Please read below to learn how to Revitalize your Small Business. This informative and helpful article was written by a good friend of ours here at Fine Point: Scott Pfeil. Scott is an excellent resource for businesses and his words can help in more ways than one. So please read on, we are sure you won’t regret it.
By Scott Pfeil on July 10, 2014
As a small business owner or manager you are the heart of the American economy. You face unique challenges/opportunities and risks while shouldering many varied responsibilities. Do you have improvement ideas that you don’t get to as fast as you’d like? Are you uncomfortable with an aspect of your business, but hope your strength in other areas will outrun the weakness? Do you have the right people, doing the right things, with the tools, training and proper management for your business to run optimally?
Twenty-five years analyzing companies and business models in the stock market has shown me that the best companies frequently rethink, reform, and refocus their business — that is how they stay on top. And yet when your business is ready to “take it to the next level” as an owner you might be “running on empty.” And this makes sense. Being a Chief Operating Officer running the day to day operations of a small business has given me insight as to how difficult this can be. As a business owner, you probably formed a company based around your particular strength and ideas, and then used your prowess, entrepreneurship, hard work, and ingenuity to put the other pieces in line. In the process of putting these pieces together, have you worked so hard in your weak areas that you aren’t having fun anymore? Are you working too much, delegating too little? Are there too many mistakes when you do delegate? Do you miss your niche, working at what you are best at? Here is one way to revitalize your business.
Before forging ahead with more objective improvements, the key here is to make sure you have created the type of culture that you want in your workplace. Learning and paying attention to what best motivates each individual and your team is an art. If it’s not there yet, a purposeful and consistent approach to culture change is necessary to keep in the back of your mind as you move ahead. This is best done as you tackle the more objective process improvements and together these two points of focus will allow you to optimize your business with staying power. Why is this true? Well, you can only do so much yourself. In short, a winning culture releases more of the talents of your employees which is good for you, for them and for the business.
Sound business practices in HR for hiring, transitioning, training, evaluations, wages and bonuses, benefit plan design and communication are critically important. Consistently giving employees the tools to succeed in each particular position, and making sure the right people are in the positions with the best fit may sound simple, but simply isn’t done well in many businesses.
Instead of cringing about the cost for training and updating practices, instead allow yourself to cringe about the cost of losing a valuable employee or not utilizing that person’s talents properly. Doing HR right means happier employees (and management), lower turnover, and a better return on the investment you make in your people.
You add the best value to those around you, whether family, employees, customers, or strangers, when you are working in your areas of strength and having fun. There is a reason that your business has achieved the level of success that it has, so focus on what you do best. Take a deep breath here and consider the benefits to your personal wellness of hiring a consultant who can listen with confidentiality and without pre-judgments, to give you professional help to troubleshoot areas of weakness and do some work for you in those areas. Hiring a consultant as a temporary employee is a low-risk way to complete some of your backed up or dreamed up projects and could be the key to you being able to spend time in your areas of strength, thereby revitalizing your energy for your business. This might be just what you need to take your company to the next level.
Need help in any of the following areas? The author, Scott Pfeil at 608-239-8773, is the owner of Revitalogic, a business consulting company that specializes in:
*Business Strategy
*Process innovation and improvement
*Human Resources
*Operations Management
*Sales
*Negotiations with vendors, partners and customers
*Technology – More fully utilizing the resources you already paid for
*Finance Related – M&A, Banking, Accounting, QuickBooks as a management tool – working with Fine Point Consulting
*Other areas to be identified in our initial complimentary consultation
By: Scott Pfeil, July 10. 2014
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