How to Make Time To "Work On Improving Your Small Business"?

by Syd Stewart

Many busy small business owners complain they do not have time to expand or improve their businesses. They don't even have time for themselves. It's not fun. Their families think of them as visiting distant relatives. They're too busy doing the job. They have become expert fire fighters, always correcting errors and lapses.

Their lives have become chaotic and unstable. 70% of businesses fail in their first five years because of inadequate management control.

Nature thrives and survives for thousands of years so what can we learn here from nature.

Nature's stability or control comes from the stable hereditary building blocks - genes. Genes reproduce with stunning fidelity - making only one error in 1,000,000,000 (billion), and have brilliant repair mechanisms to keep your genes working perfectly. So how can we emulate this process or system in business? A gene is a length of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), a long list of instructions on how to put the organism together, and make it work. Genes determine the features, characteristics, capability or functions of an organism. This long list or sequence of instructions defines the genetic code.

Compare Genes to a recipe, a set of instructions, which detail the shape and form of the organism -- its genome.

The answer in business therefore is to create an operating manual a recipe book, your genome for your business. It defines exactly how you do your business.

By establishing a rigorous, consistent way of working, defined in your operating manual, your staff will be able do the routine work correctly first time every time and so releasing you from these routine supervisory activities.

You need to start to put the time and resource in to create your operating manual, but how?

When I worked with a big company, it astonished me the amount of money and effort they would spend to improve the performance of the business. For example, I spent two years with five others studying how computers could improve the performance of a chemical works.

So here are some ideas on how to start make time:

1) Set aside a day once every two to three weeks. Put it into your diary and stick to it.

2) Hire extra staff full or part time person, with some experience of the improvements you want to make, to help you. Ensure you're on the same wavelength and can work together.

3) Reallocate a staff person's time, especially someone who is really interested in building a 'great' or quality business, and would like to help you.

4) Hire an expert to come once a month for a day to guide and help you. Ensure that you get someone who really knows your type of business, and make sure that you set aside the time to work with them. Their visit will force you to take the time out.

6) Use long plane or train trips to think on your own and plan.

7) Set aside some time each day, when it's quiet. Most people have a time in the day when they are at their best e.g. morning people. Do an hour before everyone arrives at work.. What's your Prime Time?

8) Don't let anyone disturb your prime time. Stop folks from interrupting you. Each small interruption costs you 10 to 20 minutes to realign your thoughts again. Set aside a time each day when you are available. Get your staff to save up their non-urgent questions until you're available.

9) Respect other folk's time by doing the same. Business Owners often blurt! They want their questions answered right away regardless of the priority or importance. Boost your staff's productivity stop blurting.

Use these ideas to create your business genome, your operating manual, and start to win greater profits, sustained growth, security, and therefore more fun.