How to keep yourself motivated and focused on business growth
Sometimes success is a double edge sword. Achieving your goals can be the most rewarding part of business, but equally, if you don’t get there as soon as you would have liked, it can be disheartening. This is one of the key areas of business that affect small businesses. If the company is not growing according to plan, it can be hard to stay motivated.
Plus, there are numerous distractions that can get in the way, taking time away from what should always be your number one goal – business growth.
Keeping your eye on the ball: Avoiding distractions
Admin and paperwork – This is one of the main hurdles to overcome for any small business. It’s estimated that the majority of small businesses spend around an hour each week just taking care of the paperwork. That’s 52 hours a year that you could be spending on hitting your targets. Yet the quotes, invoices, payroll and accounts all need to be taken care of for the business to function.
There are online admin services that can help, such as YourTradebase, who offer quoting programmes and invoice templates that help you get paperwork off your desk as soon as possible.
Meetings – All companies need to have a clear and defined direction, which is why team meeting are always important. But they do have a tendency to drag on, unless they are properly martialed. Unless there are exceptional circumstances, most meetings should take no more than half an hour, with clearly defined agendas.
Extracurricular activities – Business seminars, trade fairs, networking – these are all important parts of business but it’s all too easy to spend a little too much time away from the core business. Learn, meet and network but make sure you’re putting these new skills into practice
You can’t do it all yourself: Learn how to delegate
It’s all to easy to try and do it all yourself. One of the major stumbling blocks for small business owners is learning how to delegate. It’s been shown that most managers can unload up to 20% of their workload without there being a detrimental effect on other staff and productivity.
Train and trust your staff, let them take care of some of the everyday chores and running of the business, which leaves you free to focus on driving the business forward.
Why a strategy works
It’s crucial that you never lose sight of why you’re in business. To do this, you should always develop a business plan and strategy for achieving that from the outset.
Frame it, put it on a wall and constantly refer to it. Outline where you want to be in six months, a year, five years – and then assess where you are at these landmarks. A business with a good idea but no plan is bound to drift, and that spells disaster.
Stay focused, stay on plan and keep pushing to hit your targets.
By Dean Taylor
Back in 2010, Dean's building business was growing. He was doing great work, making people happy and enjoying being his own boss – but he was worn out. Not by the graft, but by the piles of paperwork taking up every evening. So, he got together with his cousin Adam, a web developer, and came up with a simple way to solve the problem – and help a whole load of other tradespeople too. They called it YourTradebase. Try it for yourself with a free 14 day trial. No strings. No credit card needed.
