Just about scraping a profit, or not at all? Have a constant battle to pay the overheads with little left in your pocket? Still got the drive and the passion but wondering when your big break is going to happen?
Small Business Saturday UK is a nationwide initiative encouraging people to connect with smaller, local businesses. Make sure you check out the range of online business courses to expand your company! Are you taking full advantage?
The importance of advertising and promotion
Advertising cannot be under estimated. When a small business stutters and falters, one of the main reasons its survival was hindered was the lack of advertising.
However, this doesn’t mean giving away your product for free or spending thousands of pounds you don’t have on advertising that may or may not be successful.
For those studying a business management course, making a profit should be something a small business does every year and should increase year on year too, unless trading conditions are particularly tough.
Improving the bottom line
The bottom line is a business’s income after all expenses and overheads have been paid. It is a term used to describe all kinds of situations. If your net profit or bottom line is minimal, or at worst in the red, you need these five tips to boost profitable performance, which do not include giveaways or advertising.
#1 Change operating procedures
Frankly, if operating procedures are inefficient or costing far too much money, giving away a product or spending on advertising is wasted cash to a certain extent. More sales need to be generated whilst reducing overheads and expenses.
- To increase sales, try cross selling. This is where a new service or product is offered that compliments a current product. For example, a cleaning company could offer a package of cleaning products alongside its cleaning services.
- Think about relationship based sales where customers keep coming back. Could a monthly or yearly service or customer plan be incorporated, for example? A cleaning company could offer 10 hours cleaning per month, paid for as a yearly contract spread over 10 monthly payments etc.
- Discounted sales rewards loyalty, such as opt for a 4-hour clean every week for the next 10 weeks and get the ironing done free etc.
As well as considering increasing sales in this way, be critical about administrative procedures – could some of these functions be streamlined? Are they all needed? Would outsourcing be a cost-effective measure?
#2 Stabilising cash flow
Any business management course worth its weight will talk about cash flow and how stabilising it is the saving grace for a small business.
Stabilising cash flow can be done through prepaid services, for example ongoing payment plans. Sticking with the cleaning services example, instead of people paying each time you clean, offer a discounted rate for more hours, but spread over the longer term e.g. pay for 10 hours per month on a 6-month contract, rather than for every 4 hours you clean on the job.
This is touching on service or maintenance type contract examples, well worth any business looking at.
#3 Streamline costs
This is about streamlining all aspects of business processes, from how efficient people and processes are, to creating a system whereby information needed is captured, without it costing too much time, money and resources.
There are all kinds of free online resources that can help run a business more efficiently, especially the various cloud services such as synchronising calendars, sharing and editing documents online and so on.
Top tip – small businesses are often owed a lot of money, simply because someone doesn’t have time to chase. By checking efficiency of your business, you have a better overview of what is taking time and resources etc.
#4 Add immediacy to marketing
Social media doesn’t have to mean paid advertising, but to make any headway a small business needs to have a consistent presence on social media sites that work for them.
‘That work for them’ is the key phrase here. If Instagram is not doing anything for a business, stick with the social media channel that is. Better to stick with one, and make a good job of it, than spread too thin over several platforms.
Immediacy is key in social media presence, therefore respond when people connect with you and use it to offer your services.
#5 Make everyone a sales person…
… but this is not what you think! This isn’t just about creating leads and closing deals. It’s about attitude, customer relations and behaviour.
An online business management course will address how your employees are your biggest sales feature, as they are the people who give your business its ‘face’ – is it always a welcoming, happy and knowledgeable face?
And finally, make the most of opportunities that come your way such as Small Business Saturday, 3rd December 2016. People want to support local, small businesses, so get involved and let people know you are there.
Unhappiness is a strong emotion. Left unchecked, it can swallow a person whole, affecting every single strand of their life.
Finding and dealing with the source of this unhappiness is key. For many people, the source of the problem is easily identified – work.
However, delve deeper into why an employee is super-cranky and over-sensitive at work is slightly harder. Putting the problem into words can be difficult. Sometimes it can be attributed to how they think their colleagues treat them, how management treats them. Customers and clients can be the source of unhappiness, or leading them to just generally feeling undervalued.
Quite often, people are bored, no longer challenged by the box that they feel they have been put in or fell into. Their attempts to change or climb out the ‘box’ are thwarted; turned down for a promotion yet again. The salt rubbed into the wound is that the person appointed to the position has been with the company five minutes, is nowhere near as qualified as them etc. etc. etc.
You can see the pattern emerging. Even though they try to get themselves out of the unhappy mess, circumstance seems to build against them.
As their manager, you are expected to understand workplace psychology and even though you may not have the immediate solutions to hand, you will be expected to work with the employee to make them happy again.
Joking aside, the behaviour of a cranky employee can also cause huge problems within the workplace in the longer term. As you realise that you have an unhappy employee, you know it is time to put all the information and knowledge gained from business management courses online to good use, and start to work with your employees.
Check out this 10-point guide to help you…
#1 One-to-ones
Business is booming, you are all run off your feet and as a result, important aspects of running a business can be pushed to the side as they slip down the ladder of priority. One-to-one supervision sessions are one of them.
However, this means that your employees are lacking the very forum that they need in order to talk through aspects of their work that is causing them a problem. Sometimes, they just need to moan, to let off steam that Sarah never washes her cup, James is always late and Peter never puts the bins out.
As a manager, you may not be expected to fix everything but, if the employee does want you to act, you will be expected to do so in a way that moves the problem on with a solution that fits most, if not all employees.
No pressure there then?!
#2 Coaching
Workplace psychology courses will talk about the need to coach colleagues. This is an ideal solution in many ways.
Spot an unhappy, cranky employee who has been this way for a few weeks and coaching could be the answer to discovering the cause, and solving the problem.
As a short term, task orientated process, coaching is when someone works alongside another colleague. This may be as a training type activity by which a colleague is coached with new skills or systems.
It is also a way of working with a less-than chirpy colleague to see what the problem is. Maybe they have a genuine gripe and that no one has been listening…
#3 Pay attention
Again, when things are busy and you have a deadline to meet, our focus shifts and, without realising it, you have become blind to some things that may be happening in the office or on the shop floor, etc.
If you do have a disgruntled employee, is there possibly something you are not aware of? Workplace bullying, for example, is sadly very common and is not always immediately obvious. Spend time observing – who is interacting with whom? What do these interactions look like?
#4 New projects, new challenges
From a workplace psychology point of view, you perhaps need to be ready for this as some people may say that ‘pull a strop and you get put on a bigger/better project’. However, there are times that the nature of the work the employee is doing is outside of their skill set, leading to frustration and boredom.
As a manager, you need to be constantly assessing what people are working on and how changes can be made to make things better. A cranky employee slogging away on a project for which they have no skills or ability to complete is hard work; for them and you.
#5 Training
There can all kinds of work and personal reasons too for why some people are cranky, distant and grumpy at work.
There is a saying ‘a change is as good as a rest’, so if there is no more holiday entitlement or you don’t feel that this is the answer, training events or attending a seminar can be the perfect pick-me-up and jump start that an employee needs.
This doesn’t mean wasting time and money sending them on a course that is of no value to them or you. Find a training event, conference or seminar that is of interest to them, as well as one that is valued by your business.
#6 Adding more £££
Who wouldn’t love a few thousand pounds more in their bank every month? It rarely solves the problem, which is why most workplace psychology courses will only suggest looking at a pay deal if there is a genuine under payment going on.
Frankly, a cranky employee on £20,000 a year stuck in a job they don’t like will still be cranky if you paid them £40,000 to do the same job. Not only is it unrealistic, but productivity could also drop even more. Why break a sweat when you are taking home such a big slice of the cake?
#7 Time off
Not necessarily the thing that will solve everything because the problem could still be staring them in the face on their return from two weeks in the Maldives. But we’ve all been there, working weeks on end and feeling that we are never out of the place.
A break can mean that a grumpy employee will have time to think about what the issues are and what needs to change. They could also be in a better position to advocate what it is they want or need upon their return.
#8 Home working
Commuting drains people. To get to their desk for 9am, they need to be up at 6am, kids on the doorstep of the local child-minder at 7.23am and at the bus stop for 7.43am…
You get the picture. Maybe they could work from home? It is a growing working pattern that many employees and businesses are benefitting from.
#9 Mentoring
Coaching, as discussed in #2 is a short term, task-orientated process whereby mentoring focuses on developmental issues and relationships. Mentoring is a longer-term process and one that many businesses routinely invest in.
It is a way of helping employees to feel valued and appreciated. Although it sounds great – and it can really work to help people progress – finding the right mentee-mentor match can be tough.
Just because you are their manager doesn’t mean you are their mentor too. You can offer regular supervision or work planning sessions, but being a mentor takes a fair bit of skill and time. There is a fine line between mentoring and counselling, so it’s important to ensure you know the boundaries for both your employee and for yourself too.
As an aside, both mentoring and coaching is only successful if the employee is willing to work through whatever the problem is. If not, then you need to jump to the following point…
#10 Moving on
People are valuable. The skills and abilities they have are what drive your business forward. Any business that stands still in a competitive market place risks being left behind and, worse still, being trampled on as your competitors lurch forward.
Losing people should be the last thing you want. However, there is a heavy dose of reality here for both the cranky employee and for you – they might not be happy because this is no longer the job for them; or the place to work.
Suggesting this is not something that you should a.) do lightly or b.) do at all. This really needs to come from the employee themselves, unless you have a super HR and legal department who can ensure that if you are sacking or making someone redundant it is for the right reasons and not because you are fed up of seeing their misery every day.
If the employee decides to move on, be gracious and help them to do so. A superb reference (but not too gushing, potential employers see through this) as well as making sure that they do not leave on a bad note.
If someone is showing signs of unhappiness at work, rather than letting it fester and build, take positive steps to resolve it.
Small to medium enterprises – known as SMEs – are the backbone of an economy. From sole traders to small businesses employing a small number of staff, these are the businesses that rise and fall on their own merit – and can have the biggest impact on the economy, nationally and locally.
They often come into being as a result of a germ of an idea, the details of which have barely been worked through before the business takes off. SMES grow from often humble beginnings to thriving businesses within weeks or months.
There are, of course, pros and cons to this. When a business grows too fast, it can quickly outgrow the skill set of its founders. Too slow a growth and it can falter. There is a solution and that it to ensure that key people are trained in business management.
Managing a business
Taking on the heady responsibilities of managing a business is not for the fainthearted. It can mean long hours, time of impact and stress as well as times of sheer delight and exhilaration. There are also times when it seems complex, the solutions not evident or readily springing to mind.
Online business management courses can provide some of these solutions and ideas but, with pressure on every facet of the business, including time and budgetary constraints, business management training can seem like an optional task rather than essential.
But, there is no doubting that online business management courses offer incredible value to a business. And here’s why:
#1 Engage employees
Business and tasks associated with it can be bland and boring, interjected with tasks and activities that place employees outside of their comfort zone. In both cases, motivation in key and business management courses are one way of creating and harnessing motivation in employees.
#2 Essential up-skilling
Up-skilling is when someone acquires an additional set of skills that drives them on as employees but also drives the business on too. Investing in employees is investing in your business. Some skills may be common sense, but this leaves it too open and too variable from one person to another. Up-skilling enables a person to not only rise to a challenge but create their own.
There is no doubting that online business management courses offer incredible value to a business
#3 Creates a firm foundation
Anyone can run a business. Or can they?
Think about time you acquired a new skill, such as learning to drive. Were you given the keys to a car and told ‘drive’? The likelihood is not. You probably had lessons, interspersed with practice. There were times when everything went well, but there were probably many times when it was not a great experience – stalling at lights, being confused at junctions and dreading hill starts, etc.
Running a business is similar. On one hand, anyone could do it, technically speak. But doing it well, rising to challenges, having skills to negotiate around obstacles and so on – like the hill starts, the turns in the road, etc. – Come with learning and experience. And learning from others too.
Learning is key for any business. Thus, online business management courses offer everything you need – and more!
#4 The basics of good practice
There are ways of doing things – and there are better ways of doing things. In essence, a business management course can be the basis that you need to make changes to how things are done (and not done) within a business.
Just like Human Resources department have trained HR people to ensure everyone is employed on a fair contract and basis, to another department ensuring that the company is operating legally. All too often, in SMEs, these responsibilities fall on the shoulders of one person, or a small group of people at the most.
#5 Invest at all levels within a business
Big companies invest in training, but some companies will focus on investing in people ‘at the top’. SMEs need to invest in all levels of their business, from the bottom to the top (as do all businesses, in fact).
Poor management skills at any level are known to hamper SME growth, thus hurting the economy as well as the business itself.
Take the plunge!
There are all kinds of Business Management courses that can facilitate better understanding, improve skills and consolidate learning.
Some require regular attendance at a local college, but others can be completed online, in your own time and at a pace that suits you. These online courses have the same value as those facilitated in a classroom environment and all aid in helping SMEs grow in a way that they need to, at a rate that they need to.