How to Run Your Small Business (Instead of Having Your Small Business Run You)
Owning your own business is like going on a new adventure every day, without knowing where it will take you, what dangers you’ll face along the way, or even whether you’ll make it out alive. That last part depends mostly on the business you’re in, but hey, it can certainly feel like your small business is going to kill you, or at least get the better of you on any given day.
A very close friend of mine, who happens to own his own apparel company, came to me recently, shaken, unshaven, and obviously stressed. He began telling me how he was missing meetings, losing track of time, neglecting personal relationships, and generally forming more bad habits than he could keep up with, on account of his business was taking over his life.
I definitely related to his situation, and then started thinking about ways to help him (and other small business owner like him, myself included).
Here’s what I came up with:
Know How (and When) to Say No
Small business owners should have four legs, we scramble so much. And while the world appreciates our hustle, we often agree very hastily to much more than we can actually take on, in the hopes that we can cut a better deal here, or get more funding there.
Much of this hustle is necessary, but much of it is not. Yes, it is important to make contacts, to pitch your product, and to get funding, but missing meetings because you have too much on your plate is much more damaging to your reputation than saying no ahead of time. If you are feeling like your business is running you instead of the other way around, than examine your current commitments to see which are essential, acknowledge to yourself that it is OK to say no, and then, in the future, say no to the things that aren’t.
Plan Every Second of Your Life
No, I’m not exaggerating. What kills many small business owners is ambiguity in their schedules. Don’t allow this to happen. Get a planner, a journal, a piece of notebook paper, or a napkin — whatever it takes — and write down exactly what you have to do that week, and when you will be doing it. Zero in as microscopically as possible, to the point that you include such details as “eating ham sandwich alone at 12:05,” or “meeting with (x) investor at Starbucks on 1234 Main at 1:39pm.” Specificity in activity and time count. Don’t leave any “wiggle room”; free time is time that is unaccounted for, unless, that is, you schedule it in. See how that works? You can’t feel guilty about free time if you knew you were taking it.
This should go without saying, but often we small business owners need to hear what goes without saying, so: DO NOT VARY FROM THE SCHEDULE. Once it is written, DO IT.
Take Free Time
This is extremely important. There’s a reason the normal work week is only Monday to Friday: Neither the human body nor the human mind were designed to work 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. With that in mind, plan some free time, and even some vacation time, into your week. You will be able to focus better, and will feel more in control of your life if you do things outside of running your business, and, best of all, you will be able to run your business better when you are refreshed and thinking clearly.
By the way, after I presented my friend with these strategies, he adopted them, and while I can’t vouch for his business, I can vouch for his health and happiness, and I can say that after following my advice for a few weeks, he looked like a million dollars, and felt like it, too. And you can’t run a business if you feel like anything less.
About the Author: This is a guest post by Eliza Morgan who is a full time blogger. She specializes in writing about business credit cards. You can reach her at: elizamorgan856 at gmail dot com.
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Student, Athlete, Entrepreneur
Meet Daniela Maldonado, owner and founder of Hello Bath & Body Company. In case running a successful business wasn’t enough, Daniela is also majoring in Physics at Rutgers University and captains her collegiate fencing club! If you’ve ever thought you were too busy to accomplish everything, one look at Daniela’s schedule will have you thinking again. Below Daniela shares a day in the life of a student, athlete, and entrepreneur.
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Hi, I’m Daniela Maldonado, owner and founder of Hello Bath & Body Company based in Oakland, NJ. I am touted for being a full-time everything; in addition to my business, I …am a full-time student at Rutgers University working towards my physics degree, am President of the Rutgers Fencing Club, serve on the Tournament Committee for the New Jersey Division of the United States Fencing Association, and am expected to fence competitively for the New York Athletic Club this season. Whew! That was a mouthful. So, want to see what my typical day is like? Let’s go!
Today is a Tuesday and my morning starts at 6 AM. At this time, I’m feeding my pets, checking emails, and cutting soap made the previous day. By 7, I’ve walked to the bus and am on my way to the train station in nearby Ridgewood. Tuesdays are good, because I catch the express trains in the morning. My usual commute lasts anywhere from 1.5-2.5 hours depending on whether or not the trains are running on schedule.
A little bit after 9, I make it to campus. By this point, I’ve done plenty of work and phone calls while on the train. I look at my schedule nearly 50 times a day:
The definition of how I get through my days. I have a personal planner for school and fencing and a notebook just for business notes and to-do’s. I leave space in my personal planner “free” – this usually means I’m free to make product or purchase supplies depending on where I am.
Tuesday mornings this semester, I have my last lab course – Computer Based Experimentation and Physics Computing. It’s as fun as it sounds. What you see here is a Geiger tube and counter, counting the nuclear decay of 137Cs. It’s more or less a practice in Gaussian and Poisson distributions, and took way too long. I have one more class today at 1:40 and that runs until 3.
After class today, I am looking at an office space in downtown New Brunswick. I spend a lot of time in New Brunswick, and I’ve considered moving some of my workload down here – distribution and whatnot. The building was nice, but the space itself was a bit unkempt and depressing. Next up is a meeting with our program director for the fencing club at the University. If you’re not familiar with Rutgers New Brunswick, it is comprised of five different campuses, with an inter-campus bus system. The short ride from New Brunswick to Piscataway looks like this:
This actually isn’t too bad, but you can imagine how bad it gets right before and after classes on any given campus. Being in charge of the fencing club is not what I wanted to be at this point in my college career. I was looking for something more along the lines of Varsity Team Captain – but our athletic department controversially cut six Olympic sports right after my freshman year. I think about this plenty, but it just gives me more incentive to create a great experience for the club members.
After 8 hours on campus, I’m off to New York for fencing practice. Mondays and Thursdays I have practice at school, while Tuesdays and Fridays I practice at the New York Athletic Club near Central Park South. Dinner tonight? More like a late lunch – veggie delight sub! I get the foot-long for a mere $5 and save the other half for after practice. I try and use my commuting time wisely. Today, I’m reading a few journals on clinical trials of Arnica montana for a research project in my Herbals and Neutraceuticals class:
Joining me on my journey is my fencing bag, which I swear weighs 100 lbs. It doesn’t, it’s more like 30. Maybe 25. This bag holds more than $600 in equipment and you can imagine I hold onto it tightly everywhere I go:
The New York Athletic Club is responsible for bringing fencing to the U.S. and is a host to both Olympic fencers and coaches over the years. I would certainly say I am lucky to be able to fence amidst the amazing athletes there. They inspire me and keep me going – and some of them are just great friends. During the week, time at the club is essentially the only time I get with my boyfriend, but he is one of my biggest supporters and is always understanding. I get home around 11 later that evening, tired out and ready to go to sleep. Friday through Sunday is not as jam-packed, and that’s when I get my production time and I do my Farmers’ Market on Saturdays as well.
My advice to other ambitious individuals? Time management is key! I promise you, you can do it all, just prioritize. Prioritize, write everything down, and schedule accordingly. And when I say schedule, I mean schedule everything – not just appointments. Whether it’s answering emails, picking up lunch, or that bath you’ve been dying to take – write it in. I’ll admit, I don’t schedule in my lunches or dinners, but my stomach will tell you I should. Some might think I try to do too much, but I just remind myself that I am doing everything I want to do – and that keeps me happy and successful.
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About the business: Hello Bath & Body Co. was founded in 2008 and has locally been a success since its beginning. A perfect blend of science and art, soapmaking became a passion of mine and there was no turning back. I strive for Hello Bath & Body Co. to be a business with a conscience: part of profits are donated to reforestation projects in Indonesia (http://orangutans-sos.org/) and organic or sustainably-harvested oils and ingredients are used where possible. Follow Hello as it grows at www.hellobathandbody.com or keep up with Daniela at http://hellosoap.blogspot.com
The Myth of Needing More Time
What if I told you the idea of needing more time to accomplish your small business goals is a myth? That’s right, it’s a myth. You don’t need any more time than you currently have to grow or start your small business. Don’t believe me?
Take a look at the list of the Top 50 Entrepreneurs Ever, pretty successful people right? In that list there are some of the most innovative, creative, and truly visionary (not to mention rich) people who have ever done business. And they accomplished all of their feats in the same 24 hours a day you and me have.
How is it that Henry Ford invented the assembly line, Sam Walton redefined discount shopping, and Howard Schultz’s love for coffee turned Grande Late into a household phrase when you are struggling to find an extra 5 minutes to start on your business plan? Two words…Time Management.
If you look over the list of dirty business words and phrases, you’ll see that many of them have to do with time, or our perception of time. We always think we don’t have enough when the key is doing the right things with the time we have.
Steps to Effective Time Management for the Small Business Entrepreneur
One: This week skip your favorite TV show and with that time create a list of everything you need to get done for your business in the next week, month, and (gasp!) year. This will be a very long and daunting list.
Two: With this list, prioritize based on 3 categories…
- Bare Minimum Necessity
- Moneymakers
- Nice to Have
Bare Minimum Necessities include things like writing your business plan, setting up phone line or business infrastructure, or anything else that absolutely has to be done before you can open your doors for business, or effectively grow your current business.
Moneymakers are those things that will produce income/revenue right away.
Nice to Haves are just as the name suggest, Nice to have, but may not add value immediately.
Three: Now attach a realistic time needed to accomplish each task…now add 25% to that number. If for example I think writing a business plan will take 2 hours, I am going to allot 2 ½ hours to accomplish that goal (things always take longer than estimated).
Four: Move everything you have marked as Bare Minimum Necessity to the top of the list. Next are the Moneymakers, and finally the Nice to Haves.
Five: Believe it or not you now have your prioritized road map for the next YEAR! And you have a realistic estimate of how much time you will need to accomplish EVERYTHING on your list! The hours needed may be huge, and you may be feeling like you’ll never get it all done, but believe me you are better off knowing what you are up against so you can manage your time, than running blindly through the mine field only to give up because you are feeling overwhelmed.
Also this is a nice sanity check, if you have 10,000 hours worth of stuff you would like to get done in the next year you may be setting yourself up for failure, time to reprioritize a manageable workload for the upcoming year. A full time job is roughly 2000 hours a year, so base your small business workload off of this (especially if you are still working your day job).
Six: Nothing to it but to get to it. Start working your way down your list. Need 2 ½ hours to write your business plan? No problem, skip that movie, or stay up an hour later than normal twice this week. Find the time, sacrifice some of your “free time” (yes you have free time – you did something today for at least a few minutes that wasn’t productive). Get real about what you need to get done, and do it!
Seven: Continue to monitor your progress on your list. And be sure to do a check that you are allocating your precious time to those activities that have the most positive impact on your business. Don’t spend 8 hours trying to create the perfect logo for your business, if taking 30 minutes to make some sales calls will bring in revenue now.
Eight: Micro manage yourself. If you’ve given yourself 2 ½ hours to write your business plan, write out how you will use those two hours. Any task longer than 15 minutes needs it’s own mini time management plan, or you will end up using your time in a less than productive manner, or wasting it all together. If you’re wasting 15 minutes here and there it will add up over the course of a year. Let’s say you have 50 task on your to-do list…you waste 15 minutes on each task and you’ve cost yourself 12 ½ hours. What could you do with an extra 12 ½ hours?
For example your 2 ½ hour mini plan to write your business plan may look like this:
- 15 minutes – Compile all business plan resources I need. Templates, models, and tips collected online.
- 30 minutes – Write outline
- 45 minutes – Add research and round out the plan
- 30 minutes – Edit and review
- 15 minutes – Send plan to an expert or trusted source for second level review and feedback.
- 15 minutes – Review process. Was there anything I didn’t get done in this 120 minutes that needs to be added to my priority list.
Time management for the small business owner is all about planning, and allocating your precious time resources accordingly. By prioritizing your list of things you need to do from those that need to be done now, to those that add immediate value, and then leaving the rest for any additional time you may have, you’ll be laying a solid foundation to accomplish more in the 24 hours we’re given each day. You have exactly the same amount of time as everyone else; you just need a road map on how to use it most effectively.
Thanks for taking your valuable time to read this.
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