Monday, August 15, 2011

How to Simplify Your Business


Running a business can overtake your life. Every waking moment can be ruled by your business and entrepreneurs can easily become overwhelmed by daily management issues involving employees and company aspects. Effective tools to simplify your business as much as possible are key to avoiding this scenario.

The first place to focus is on management. Set specific criteria you are looking for in the hiring process, consider education level, pay and schedule needed. Have an online application form. This way you will be able to quickly weed out applicants who do not fit, saving you time. Another management time and money saver is to strengthen your supply relationships by using as few providers as possible. This will increase your purchasing power, offering you better leverage.

One more idea is to arrange for your human resource functions to be outsourced. Research shows such issues take up one-third of entrepreneurs' time. A huge benefit to outsourcing is the responsibility for missing tax payment deadlines or misfiling will fall on the shoulders of the outsourced company rather than your own. Finally, reduce the number of staff meetings you hold. Make meetings effective and concise to save your own time, as well as, getting your employees back to work.

Make use of technology. Scheduling is often the most time consuming issue for most business owners. To save time, use available software in order to assist you in scheduling employees. Some of these software packages will also assist in making payroll easier. Additionally, rather than micromanaging employees, many business owners are thankful to invest in time clocks. A time clock takes the babysitting out of employees, respecting their scheduled hours along with providing useful documentation.

Another overall area to simplify is your marketing. The first step in this is to find out how you are doing. Have comment cards or online surveys available to your customers for feedback. Then, utilize local business to build partnerships. Start with your own customers, suppliers and vendors who are also business owners. Another idea is to cut out the middle men and meet your consumers directly.

Finally, ensure that you allow yourself personal time. Make decisions on what you are comfortable outsourcing and what you only feel comfortable doing yourself. Set boundaries for yourself which will limit how much work time you allow yourself to attend to personal matters. This way, when you are not at work, you will be able to really focus on family or friends.

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