Business Management

Time Management – Tips that May Help

Time is one of the resources business managers have that is scarce, cannot be replaced once spent, and it cannot be borrowed or purchased. Here are a few tips to help manage it.

1. Time management myth
This is the first thing you have to understand about time management. No matter how organized we are, there are always only 24 hours in a day.
Time doesn't change. All we can actually manage is ourselves and what we do with the time that we have.

2. Calls and email. 
Try not answering the phone every time it rings or reading an email just because it shows up. Few issues in business require an instant answer and you will be more efficient if you schedule time to return calls and email inquiries.

3. Prioritize ruthlessly.
You should start each day with a session prioritizing the tasks for that day and setting your performance benchmark.
If you have 20 tasks for a given day, how many of them do you truly need to accomplish?

4. Delegate and/or outsource.
Delegation is one of the hardest things to learn how to do for many business owners, but no matter how small your business is, there's no need for you to be a one-person show—you need to let other people carry some of the load.

5. Downtime. 
Casual time over lunch can be useful for strengthening relations with employees, customers and suppliers. Use that time judiciously.

Remember that it is difficult to get everything done and best results are achieved from those priority activities that are the focus of the business and future growth.
Thanks for allowing me to share your time with these tips.
Gerry@polarisgroupmc.com

Challenges of a Growing Business

Growing businesses face a range of challenges. As a business grows, different problems and opportunities demand different solutions - what worked a year ago might now be not the best approach. All too often, avoidable mistakes turn what could have been a great business into an also-ran.

Effective leadership will help you make the most of the opportunities, creating sustainable growth for the future.

Here are a few highlights of risks and mistakes that are common to growing businesses:

1. Keeping Up
Market research isn't something you do as a one-off when you launch your business. Business conditions change continually, so your market research should be continuous as well. Otherwise you run the risk of making business decisions based on out-of-date information, which can lead to business failure.

2. Planning Ahead
The plan that made sense for you a year ago isn't necessarily right for you now. Market conditions continually change, so you need to revisit and update your business plan regularly

3. Cash Flow management
Good cash flow control is important for any business. For a growing business, it's crucial. Cash constraints can be the biggest factor limiting growth and overtrading can be fatal. Making the best use of your finances should be a key element in business planning and assessing new opportunities. With limited resources, you may need to pass up promising opportunities if pursuing them would mean starving your core business of essential funding.

4. Problem Solving
New businesses often run in perpetual crisis mode. Every day brings new challenges that urgently need resolving and management spends most of their time troubleshooting. As your business grows, this approach simply doesn't work. While a short-term crisis is always urgent, it may not matter nearly as much as other things you could be doing.

5. The Right Systems
All businesses produce and rely on large volumes of information - financial records, interactions with customers, employee details, regulatory requirements and so on. It's too much to keep track of - let alone use effectively - without the right systems. Responsibilities and tasks can be delegated as your business grows, but without solid management information systems you cannot manage effectively.

I hope this helps as you face the daily challenges of growing your business. Please let me know what you think.  Gerry@polarisgroupmc.com