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Running Your Business

Congratulations on your decision to start or grow your business!! To help you maximize the enjoyment and minimize the difficulties of this process, I will share 6 key strategies that I have found by working with many successful small business owners. These keys involve: business planning, marketing, delegation, separating work from personal life, maximizing energy, and capitalizing on supports.

1. Create a solid business plan

Many entrepreneurs are wonderfully creative and innovative people. They are talented at brainstorming and have fantastic ideas. They are often not so strong at planning, organizing, and following through with plans.

Create a business plan from the beginning and update your goals and strategies monthly. Your plan should include: Business Mission and Vision, Marketing Plan, Break-Even Analysis and other financial analysis in the Financial Plan, Plan for Operations, and Time line for implementation of the objectives in your plan. Use the business plan to give you direction and guidance and to help make decisions more easily.

2. Become talented at marketing or hire someone who is

One of the #1 complaints I hear from entrepreneurs and small business owners is, “I have this wonderful business/product/service, but no one knows about it/me”.

Do not let your hard work go unrecognized. Learn strategies for increasing visibility within your market, and consider hiring a marketing specialist or business coach, speaking with friends or colleagues who are well versed in marketing, or talking to successful small business owners in your target market and asking them what strategies worked best for them. Implement marketing strategies daily.

3. Delegate, Delegate, Delegate.

Many business owners do not know how to delegate. This is a problem. Do NOT try to do everything yourself and get burned out. You will become exhausted, make poor decisions, and hurt the chances of success for your company.

“Do what you do best and delegate the rest.”

Outsource, delegate, and rely on others when something is not your area of expertise. Do not try to design your own website if you are not a web designer. Do not try to do your own taxes if you are not an accountant. Delegating will save you significant $$ in the long run.

4. Separate work from personal life

Many entrepreneurs believe that if they work VERY hard, their business will be more successful. As a result, they eat, drink, sleep, breathe, and talk their business 24-7, and have no work life balance.

Why is this a bad idea? We know from research that people are most effective and efficient when they are rested and stress-free. Living your business every second will not make you feel rested and stress-free. Consciously carve out time to do enjoyable things that are completely unrelated to your business.

Your enthusiasm and hard work is extremely important, but it will quickly fizzle away if you do not create a healthy balance. Do not create bad work habits that are hard to fix down the line. Practice separating your work from family life right away.

5. Increase your energy and decrease stress.

One of the most effective ways to increase energy is through regular exercise. WE all know this. Yet many business owners fail to reap the benefits of exercise.

Exercise serves the fantastic purpose of killing two birds with one stone: decrease stress and gain energy. Create a feasible exercise plan that you can actually see yourself doing several times per week. Consider: costs, convenience, comfort level, time, other people who you can exercise with, and location. For instance, if time is the most critical factor, get a cardio machine and free weights and work out for 30 minutes in your house. If cost is the most important factor, plan a routine to walk or run outdoors and do push-ups and sit-ups in your home.

6. Use support systems wisely.

Support systems will help you reduce business stress. Using support systems, such as family, friends, and colleagues, is critically important. You will feel better and make better business decisions. Be careful, however, to utilize them effectively. You do not want to get biased recommendations or burn out your supports. If you need more objective opinions or feel like people are getting tired of hearing about your business, hire a consultant or coach, or ask businesspeople in fields different from your own. Remember to continue to use your supports for enjoyable and rewarding activities to help you separate work and personal life.