Jonathan runs a small consulting business. Like many typical small business owners and professionals, he often complains that there is either too much going on, or too little.
When he’s busy, Jonathan finds himself working long days, nights and weekends, to the point of exhausting himself. The perennial optimist, he always thinks that projects will take less time than they do, and gets himself in trouble with clients all the time. Bookkeeping, financial, administrative or planning tasks are routinely put off, until they reach the crisis point; like last week when he had no money in the bank and a stack of bills to pay…
When Jonathan isn’t busy, he’s recovering from those late nights, and worried about where his next project will come from. When he takes a moment to consider working on the administrative tasks he put off over the past busy months, he quickly finds something else to do.
Although Jonathan did spend some time last year setting some goals, he never takes the time to work towards them, which undermines his efforts by making him feel hopeless about the future.
If Jonathan’s predicaments sound familiar, here are a couple of small business management tips that may help:
1. If your business can support it, hire someone, delegate or outsource bookkeeping, accounting and administrative work. If you can’t afford to hire help, make time in your schedule to take care of routine tasks on a weekly basis, not just when a crisis crops up.
2. Develop a marketing calendar a year in advance so that you’re always doing something to market your business. Although there will always be times when more or less business is coming in, consistent marketing does bring a more consistent flow of business.
3. Build a workflow strategy. If you work with multiple projects, make sure that you always know what the priorities and completion dates are; as well as the steps that must be taken to deliver them.
4. Get into the habit of taking time out to look at the big picture of where your business is going, and how to get it there. It’s hard to build a successful business if you work in it, not on it. But setting goals isn’t enough. It’s the consistent actions that we take to get there that make the difference between having goals and achieving them.
Susan Martin, small business coaching and consulting.
