6 No-Brainer Tips To Help Streamline Your Business

As an entrepreneur in a small business it can be extremely difficult to manage everything singlehandedly. You’re effectively a salesperson, business owner, HR manager, finance assistant, people manager and marketer, all in one busy little package.

Ultimately your goal as an entrepreneur is to build a sustainable & profitable business, where you can build something amazing, enjoy what you do every day, whilst protecting your future. Whatever your personal motivation is, there are some simple things that you can do today which will make you work smarter. Check out my top tips below:

1. Your Website and Marketing.

Having a functional website is all well and good, but if it just sits there gathering dirty pixels it’s fairly pointless. Try and build yourself a basic monthly or quarterly plan of things you can do to promote it, think of things like social media promotion and blogs posts (just like this one). If you really don’t have enough time, try looking into marketing automation software that will help you schedule and manage your plan for you. You can also employ specialists like us!

2. Your Business Processes.

So, you’ve got a yourself an office, a loyal team, lots of customers and a steady stream of new business coming in. That’s dam’ awesome, but if you don’t manage your growth carefully the business can start running away from you. One thing we’ve always done is setup simple business processes to follow. By doing this (even if you’re a sole trader) you’ll be able to scale more easily and all of your team will be onboard, following the same structure. This helps improve your teams productivity and efficiency.

Want something to get you started? List everything that happens when you get a phone call or email about a new enquiry. List all of the singular tasks. This will form part of your Sales Process. Once you’ve written it all down, try and make the process more efficient by cutting out any duplicate or unnecessary tasks.

3. Use software to help you.

From my own personal experience I know how difficult it is to do everything. The sleepless nights, the early starts and late finishes. I have been there and I am right there with you. One thing that truly changed my day-to-day work schedule was my reliance on online software. Being able to offset the more tedious tasks you do, like managing team members time off can really help free up your headspace for more important things. Look into software that can help you with your HR, customer management and project management. We love CharlieHR and Asana!

We even use a piece of software that manages every singular task. We put everything we do into it because if its out of your mind you can focus on what matters most.

4. Budget allocation and financial planning.

Sometimes you’re so caught up doing ‘not so important’ tasks that you forget that you’re the driver of your business. You are the only person that can really move your business onto the next level. You need to spend time planning and stabilising your finances. We’d recommend regularly analysing your P&L, your business relies on cash to grow, so make sure you don’t get greedy and overspend what you don’t really have.

Strategically plan for 3 months, 12 months and 24 months and have clearly defined goals and objectives with key milestones on how you think you can achieve this. Keep some money back for your marketing spend. Ultimately the more you can afford to invest into your marketing the better. This will be the fuel for your business to move it forward.

5. Change your mindset. Competitors don’t exist.

Instead of worrying about what your so called ‘competitors’ are offering, spend that time finding ways to truly blow them out of the water. Find that ‘no brainer’ reason why that prospect will choose you over them.

The sooner you change your mindset the sooner you will be more successful. Focus on you, your business, and your own goals, rather than what that ‘award winning’ company is offering down the road.

At Damteq we’ve never focused on entering bullshit awards that really don’t mean anything. With most awards, the company who is willing to pay £5000 for a ticket at the ceremony wins the award. Congrats. Great achievement there. We’d rather focus our efforts and invest our time into innovating our services to become true specialists in what we do. Our success comes from great reviews, happy customers and when we see your business grow. The proof is in the pudding afterall.

6. Don’t be a busy fool.

Running a successful business comes from making smart decisions. Spend time wisely on the things that really matter. Stop wasting time on stupid marketing strategies that just aren’t going to work. Stop doing unnecessary stuff that just doesn’t really matter. Plan your day every single morning and try and stick to it. Time management is key.

So. What Next?

We have met so many business owners over the years that find it difficult to juggle the daily struggles of business. One even said to us ‘I’m amazing at putting boilers on the wall, but I have no idea how make it into a business’. This same company now has a team of over 40 engineers, working 24/7 nationally. Pretty incredible eh.

Most businesses are easy to run if you just apply logic and strategies to them. Structure your time wisely and plan ahead. Take Damteq as an example, we started in 2006 as a bedroom business with literally nothing. We’ve grown into a million pound company in not so many years. We can build a plan and apply these strategies for your business to help you grow too.

The best thing to do next will be to give us a call or send us a message on live chat. Arrange a date to pop in for a coffee. Quite simply, we are the people that will get you to the place you dream of being.