How To Have Sustainable Growth & September Roundup!

Many of us started our business out of a need to solve a problem or a passion for a skill set that we have. I started my business to use my background in accounting and administration to help service-based entrepreneurs create & sustain a business that they love so they can create the lifestyle of their dreams. I am a one-woman shop and look forward to growing my business but I want to do it smart.

According to a joint study shared on Entrepreneur.com, “Roughly two-thirds of the fastest-growing startups end up failing. Research from California State University also showed that companies that had fast revenue growth performed worse, long-term than their slow-growing counterparts.”

I am sure these business owners had the best of intentions and were super-excited to scale their business to increase revenue and jumped right in. We can learn from their mistakes by applying the 5 steps below as we move along the business scaling journey.

Step One

Set S.M.A.R.T. Goals. I shared in a previous blog post that SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

Step Two

Take time to do market research on your industry and the competition to gain a better understanding of your competitive advantage or threats.

Step Three

Know your numbers. It is super important to understand where your business stands financially so that you can make good decisions. Additionally, creating a detailed business budget and financial projections are also must-haves in your business toolkit.

Step Four

Create efficiencies in your daily operations and use technology to reduce labor on repetitive tasks.

Step Five

Provide excellent customer service to your customers and ask for their feedback to improve your services.

There are many more things to consider when you are thinking about scaling your business. If you take your time and give some thought to the steps above you will be miles ahead of your competition as we sail out of the month of September. As usual, this month went by fast. People say that time flies when you are having fun so that must be true.

I truly enjoyed kissing summer goodbye and moving forward into the fall season. I hope you had a fantastic summer season and were able to get some things accomplished. This month I talked about 3 Ways To Create Measurable Goals and How Busy Entrepreneurs Can Continue To Learn New Things. If you have time for a few quick reads check them out and remember the tortoise won the race.

Keep IT Sunny~

3 Easy Tips to be More Productive in Your Small Business

I am sure we have heard the famous statement by Benjamin Franklin: "Time Is Money" but what does it really mean? According to a survey found on The Huffington Post by Mavenlink, "One in four small business owners believe each productive hour in a day is worth upwards of $500."

That sure is a lot of money.

 If you're a small business owner it can make or break your business, especially if you're a one woman/man operation. In order to accomplish important business goals such as gaining more clients, increasing marketing efforts or creating new products and services you must first honor your own time.

What do I mean exactly?

For example, if you are setting goals to do more competitive market research and the goal was for last year and you still haven't done the research then you aren't honoring your own time. You are disrespecting your own business goals and blocking your success. What's the answer? Here are 3 Easy Tips to be More Productive in Your Small Business:

1. Get clear on "why" you are in business? What are the 3 most important reasons you started your business? autonomy, money, more time with family. Write them down and stick them somewhere that is visible to you on a daily basis.  

2. Make sure your goals are S.M.A.R.T. According to Entrepreneur.com, goals should be: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely.

3. Plan a reward for small goals achieved. It just makes it more fun to know after you have completed a goal that there is fun times on the horizon.

These are starting points to enable you to refocus on why you are doing all this and to get excited again about your business. Yes, time is money and if you are not maximizing your time to produce revenue generating opportunities then you are truly wasting money.

What is the one thing you keep procrastinating to do in your business? Tell me about it in the comments below. Don't be ashamed. We are all in this small business world together. Want more tips? Check out this article by Shanna Lebowitz at the Business Insider for more productivity ideas.

Keep It Sunny!