Policies and Procedures...Know Before You Need to Know

So, you’ve moved your business along and now it’s time to hire employees.  It’s important that you think about how your employees will behave (the rules) before you actually hire them.  In other words, you need to put something down on paper.  You don’t need a 50 page manual when a simple Word document will do.  Make sure you think about the types of employees you will be hiring and what is important that they know about your company. 

Things like what time to arrive, how long the work day will be, are holiday and vacation pay going to be part of their package?  Do you need a dress code?  What kind of disciplinary procedures will you need?  Because once you hire you might have to fire.  Always have that plan in place before you have to use it.  Do some research on the web, there are lots of materials out there you can use.  Also, talk to a small business human resource person.  They may give you a great rate to help you write the policies you need and to keep them updated. 

The bottom line is, have the plan in place to hire, train and discipline employees BEFORE you need that plan.  

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Don't Quit Your Day Job

Don't Quit Your Day Job

cartoon by LouM 

I was talking to a new business group the other day and we were discussing how overwhelmed they felt about all they needed to accomplish and all the ideas being thrown their way.  I said to them that being overwhelmed as a small business owner happens, but how you handle it can help move you along, or stop you in your tracks.  Small business owners have made the choice to put all the decisions in their own hands. They no longer have to have someone tell them what to do or when to do it.  That can be a great thing, if you are willing to deal with the stress.

We see so many small business owners come to the realization that there is no one that is holding them accountable.  There is no boss breathing down their neck, no supervisor evaluating their performance.  The buck really does stop with them.  So what I told this group was you now have the freedom to listen to all the advice you get or none of it because the choice is now yours.  You have to decide when to call the client, pay the bills, hire the next employee and when to take time off.  These choices are what sometimes drive a person to have their own business but they can also be the things that drive the person right out of business. 

When you decide to start your business you have to be prepared to not only take all the glory, but be ready to make the hard decisions that have to be made. If you aren’t up to that, don’t quit your day job. #don’tquityourdayjob .  

To Hire or Not to Hire...that is the question

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One of the biggest struggles we see here at BizWorks with our member small business owners is what services they should hire out and what tasks they should do themselves.  So many times small business owners think they should do everything themselves.  We try to help them understand that a as a small business owner you can be everything to everyone.  It’s important for you to take time to look at what skill sets you have and what you lack.  This is a time to be honest with yourself.  If you aren’t good with numbers or they give you a headache, hire a bookkeeper. If you don’t’ have the sales personality or skill set hire someone to help you.  

When people try to take on more than they can manage and frankly more than they have the talent to handle, they end up burned out and not happy being a business owner.  There really aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything a small business owner needs to do to run their business efficiently.  Also, when you spend all your time doing the drudge work of the day to day operations it leaves you no time to actually do the thing you got into business to do!  So, take a good hard look at what you love to do, what you hate to do and figure out what pieces you can hire out.  It WILL make you a happier business owner.  

Help Wanted...Admin needed NOW!!!

How many times have you said to yourself as a small business owner - “I wish I had someone to keep me organized!”   We see this a lot when people come in to talk with us about membership with BizWorks.   It’s amazing to us how many opportunities small business owners miss out on by not hiring an administrative person sooner.  We see people who have lots of business opportunities but they don’t have anyone who helps keep things in order and organize the business owner’s days.  Even the most efficient of us need help when we get overloaded. 

We try to encourage people to look at their budget and think about hiring someone on a part-time basis to see how much time they could be saving for use on their actual clients.  When you spend all your time writing proposals, playing phone tag and trying to keep your calendar straight, you’ll see how a part time admin person could pay for themselves.  There are tasks that you don’t have to handle- tasks that can go to that person so you can concentrate on billable hours at your professional rate.  Sit down and figure out what you are spending on tasks that an admin person could do for you and decide if it’s worth hiring someone so you can focus on your clients and getting the job done.  

Taxes...Your CPA and Your Bookkeeper

The New Year always brings around the reminder of taxes.  Taxes have to be prepared and we all have a deadline to meet.  How do we make it easy to have our taxes prepared as small business owners?  One thing we recommend at BizWorks is to make sure you work a little every month to stay organized.  We also recommend that if handling the day-to-day tasks of money is not your strong point, that you invest in a bookkeeper to handle that piece of your business.  Not every company needs a CPA on a monthly basis and we don’t typically recommend such a set-up for small business owners. 

Our rule of thumb to our members is to hire a bookkeeper at a much less expensive fee to keep you on track every month and a CPA to handle your taxes once a year.  What most business owners find is that they are more organized when they take their information into their CPA, who has less work to do because everything has been organized on a monthly basis.  This set-up can free you of that headache you might have every year when you get ready to go to your CPA. 

Suzanne Cormier
Executive Director
BizWorks Enterprise Center

Small Business Resolutions for the New Year

A lot of people feel the need to set up New Year’s resolutions.  I have to admit I was always one of those people.  But as I grow older (and hopefully wiser) I realize that setting goals just at the beginning of a year just doesn’t help me.  A better way to obtain your goals is to look at what your small business needs to accomplish on a quarterly basis.  BizWorks residential members have a unique experience of being assigned a mentoring team that meets on a quarterly basis. This team is made up of professionals in the community. 

We set quarterly goals throughout the year and the member has to report back on what they have accomplished or have not and why.  So what do you do if you don’t have a BizWorks mentoring team?  How about making yourself a quarterly list of goals and setting a time to review them?  You can set up weekly, as well as monthly, goals in order to keep yourself on track.  If you feel you might not keep up with it find a buddy who is also a small business owner and have them participate in the goal setting for each of your businesses.  Each of you can talk about what you have accomplished on a quarterly basis.  Sometimes being responsible to someone other than ourselves helps keep us on track to meet our goals and resolutions. 

Suzanne Cormier
Executive Director
BizWorks Enterprise Center