Business Managment Tips

Back to Basics

Every so often it's good to go over the basic areas of your business and evaluate the knowledge you have for each area and how you are implementing it.

It's human nature to get lax in areas of our life not looked after or cared for, that's why this time of evaluation is so important. Your evaluation may reveal something not being done, or not being done properly, or you may come up with something entirely new that saves you time and money.

Just Say No!

You cannot do it all. Don't even try. You can organize
and prioritize yourself to death. Sometimes you have to
learn to "Just Say No!"

Rotate your time. Were you teacher's helper last year in
your daughter's class? Say no this year so you can be
Little League Coach for your son.

Are you productive?

Are you being productive in your business? In other words, are you "working your business"? Or are you "playing office"?
What does productivity mean in your business--phone calls to clients? widgets produced? accounts opened?
Whatever it is that drives your business and generates income or income potential, that is what you should be doing to be considered "productive".

If calling your cliets to set up appointments is what generates income, then re-organizing your filing system (again!) is not "productive" work.

Remember the "good stuff"

How do you decide what gets done and what doesn't? Do you spend most of your time putting out other people's fires only to find at the end of the week that you have no time left to finish that great book, or take your kids to the zoo? Plan your priorities into your week: scheduled meetings, family activities, personal time. And most importantly, treat each and every one of these activities as being equally important. If the decision to take on an extra project to impress your boss conflicts with your son's scheduled baseball game- choose the game. It's more important to impress your son than your boss. You'll not only build cherished family memories, but you'll also teach your children about priorities.

Hire Professionals

When wondering how you can "do it all", stop. You can't.
Your business is your business and your family is your
family. Unless your business is in one of these fields,
you're better off sticking to your specialty and let other
professionals stick to theirs.
*Hire an accountant (or make use of a good, simple accounting program)
*Hire a housekeeper (unless you thoroughly enjoy cleaning house)
*Hire a landscaper (or a local teen to cut your lawn or shovel your snow)
*Hire a lawyer (or use a computer program for things like forms and contracts)

If at all possible, support another small-business owner by hiring them
for these tasks.

Virtual Assistant

Virtual Assistant

If you are a sole proprietor or a small business owner who does not need (or have the budget for) a full or part-time employee to handle administrative tasks, you may want to consider hiring a Virtual Assistant. A Virtual Assistant (or VA) can handle some of your administrative tasks such as appointment follow up, preparing and sending out mailings, and other tasks that take you away from your core duties.

To do, or not to do

Keep a "to do" list every day. If you are a morning person, write it first thing every morning. If you're a night owl, prepare your daily list the night before as the last thing before you go to bed.

For many, a list can help keep them on track. If it's 2:00pm and the list is still untouched, where did the time go? Maybe there are legitimate reasons that you were distracted, but if there is a pattern to this, then there may be some other priority issues that need to be addressed.

Setting Priorities

How do you decide what gets done and what doesn't? Do you spend most of your time putting out other people's fires only to find at the end of the week that you have no time left to finish that great book, or take your kids to the zoo? Plan your priorities into your week: scheduled meetings, family activities, personal time. And most importantly, treat each and every one of these activities as being equally important. If the decision to take on an extra project to impress your boss conflicts with your son's scheduled baseball game- choose the game. It's more important to impress your son than your boss. You'll not only build cherished family memories, but you'll also teach your children about priorities.

Write it down

If you have many responsibilities vying for your time and attention, write them down. If you try to remember them all, something is bound to get forgotten. Write it all down.

It doesn't matter if you use an electronic organizer, an expensive planning system or a simple calendar with large squares to write in. The key is to use it. When you have all of your appointments and activities scheduled, you will have less stress when someone asks you to schedule another task. All you will have to do is flip open your calendar (or turn it on) and you'll know right away if you're free that day.

Eliminate the Junk

How many e-newsletters, e-zines, and misc ads fill up your mailbox
on a daily basis? How much of you time is being wasted
filtering through all the "junk" and weeking out the "good stuff"?

Eliminate the "junk"--just about every piece of junk e-mail you receive
was probably a subscription you applied for. Just about every one of
these offers an easy way to "unsubscribe" at any time. If you're just
deleting the messages and not reading them, unsubscribe.

Sort the mail--most commercial browsers (Netscape, Explorer, etc)
have a "message filtering" option. The filter looks at each incoming message
and files it in a separate folder rather than all lumped in your inbox. By
using this tool, you can easily see if you have new messages from "family" or
"business e-zines" or a specific "e-group". You can attend to the important stuff
first and leave the rest for later.

Phone Call Frenzy

Do you find that you just can't seem to get around to
picking up the phone and making those all-important calls?
Too many interruptions: the kids, the housework, appointments.

Plan your calling the night before and be ready to utilize
every pocket of time during the day. Each evening, make a
list of the people you'd like to call tomorrow. Write the
name, phone number, and brief reason for calling. Keep
this list next to your phone during the day. When you see
that you have 5 minutes, pick up the phone and call the next
person on the list. That evening, move the uncalled names
to the next day's list, add a few new names and you're ready
for your next day.