Small Business Management Tips Every Small Business Owner Should Know

Small business management covers the various processes used by entrepreneurs to run their businesses. It requires a wide range of skills, as owners and managers need to be well-versed in multiple aspects of business management. This includes making key decisions like hiring and overseeing staff, handling financial reports and accounting, and securing funding for resources and initial operating expenses.

What is the Definition of a Small Business?

The Small Business Administration (SBA) defines a small business typically as one with less than 1,500 employees and annual receipts not exceeding $41.5 million. However, this definition varies by industry, with the SBA setting distinct “size standards” for each sector.

What is Small Business Management?

Small business management involves orchestrating various elements of an organization to meet its goals and objectives. For a small business owner, this entails supervising staff, managing financial matters, and making final decisions on products or services.

Benefits of Small Business Management

Effective small business management offers several advantages for entrepreneurs:

• Clear Direction: Good management keeps everyone focused on the vision set by the owner, aligning all stakeholders with the business’s purpose and goals. This unity fosters a productive work environment.
• Management Knowledge and Goal Achievement: Entrepreneurs often start businesses out of passion, sometimes lacking business expertise. Learning management skills allows them to apply these principles to their business, understanding essential aspects like accounting, financing, and marketing, and how these contribute to achieving business goals.
• Efficient Decision-Making: A strong grasp of management allows small business owners to swiftly alter failing strategies. This flexibility and the right managerial approach enable quick adaptation to market changes or plan flaws, saving time and money.
• Goal-Oriented Actions: Utilizing management principles aids in aligning employee activities with business objectives. Decisions are made with end goals in mind, coordinating efforts from goal-setting to product development and staff management.
• Team Transparency: A key part of small business management is keeping employees informed about internal operations. Sharing financial data, executive decisions, and company updates promotes a sense of trust and respect, recognizing the contributions of each team member.
• Simplifying Gratitude: Sustainable success hinges not only on effective marketing but also on employee satisfaction. Discontent or stress among your team can lead to increased burnout and turnover. Effective small business management allows you to express appreciation to your staff. When employees feel valued for their contributions, they tend to be more engaged and motivated.

Tips for Small Business Management

No matter if you’re a novice or a seasoned business owner, there’s always an opportunity to learn new management techniques to bolster success. These helpful business management tips include:

1. Prioritize Relationship Building: The cornerstone of business growth is robust relationships, often managed by the founding entrepreneur. This includes nurturing both internal connections with employees and external ties with suppliers, clients, and financiers. Neglecting these relationships can hinder a business’s ability to expand or sustain its current growth trajectory.
2. Implement Automation Software: Streamline operations like employee payroll and accounting with automation software. Managers input essential data, like employee work hours, and the software efficiently computes and records outcomes, including tax calculations and insurance contributions. This significantly saves time that would be spent on manual calculations.
3. Establish Goals and Empower Teams: Counteract the negative effects of micromanagement by establishing clear goals for each department and employee. Assign responsibilities accordingly and seek employee feedback to confirm their confidence in meeting these objectives. Periodically check in, avoiding over-involvement, to demonstrate trust in their abilities while remaining available for support upon request.
4. Master the Art of Delegation: Recognizing the right time to delegate tasks is crucial. With business growth comes an increased workload. Trying to handle everything alone isn’t practical, efficient, or healthy. Effective employee management involves relinquishing total control, preventing burnout, and providing team members with opportunities to acquire new skills. This not only fosters their growth but also benefits your company’s development.
5. Regularly Track Performance Metrics: Business records provide comprehensive insights into expenditures and earnings. Analyzing these figures in relation to profits and losses is key. Informed decision-making is based on understanding the financial impact of various actions. Utilizing performance metrics enables a small business manager to identify which strategies to enhance or modify for goal achievement.
6. Analyze and Innovate: Armed with performance data, assess what’s effective and what’s not. Use insights from this analysis and the gathered metrics to fuel brainstorming sessions. This approach helps in discovering innovative strategies to boost performance.
7. Utilize Insights: Utilizing the information gathered is a key step following the measurement of performance metrics and the evaluation of underperforming areas. This phase involves implementing new ideas and strategies to replace or improve upon aspects that are not yielding desired results.
8. Train Employees in Essential Duties: Sharing critical task knowledge with employees is important. Ensure they are well-trained in key functions to maintain business operations smoothly in your absence, whether due to illness or external commitments.
9. Standardize Operational Processes: For any business aspect that excels, conduct a motion study and document the steps involved in achieving that success. This systematic approach to record-keeping allows for easy replication of effective procedures. It becomes especially useful when staff are absent or when scaling up production and expanding the business.
10. Block Out Self-Meetings: In the whirlwind of managing a small business, filled with endless meetings, it’s crucial to carve out time for self-reflection. Schedule regular sessions with yourself to review and set personal goals, assess your performance, and simply pause from the daily office frenzy.
11. Minimize Multitasking: While juggling multiple tasks might seem efficient, it can actually compromise work quality. Overloading with simultaneous tasks can lead to mistakes, extended work hours, and faster burnout. Organize your tasks into categories and prioritize them to focus effectively, one at a time.
12. Quarterly Tax Payments: For small businesses not withholding taxes from employee wages, it’s essential to pay estimated taxes every quarter. Keep track of each payment’s due date to plan accordingly and prevent any oversight.
13. Monitor Time Usage and Pinpoint Time Drains: Effective time management is crucial for completing projects timely and within budget. Rather than scrambling to meet deadlines, track how long each task takes. Analyze this data to adjust your focus on tasks, allocating more or less time as needed. Identifying major time-consuming activities helps in better planning and prioritizing essential tasks.
14. Avoid the Lure of Constant Change: While seeking business improvements is beneficial, avoid frequently shifting strategies, a phenomenon known as “shiny object syndrome” (SOS). This approach disrupts team stability as employees continuously adapt to new methods, only to abandon them soon after. Such constant changes can hinder focus, leading to fatigue and decreased productivity.
15. Keep Part of Your Day Unbooked: Filling every moment of your day with tasks and meetings can lead to overwhelm, especially when unforeseen issues arise, as they often do. A fully booked schedule offers no flexibility for such surprises. Aim to leave about 20% of your day unscheduled, allowing room to handle last-minute changes and tasks without added stress.
16. Stay Focused on the Long-Term Vision: Whether you’re at the beginning stages or have an established business, periods of slow progress can be disheartening. It’s important to remember the broader perspective: slower phases often lead to rapid growth and vice versa. Recognize that every successful business experiences these cycles. Stay motivated through these slower times, knowing they are temporary and a return to growth is on the horizon.

In closing, efficient small business management is key to a company’s successful operation and goal attainment. It also boosts employee morale, as every team member is clear on the company’s objectives and the strategies to reach them.

The National Business Association has authored and curated resources on various topics in multiple formats to help you achieve your goals. Whether you are considering starting your first business or if you are a seasoned entrepreneur, there is something in this Resource section of the NBA website that will be helpful. We hope that you find this article useful.

Providing relevant resources in an easy-to-navigate format is one of the many ways that the NBA accomplishes its mission of helping small businesses succeed. It fulfills our vision of being an indispensable resource for the self-employed, small business owners, and entrepreneurs. If you want a deeper relationship with the NBA, sign up for our free email newsletter or learn about becoming a member by clicking on the “Join the NBA” link.