We’ve all heard the saying that a lot of us are too busy working in the business to work on the business, and when it comes to maximising your growth opportunities and potentials, this is one of the first – but often overlooked – places business owners should start.
Owners of small to medium enterprises (SME) have a multitude of tasks they need to do each day and it often leaves little time to analyse the status of the business and implement proactive strategies. This approach can result in the business becoming stagnant, unable to match the market share of their competitors and ultimately making less money. Often the amount of work that goes into running the business isn’t reflected in the books.
If you are an SME owner, you need to free up time in your workday. The best way to do this, and a good starting point, is to audit your working day.
How To Audit Your Workday
During a normal day, write down all the things you have done and how long you spent on each activity. There are apps and tools you can use but don’t over complicate it – tracking in the notes app on your phone or with a pen and paper works fine.
How much time have you spent on activities that will help the business reach its potential?
As the owner, you should be spending a significant amount of your working day on activities that will grow the business.
What activities you are doing that are not contributing to the growth of the business? These activities are likely to be administration tasks, responding to emails, dealing with customers, accounting functions etc. Many of these things are important, but it’s not essential that they’re done by you.
Once you understand how your time is being spent, you need to determine how you are going to delegate, automate or outsource the activities that aren’t geared towards active growth of the business.
Delegating
What activities can be delegated to your employees? Can you have someone monitor your emails, so you are dealing with the important emails? Can one of your employees be dealing with customer enquiries? Make sure you are delegating to the appropriate person, give them the responsibility they need to manage the task effectively and make them accountable.
Automation
Use technology to your advantage. There are a significant number of ways automation can be used in your business. Automation can be as simple as automatic replies to emails and/or phone calls or more complicated activities such a payroll management, forecasting, invoice management, document approval, document management, marketing activities and so on. Technology is your friend.
Outsourcing
Owners and employees have limited time and attention. Common tasks outsourced includes payroll, marketing, human resources, IT services and accounting. The less time you spend on these activities, the more time you can spend growing the business. These outsourced activities will still need to be monitored to ensure they are operating effectively and efficiently.
A simple audit of your day has the potential to unlock the ability for your business to grow.
For assistance in unlocking the growth potential of your business, get in touch with your Accru advisor.
