From the Vault – Six Tips for Small Business Owners

I’ve been a long-term blogger and writer for almost 15 years now. As someone who is always creating content, it’s interesting to go back and review some of the past posts I’ve shared. Here is one that I think many of you as business owners will find useful. I wrote it back in 2010, and it’s still relevant today:
Six Tips for New Small Business owners – Originally published at the Biztoolkit blog in April 2010

This April marked my 6th year of business. I continue to be reminded of the excitement and emotions of new business owners through regular discussions with participants of the 90 Day BizSuccess program - some of whom are new business owners, as well as seasoned small business people.

In running the program I often get asked, what are some tips for new business owners. Here are 6 tips which have kept business exciting, and successful for me, over the years.

1. Track it! Take notice of the impact of the activities you are undertaking, over both the short term as well as the medium term. What are you noticing about the money you have invested into different marketing activities? Notice what's giving you impact in terms of your activities, networking and relationships.

2. Create Systems so that you don't have to recreate things over, and over again. It's not surprising that even experienced business owners still " have not had time" to create simple processes for their businesses such as invoices, proposal formats etc.

Ask yourself:

• What activities might you need to repeat time and time again (consider finance, people, marketing etc)?
• What systems would benefit your business?
• When will you spend time creating these?

3. Build on What You Already Have, Have Done or Do: Many times small business owners fail to capitalize on what they have already created, designed or know. What can you build upon in your business? Do you really need to start off at 0?

4. Plan it! Time Management and Planning can be a major challenge for business owners. When was the last time you sat down to plan and strategize about your goals for the quarter or even the month? As we know from time management 10 minutes of planning can save an hour of unfocused effort.

When will you spend time creating your plan for the next month?

5. Schedule It! What doesn't get scheduled, doesn't get done. What are your main business priorities right now? Have you scheduled them into your calendar? If it's not written down or blocked off chances are it may get lost.

Activity:
Take 15 minutes this week to identify one or two main priorities for your business and schedule in time in your calendar to get these things done.

6. Be strategic - We can't be all things to all people? Consider the Pareto Principle, or 80/20 rule, which states that we get 80% of our impact from 20% of our efforts. What activities are going to give you the most impact this month?

Best wishes,
​Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, PCC, CPCC
Author multiple books including the Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner (2018), Effective Group Coaching (2010)
Potentials Realized
Phone: 416-996-8326
Check out the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series of daily prompts for your work and business over on  Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder.