YOUR BUSINESS IS TOO HARD

Burnout, overworked or stretched too thin, if you’ve been in business for yourself long we’ve all experienced this. In today’s society we suffer from a time deficit, meaning we have a lot less time than previous generations. This doesn’t make running a business any easier, less time, more competition and a tough employee market. If you’re experiencing these exact issues then it’s time to take a good hard look at your business. Most small businesses start typically the same way, with the owner performing every aspect of the business. As the owner you do the sales, marketing, customer service, financials, development, etc. There is nothing wrong with this, after all you have to start somewhere. As your business grows and you begin to hire employees you begin sharing some of these duties with them. However, no one can ever do the books the way you did them, or handle customers the way you handle them. Your employees just don’t know how to do things the same way you were comfortable doing them. Lessons that you’ve already learned and mistakes that you’ve already made begin to repeat with each new employee that you hire. Over time what this tends to lead to is one of two things. One, you go back to doing everything that you were doing before, overseeing each department and making every single decision no matter how big or small it may be. Two, You begin to get frustrated with your employees and begin going through the cycle of hiring a star candidate to firing that candidate because they just didn’t do it the right way. As you can see when you as the owner feel overworked, stressed, or burnt out it leads to you making decisions that will affect the efficiency of your business, and make for a toxic work culture for your employees. Here are 3 things that you can do today if this is you. Create Organization Hierarchy Create an organization chart that shows who each person in your company reports to. Are you the only employee? Perfect, create the organizational hierarchy for your perfect company. Include duties for each position including what each position is responsible for. Processes & Systems Document everything!! Go through your own work, why do you do it the way that you’re doing? Does it have to be done that way? Is the way you are doing it the most efficient way possible? As you write down and document the work you do, you’ll see the inefficiencies and will be able to help create the most efficient system and processes so when you bring on an employee for that work you can give them the training manual that employees need to do the work the exact way you want them to do it. Create a Business Development Mindset Create time each day for you to sit down and think about the longevity and business development of your business. Don’t put this off. As a small business owner you are often more concerned with the day-to-day of the business, which is important. However if you aren’t thinking about the development of your business, then who in your company is… No one.