Business Owner Time Management

Some business owners figure out the keys to getting work coming in the door, and all of a sudden discover they are getting work in faster than they are at getting work completed.  Their backlog gets too long, and then people stop buying.  And – they are personally involved in the processes of getting that work completed – at least in making a lot of the decisions that are needed along the way.  Which means they feel very stressed.

Has that ever been your experience?

This situation can impact a business’ reputation as being unreliable.  Or even unprofessional.  When you start pushing off schedules, customers start finding other ways to get what they want.  When they want it.

It does not have to be that way – if you don’t want it.  The problem is, if you want to keep getting the same results, keep doing things the same way.  So, a business owner who really wants to have a growing, profitable operation, that is a leader in it’s niche, and fun to lead, needs to adapt and adjust how he is running his operation to stay ahead of the problem.  Continuously. 

These conditions can often be symptoms that the owner has not taken enough time to strategically manage the business – and specifically balance the performance and growth of Marketing, Sales, and Production capacities and schedules.  He may have never learned how.  These challenges happen most often in cases where the owner has been more immersed in day-to-day tasks and “fire-fighting” than in processes, systems, and KPI’s.  Rather than pro-actively taking control with the kinds of tools - that are proven to work.

Every business is different, even in the same industry, because every owner comes into the game with different experiences and expectations.  I won’t try to prescribe solutions that cover all cases in this article.  There are some common practices that help – usually documenting processes, KPIs, and Standards of Performance are helpful starting points – and should be done before the business gets busy.  After that, the owner feels he can’t find the time.  Gee – I wonder why?

On the flip side, not only can documenting processes, and knowing your numbers help you gain insights into how to balance Marketing, Sales, and Production capacities – it can also improve cash flow and profit by helping gain efficiency as you scale up.  Both time and money efficiency.  – So, a new source of profit!

Hiring someone to do the documenting for you is rarely helpful – they don’t have your knowledge and Vision.  But creating effective processes without help is also difficult.  It is a skill all by itself.  There are no 1-size-fits-all bundles of procedures.  And buying a software package, like an ERP system, to help you build it often doubles the difficulty – because it also takes time to learn how to use the software effectively.  Although an ERP type system does help - after you have the basics in place - and achieve sufficient scale to make it cost-effective. 

Most businesses are started by people with good insights into a particular product or service.  But that is rarely enough – by itself.  In fact, it has been really interesting having business owners calculate their personal take-home income per hour, and compare that to what they would make working for someone else if they worked the same numbers of hours (including sleepless nights) – often they find they would make more working for someone else. 

That said, owning a business can be very profitable for owners willing to learn and use the professional skills involved with ownership of a business - in addition to their product or service skills.  And the most exciting part - can be the free time they get by learning how to build a business that works without them having to be there every day!  

Want to know your key focus area to help grow your business? Try our 3 min Assessment Quiz at https://stevechiama.nextlevelassessment.com/?source=LI_Event - 6Steps