When a business is small it is easy to talk with every body and know exactly what is going on in the business. As your business grows and you employ more people, managing those people becomes a challenge. You now must put greater trust in these people. You can't watch them every day and in some cases, the ownwer management skills are shown to be lacking.
This can lead to micro management by the owner and cause frustration with employee's who feel there every move is being questioned and they are not trusted. The owner manager then has no time to develop his business. If you want good managers, or self starters you will have to pay well for them, as there is competition out there for them.
A simple answer to the dilemma of trusting people is having SHORT and RELEVANT meetings at fixed times every week. At these meetings the owner can get updated on what is going on and make decisions on how to go forward with the business and keep reminding staff where the company is suppose to be going. There should also be an agenda for each meeting and everyone attending must have their tasks completed and answers ready for the meeting.
Some business owners are prepared to bring in outside consultants to make decisions they should be making. For some small business owner whose business is growing, some staff who were almost like family when the business started can be hard to deal with if they can't perform in the larger business. The owner avoids conflict with them, brings in a consultant to write a report to say what needs to be done and then does nothing with the report and continues to complain about the staff member, the consultant and himself for not acting on the report.
What business owners always need to remember is that if the business goes bust, your staff will go get another job elsewhere. You the owner will be stuck with the company debts and be unemployed and unemployable.
Being a business owner means making hard decisions that affect people. But once that decision is for the good of the business don't feel so bad about it.
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www.helpforbookkeepers.com
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4 comments:
Great post, Small business owners sometimes treat their business like a parent treats a child. When the business is small they care and nurture for its every whim, but can find it very difficult to let go as their business grows and finds its feet.
Regards,
Niall
Nice post. I'd like to be self-employed, and I've been thinking about running my own business soon. I'll have to keep this post in mind. Instead of starting one from scratch, I've also been thinking about buying a business instead of starting one from scratch. Any suggestions? Advice? Thanks.
Buying a business instead of starting up your own is a very different proposition. You don't always just buy a business, you also buy its people, its history and its baggage.
You could set up a business on your own and bring in contractors when you need them. You can outsource item such as bookkeeping and payroll or call answering.
Look at franchising as another option, a business already setup with procedures, you just have to get out and sell. You can read more articles at http://www.HelpForBookkeepers.com about the bookkeeping side of business.
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