Many small business owners are facing the same business issues day in and day out. I am astonished at how many small businesses do not have a written business plan. It is still on the "to do" list after several years. Dream businesses are turning into jobs for these folks and they find themselves working harder and harder for less and less. There is a way to change the situation favorably and turn it around.
You may have been thinking about some issues in your business and a strategy to deal with them but just haven't gotten it off the ground yet. To be sure, until you are focused on a solution things will not happen. Below are five universal keys that will bring you a measure of success no matter how large or small your business is or may become.
Have A Vision
Did you ever ask yourself, where will your business be when it's done? The best way to map your business strategy is to decide now what that looks like. It helps to be very specific with a focus on the end date and or time frame. Write it down, will it be a corporate structure and if so what type? Will it be local or national, perhaps international? Documenting your dream will help you know when you arrive. Writing it down provides us the map of how to get to where we want to be. It defines the work the business will do.
Document
Do you know how the work will get done? Changing a tire may sound simple but if things are done out of order, there can be serious complications. If you document the process you can hand almost any task to another person when necessary. You can break up the over all task structure into smaller segments with an outline of how each fits together. Create the order and a system for quality control. This allows for process improvement as your business changes and grows.
Be Process Dependent
Every company has an employee turnover rate. If your work is process dependent people can come and go without long term effect on your business. With key elements of the input and output documented your processes will continue effectively. If you teach employees how to run the system, you become less vulnerable to people changes that will occur from time to time. Transitions with new personnel also become less of a hassle. When things do go wrong, it is usually easier to change a process rather than people. Go all the way, identify every function in your company from telephone greeter to bathroom cleaner. Develop the procedures for each action and how it will be done.
Success Must Be Measured
Put together some key performance indicators (KPI) for each process. These will help quantify how the process is doing and give you insights on where the process may need improvements. Waiting for financial reports is too slow for today's world. The KPI metrics should be simple and you will only need two or three per process to effectively measure. The importance of measurement is that it allows for change and process improvement. Share the KPI information with your people, they spend a major part of their life with you and can give you valuable feedback. The more involved they are the lower the turnover rate. You can share through a company newsletter, bulletin boards or lessons learned sessions. The old saying, "manage by walking around" has a meaning. Employees know what is happening and what is not working well, help them help you.
Improvements
Successful companies are continuously improving the way they get things done. That does not mean that you are always changing something just to be changing. Evaluating the metrics established in your measurement process will be your guide to needed improvements. Some actions could be costing money or time which is nearly the same. If you save just 15 minutes a day by shaving a minute off of 15 processes, in a year you have gained over a week and a half of work time. That is direct to your bottom line.
There are a lot of things one can do to make a business successful but the five above are universal in nature. Here they are again.
- Establish written Goals.
- Document how you are going to do it.
- Define processes for doing it
- Establish a measurement for each process.
- Look for constant improvements.
