How to Become an Effective Business Manager

Effective Business Manager

So often, a small business manager is responsible for a myriad of tasks, including recruiting, hiring, overseeing and coordinating the activities of employees, setting strategy, establishing budgets, and finding new markets for expansion. Thus, in order to be effective in this position, you must be, above all, flexible. Additionally, you might consider taking the following tips to heart.

Train Employees Thoroughly

A business cannot prosper without productive employees. So commit plenty of time, attention, and resources to employee training programs; be sure these sessions explain in detail every aspect of the business. It’s also wise to partner a new employee with a longtime worker, so the latter may mentor the former during his or her initial weeks. Let new employees know that you’re available to answer questions and hear concerns, too.

Know Your Stuff

Study your field constantly. Learn to use new technologies and media platforms. Always scrutinize the marketplace, the work of your competitors, trends in advertising, changes in the law, and anything else that might possibly give your business an edge.

Hold Yourself to the Same Standards as Everyone Else

If you want respect as a small business manager, you must earn it by holding yourself to high standards. If you make a mistake, admit it to colleagues candidly and then move on. And don’t bend the rules that you expect everyone else to follow. Always follow the company dress code, for example, and don’t exceed the lunch hour. Do not award yourself special bonuses or unnecessary perks, either.

Goals and Detailed Plans Go Hand-in-Hand

An effective business manager is both a visionary and detailed oriented. To that end, always have in mind a broad, long-term vision. For instance, you might decide that your business will achieve X amount in annual sales or Y percent market penetration. Then craft a highly detailed strategy to make that vision a reality. Devise a budget. Decide which cost management strategies you’ll employ to stay on that budget. Create monthly goals, and communicate those goals clearly to every one of your business’s employees so they’re keenly aware of what they need to work towards.    

Build Relationships with Customers

To the greatest extent possible, get to know your clients and customers personally. Engage them in conversation. Stop and say “hi” whenever you see them, whether it’s at your business or at the mall with your family. Send your biggest clients holiday cards, or even invitations to dinners or golf outings. Doing so will increase their loyalty and bring in new business through positive word of mouth.

One Thing at a Time

When you focus on one task at a time, rather than trying to multitask, you decrease the number of errors you’ll make, reduce your overall stress level, and increase the chance of a creative breakthrough. Multitasking is sometimes necessary for a business manager, but it’s greatly overrated. In addition, prioritize your tasks: Allot the most time and energy to the most important among them. See if you can assign less important activities to someone else.    

Continually practice these tips and become an effective business manager.

Growing Your Small Business

Growing your Small Business

Most entrepreneurs dream of building their company and making a lot of money in the process. Sadly, many business owners work hard but fail to realize their dreams because they did not develop a solid plan. Here are five tips on how to grow a business.

Plan:  When dreaming of an idea, most people want to get started immediately. When starting rapidly, an entrepreneur feels that he or she can start making money and building a solid customer base. Instead, one should create a solid and workable business strategy. One must include financials, marketing strategies and a basic idea on how the company will turn a profit. Remember, to grow a business, one needs a plan. Of course, when creating the plan, one should not go overboard or stress. It is just a simple outline of the company and its long-term plans.

Adequate funding:  Many companies never gain traction in their market. This happens for a lot of reasons with one of them being that the company does not have enough money. When the business cannot afford to pay top-notch employees or buy products, it will have a hard time making money. Simply put, when trying to grow a small business, one must have enough money. To get capital, one should apply for a credit card and build their profile. Then, after some time, one can apply for a loan at a bank or lending institution.

Employees:  In trying to cut costs, some opt to pay employees or contractors a low wage. Now, in the short-term, one will save money by using this method. However, in the long run, one must invest in their employees and contractors. When paying a decent wage, the organization can attract the brightest talent who gets results. Without a doubt, one cannot grow a small business without some solid and dependable employees.

No salary:  When turning a profit, some entrepreneurs want to live it up and draw a large salary. This mistake can lead to serious problems when the company faces leaner times. Ideally, a CEO should not draw a wage. Of course, this is not always practical; a company owner, should, at the least, draw a small salary, so he or she does not take away money from the organization. Without a doubt, to grow a business, one must make this sacrifice.

Bookkeeping:  Some companies neglect to set up a solid and long-term bookkeeping plan. Instead, many busy entrepreneurs opt to throw receipts into a box or drawer. One should not do this as it can lead to serious and difficult problems. Instead, a company should hire a professional bookkeeper and keep copious records and notes of all transactions. In the long run,  this will pay off since the organization will have an easy time obtaining loans and doing taxes when they have organized books.

Most people do not know how to grow a small company. Luckily, when following these five simple tips, an entrepreneur will know how to grow a business and rise to the top.

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Setting Business Priorities

Time Management for Small Business

Small Business 101

Setting Business Priorities for Building a Successful Business

Building a successful business normally takes time, and it requires setting priorities so that the business can survive through good and bad circumstances.

Business priorities will often vary based on a diversity of factors including the company’s mission, financial status, human resources and the industry. Therefore, it is essential for each business owner and their representatives to develop a list of priorities and remain consistent in accomplishing them.  However, before an individual or a team of representatives starts this process, there are some things that they should know.

Why are business priorities a necessity?

In an ever-changing global business environment, it seems nothing is remaining stable. Consequently, when the business leaders are in the process of managing their operations, whole organizations have to regroup to keep up or remain on the cutting edge of the industry’s competition.

In many circumstances, the challenges during these times can become overwhelming since there are so many different things on the table to do. However, when the business is well-versed in setting priorities and keeping everyone on the same page, the business will not get side tracked by accomplishing goals and objectives that will not add value to the mission.

Another top reason for setting priorities is it allows the team to accomplish the more lucrative projects first. Consequently, the team will increase business profits and everyone involved can enjoy the fruits of their labor (i.e. company bonuses etc.).

Defining Priorities

With so many variables that can affect today’s businesses, defining priorities usually takes more skill and experience to do it effectively.  Fortunately, there are software applications available on the market, and they can assist with expediting this process.

This software is designed to help with making an informed decision because it may also provide trends and other valuable information.  For instance, the business owner can set the top priorities based on the activities that bring in the most finances. Whether the finances are derived from cutting out unnecessary procedures in an operation or selling more products to a specific target market, the business owner and their representatives should set the highest priorities based on financial income.

In some cases, the company may have a need for additional resources so that the company can expand their activities into other markets. To achieve these and other objectives, the business owner and their representatives must know what it considers to be the most important. By defining priorities, everyone in the company can stay on task and move forward together.

Tips for Setting Business Priorities

Tip #1 - One of the first tips is to create a list of objectives. This list will assist the staff with setting the business’ priorities effectively.

Tip #2 – Set a specific criteria designation to each objective. On a scale ranging from 1 to 3, it will make the items easier to classify. With the highest priority ranking number 1 and the lowest priority ranking number 3, the group can decide which objectives should be accomplished first.

Tip #3 – Involve all key personnel in the process. To ensure the process is thorough and effective, everyone who has a stake in this process should be involved. Leaving out key stakeholders can present major problems in the future. 

Now that you know the basics of setting business priorities, it's up to you to put that knowledge to action.