Being in business is not always easy. There is a creative balance of limited time, quality control and minimal cost of business while doing a thousand of other things. You got only 24 hours a day for sleeping, exercising (if lucky), eating, shower and the rest is work. You feel like work is accumulating day after day that it finally becomes a mountain pile and you just have to dump them, so you can start over. Take a breath. There are strategies to help you overcome these matters.
Find out what you do best. Something that only you can do and no one else to make your business grow
This can be your talent, your services or your products. If you are an engineer, for example, then you are the only one that can dive in to the paperwork and produce what the project requires. Someone else can do your business accounting for you. If you are a DJ, then you are the only one that can sort through songs and beats to make a great music compilation. Someone else can do the legal work on contract’s terms and conditions. There is always someone else to do the mundane daily work while you are supposed to focus on what you are really selling.
Phone calls are important. That is how you get a prospect, and if the conversation goes well, that turns to revenue. However, are all calls important? Since your phone number is listed publicly, new vendors might call to ask for your business. Janitorial work, lead generator and IT offshore service can take up a lot of your time while you do not need any of their services. Get someone to answer your call. There are call answering services which you can pay on a monthly basis. They will be able to filter out spam calls and direct only qualified guests to your direct phone line.
Another time consumer is being in the office. You have to open the office by 08.00AM and you need to be there until 05.00PM just in case your customer shows up without an appointment. That is not always possible. You need to go offsite to visit your current or potential customers, but guess what happened when you do that? This is usually when a walk-in shows up and think that your business is not doing well because the door is locked and there is no one in the office.
This mutually exclusive event does not allow you to be in two places at the same time. Many business owners are not familiar with virtual office services. Virtual office is like a fitness center but it is a business center. It is a business place where you pay a small fraction of monthly cost while you can use the facility as your own. The secretary, the live receptionist, the meeting rooms, the office suites, the business address and the mail services. Check out this one company voted as best virtual office based in Houston called Office In America Co. and their complete services.
Once you’ve got a customer, it is time to see the terms and conditions in the purchase order or contract. Usually the fonts are remarkably small and they are about dozens page long. Some of the vocabularies are not typical words, so you need to look up every other word in the dictionary. Your valuable time is not being use to its potential if you spend so much time doing something that a lawyer-for-hire can do for you.
A company like Legal Shield or Legal Zoom do exactly just that. With Legal Zoom for example, you can send them your contract for review and they will tell you if you are safe to accept or should there be anything that is out of the norm for you to pay attention to. Additionally, Legal Zoom also have a CPA-for-hire as well. They can advise you on accounting questions that you are not familiar with because it is not your field and every day dealings.
The biggest time consumer of all is marketing. It is the only way you can get business whether that is printing cards, posting on social media or keeping your website optimized for searches. Do not get the temptation of being an expert in everything. It might backfire on you and steal your precious time from doing what matters.
Nowadays, you can get prints locally and economically. You would be surprised to call a printing house near you, or even FedEx / Kinko’s, to print cards or poster boards with very competitive pricing. There are countless companies who would manage your social media posts for $99 per month, and web developers for similarly reasonable charge.
Get yourself some help on outsourceable works. You need to concentrate on the works that you are born to do.
Prioritize your time to focus on the most important task of your business. Farming out operational tasks can cost you money in a hindsight, but the missed opportunities of your core business might overwhelm you much more than handling everything by yourself.
Alga Processing LLC is an organization that helps your business in operations and management. Our team members offer plethora of knowledge and experience to promote healthy, friendly and productive work environment. If you feel like your team needs help in communication, scheduling, workflow and project management, contact us for more information at melissa.smith@algaprocessing.com or Call Us at +1(713) 428-2827
