Control and the Single Person (Business) Part 1

Introduction

Managing and administering a small (or micro) service business as
a one person band presents some very unique difficulties. However
there are strategies that can be employed to reduce the load and this
article (the first of two) outlines 5 key points and explains two of
them.

5 Key Principles of Small Business Management

It may seem excessively simplistic to do so, but the principles of
getting control over the day to day management of the business can be
distilled in 5 simple principles which are in order:

1. Get Serious

   
   

2. Balance the Load

   
   

3. Tool Up for the Job

   
   

4. Focus your Activities

   
   

5. Outsource (what you can)
   

   
   

The following sections examine the first two of these principles
in more depth.

1 - Get Serious

One of the interesting sentiments often expressed by people
starting out on their own, is the unreality of the situation. There
is an immediate sense of liberation in moving from being just a
number to being number 1. However, you are now at once both the sales

Often it is the case that you may have started with work lined up
already - this will launch the venture with a fair wind behind it.
For some lucky individuals this wind continues to blow, but for a
majority contracts will end and will need to be replaced. It is at
this point you will then discover whether you have a real business or
simply an income stream. A real business will not only have other
contracts lined up, but will also have established a mechanism for
generating or gathering new opportunities and converting them into
contracts.

The start point is your frame of mind and your attitude to towards
the business overall. In other words stepping away from the idea that
this is an income stream to thinking of it as a business and getting
serious.

Early contracts may come from friends, later contracts will come
from hard headed strangers who wish to deal with a professional

This means: professional looking (i.e. professionally designed)
literature and web materials; dedicated business lines (if working
from home); answering the phone as if you are part of the business,
good solutions for managing enquiries (e.g. phone redirects,
professional phone answering services etc.); good quality stationary;
professional (and professional looking if open to public view)
equipment to carry out the job; the right tools for management and
control of the business; and a business working routine that is
focussed on tomorrow as much as today.

2 - Balance the Load

With a serious frame of mind you will quickly appreciate the
almost impossible dilemma of balancing your time between service
delivery (i.e. fee earning time), administration (i.e. fee burning
time) and sales.

On the one hand you must deliver. If you are working on a contract
it is vital to get it finished as soon as possible, not just to
satisfy the customer's requirements, but also to shorten the time
required to turn the work into cash.

On the other hand, you need to pay attention to administration not
just for legal reasons (e.g. VAT, Companies House etc.), but also to
ensure you are in control of what is required by whom and when and
ensuring that invoices go out on time and are followed up and paid.

Yet on the other hand (that is three hands by now) sales are still
required. Most businesses have to do stuff to generate sales.
I use the word stuff deliberately here, because generating
sales is a whole separate subject. Inevitably the stuff you have to
do will take time and probably a chunk of your valuable fees.
How much stuff and how big a chunk is very much down to
you, your business, your market and the prevailing economic
environment.

Balancing your time between these different demands, is by no
means easy. The trick is to allocate specific time to each. This may
mean carving the week up in a way that gets the most out of you and
uses the natural weekly cycle to its best advantage for each type of
work. Here are some examples covering a typical working week which
makes best use of available time.

Monday:
am - use for delivery - sales will not be easy
at the start of the week
pm - some sales possible, but may
be best to have a whole day on delivery

Tuesday:
am - keep early part for delivery, sales will be
easier around the central part of the day
pm - sales or
delivery will be an option (sales always easier on a morning)

Wednesday:
am - keep early part for delivery, sales will
be easier around the central part of the day
pm - sales or
delivery will be an option

Thursday:
am - keep early part for delivery, sales will
be easier around the central part of the day
pm - keep to
delivery only as this is a part of the week when people are getting
tired

Friday:
am - keep morning for delivery & some
administration (e.g. credit chasing)
pm - use for
administration as customers may be difficult to reach and this is a
good time to prepare for next week.

You will notice that the weekends are ignored and there is
certainly no specification for hours as that is entirely a personal
thing.

Further leverage could be gained by investing in an administration
and management software package such as ProQuin (see:
http://www.ProQuinsoftware.co.uk).
Software like this will not only put control into the business, but
save you hours of administrative (fee burning) time.

See part 2 for:

• Tool Up for the Job

  
  

• Focus your Activities

  
  

• Outsource (what you can)
  

  
  

To see this article in full and get more small business related
articles go to:
http://www.smallbusinesscontrol.com/small_business_resources/small_business_articles/