care of your books shouldn’t be taken lightly. Ask yourself what else you can do to make certain that you’ve either got a good handle on it, or you place them in the hands of a trusted partner.
Conclusion
Asking yourself the right questions is paramount in any business owner’s life. Figuring out what matters and what doesn’t is just a part of the game.
Make sure you’re holding yourself accountable by asking yourself the questions above and keep doing the right things and your business will grow naturally with you.
