In this day and age we would all like to work less and earn more. Everything is so fast paced it is sometimes hard to stop and think about how to improve your situation and quality of life. If you run a small business you no doubt wear many hats. You are probably the business development manager, finance director, secretary, receptionist, marketing director, distribution manager and customer service manager all rolled into one. Nobody can be expected to take on so many positions and still be able to grow a successful business.
In this article I am going provide a few pieces of advice, which will hopefully help you to free up some time and earn more money.
How do you spend your time? If you really want to improve your productivity you have start from the ground up. A good way of doing this is to grab a piece of paper and write all the main tasks you undertake on a weekly basis. Then add up the time it takes to complete these tasks. Once you have done this try and think of ways you can automate tasks or get someone else to do them.
I'll give you some examples of how you can free up some time. If you are currently doing your books you will know how much time this can take up, you will also be aware of how much a book-keeper can cost to employ. If you want to semi-automate your book-keeping you can use online accounting software.
I use a program which automatically sends out all of my invoices in a custom template. It also directly links with my business bank accounts and automatically works out all of my V.A.T and tax, I hardly have to do anything at all. It probably saves me about 10 hours a month of boring tedious work and it only costs about £200 for the year. I find that by saving time, I actually have more time to grow my business or do things I enjoy like hitting a couple of extra rounds of golf every month.
When you started your business you probably did it for several reasons. Your aim may have been to be rich beyond your wildest dreams, build a massive business with many staff. On the other hand you may of been fed up with taking orders from other people and wanted to be free from the shackles of the 9 to 5 grind.
This brings me on to the central message of this article. By freeing up time you give yourself the freedom to do what is important to you. This could mean spending more time with your family or concentrating on actually making more money, instead of doing all of the day to day stuff, just to stay operational.
I'll give you another example of how trying to wear too many hats can hamper your progress and productivity. I once had a meeting with a salesman who sold stationary. He walked in and I could immediately see that he looked tired and over worked. He was a lovely fellow, but his phone kept vibrating every few minutes. I found this very frustrating and also quite annoying at the same time. I eventually asked why his phone kept vibrating. He said it was because people were trying to get in touch with him. I asked why he didn't have a receptionist to take his calls, he responded by saying it was too expensive, which is a fair enough.
However, I told him you don't have to employ someone in-house, you can commission a virtual office to handle all of your calls and messages. This way you never have to miss another call and you can also enhance the image of your business at the same time. Also it enables you to concentrate on other things without being interrupted every five minutes.
There comes a time when many businesses have to expand. When you are a small business making the decision to take on staff is a big issue. Questions like, do we really need someone and can we afford it? Come to mind. The answer to this is simple. If you want to stay as you are and are happy with the work you are doing and the amount of money you are earning, then you don't need to employ anyone else. In contrast, if you are fed up with all the menial work and want to concentrate on actually growing and managing your business, you will need to take on someone else in order to grow. Yes, it may initially eat into your income, but with the additional time you save you can focus on bringing in more business so you can expand. Remember, every employee you take on provides you with more potential and capacity to earn more money and free up your own time.
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Expand your business by using a virtual office
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