5 Success Strategies for Managing a Small Business

Small business comes with its own unique set of challenges. There are many ways of being successful at it and they mostly depend on your industry, niche, company size, and specific goals. This time we bring you five foundational strategies that will make you a better small business manager at every stage of your company’s development.

Have a plan to refer to

Maintain a document with your long-term business plan to serve as a point of reference when you have to make important decisions. It’s your primary tool for keeping your business practices grounded and maintaining focus.

To build a strategic business plan, list your long-term goals in terms of:

• finances
• overall growth
• reputation
• market position
• potential branching out into other niches or industries

Then decide which short-term goal you have to achieve to get to your long-term targets. Determine the approach you will need to take in each business aspect:

• sales
• marketing
• billing
• invoicing
• talent acquisition
• talent management
• payroll
• operations

Remember that your business plan must be flexible to a degree. Being rigid will slow you down and could even sink your company further down the road. While you should hold true to your long-term goals, occasionally review your strategy. You should be able to revise it without much loss whenever there are significant market or industry changes.

Separate business and personal finances

Small businesses often fall into the trap of conflating private and company funds. This is especially common among solopreneurs and freelancers. While it may be convenient in the short-term, it causes unnecessary confusion down the line. In the worst case it can result in significant financial or even legal trouble.

Your business needs to be registered as a legal entity with its own separate bank account. Resist the urge to dip into it for your personal expenses. Likewise resist accepting business payments with your personal account, and definitely never fund business expenses with personal credit cards.

Blurring the line between the two makes it harder to keep track of your cash flow and easier to fall into debt on one or both sides. It also needlessly complicates matters when it comes to meeting your tax obligations. If a business account is really not an option for whatever reason, open a separate personal account with a different bank and use it for business transactions only.

Keep your premises in good order

With all the focus on data, finances, and processes, it can be easy for a business to neglect its most basic physical aspects. Don’t let yourself slip up on that point. When you develop your management strategy, make space for periodic inspection and maintenance of:

• structural security
• access security
• hygiene standards
• electrical installations
• water and sewage plumbing
• production equipment
• office equipment
• your business fleet, etc.

Many of these things can be entrusted to strata maintenance professionals to make it more manageable. They can take over equipping, managing, and repairing common areas of your property. That leaves you with far less on your plate, property-wise. You can focus on specific areas like administrative offices or sensitive production spaces.

Moreover, outside experts are less likely to miss issues that you yourself might overlook simply because you’re always there. An outside perspective on the condition of your premises is always beneficial for proper maintenance.

Make data-driven decisions

Your business process itself is a goldmine of real-time data that you can use to improve it. Utilize software and analytics methods to gather information about:

• employee performance,
• employee motivation,
• fiscal performance,
• overall productivity levels,
• logistics trends,
• common bottlenecks, etc.

Analyze this data to identify trends and problem points. Leverage these insights to make the right decisions at the right time, optimize your priorities, and make your operations more efficient overall.

Remember to also analyze your data methods every now and then. Maybe better tools are released in the meantime or you find some better way to organize your information management system. Processes can become obsolete just like tech, so make sure you periodically update them along with everything else.

Invest in continuous improvement

Lifetime education is your best way to maintain resilience in the modern market, no matter your industry. Business is becoming increasingly digital, and smart business owners will make an effort to keep up with the rapid changes.

It’s not just the technology that’s changing at breakneck pace. Strategies, practices, advertisement, customer opinions, values, and the global economy itself are all evolving faster than ever before. You have to dedicate a percentage of your resources to keeping up. Such resources include, but are not limited to, funds, time, educational materials, and human effort.

Look at what knowledge areas and specific skills need improvement. Find a suitable course, camp, workshop, or seminar and use it to address those deficiencies. You might also recruit an expert in the subject to give you customized instruction. Repeat this type of skilling up periodically. Apply it to yourself as well as your business partners and employees.

Managing your small business successfully requires long-term perspective and short-term adaptability. Develop a solid business plan to keep you grounded and a continuous improvement strategy to stay on top of industry and market changes. Keep your company and personal funds separate and make business decisions based on solid real-time data. Invest in property maintenance to keep day-to-day operations running smoothly and remember to adapt your tactics as you go.