Chances are, when you decided to open your own business, your focus was solely on developing your product or service and making your living off of it. However, there are many other aspects of running a business successfully, such as spreading the word about your product and hiring the best employees. Small business owners are responsible for so many other aspects of running a business, though, and often these responsibilities aren’t their specialty. Nevertheless, such things must be seen to and done correctly.
While there is always the option to outsource the aspects of your small business that you aren’t able to manage yourself, you should have at least a working knowledge of such things to help you with oversight. Here are four such things that all small business entrepreneurs should learn more about in order to more effectively manage the aspects of their business that aren’t related to core activity.
1. Marketing
One of the most important things that you will want to educate yourself on is the wide world of marketing. Often confusing as a result of its ever-developing nature, the concept of marketing for your brand properly is one that cannot be overlooked. A strong brand is an effective brand, and the only way to build a strong brand is to take the right approach to marketing.
There are different types of marketing and different tools available to help with marketing strategies. If you don’t feel like it is something you are proficient in, that’s ok. There are a number of qualified marketing companies out there that can point you in the right direction and do the bulk of the work for you. Still, you should certainly familiarize yourself with the jargon so that you can be a bigger part of the conversation.
Moreover, look to use marketing tools that allow for more collaboration and oversight on your part when you enlist the services of a marketing team. Tools like Ziflow make it easy for you as the client to review and approve all the various aspects of your marketing campaign. Since the key to any endeavor is good communication, you can’t go wrong with implementing and using such a tool.
2. Accounting
While you probably went into business for yourself with the intention of avoiding such things as accounting, you will still need to be familiar with some aspects of finance in order to give yourself the best opportunity to manage those finances effectively. Firstly, you will want to enlist the services of a reliable accountant to manage the finances of your business. You will then want to become acquainted with common language and methods so that you can stay in the loop.
Terminology like “cash flow forecast” and “income sheet” are things that will better allow you to communicate with your accountant and understand what he or she tells you about your finances. While it is possible to adequately manage your finances without such knowledge, you can make conversations with your accountant more efficient and simpler in the long run. It is also always a good idea to stay as informed about your finances as possible.
3. IT
IT is one of those things that your company cannot physically run without. You need to have functioning equipment in your offices, and that equipment needs to be properly maintained and serviced on a routine basis. Furthermore, IT crises are inevitable and will require someone to make required repairs quickly. Without such a person on hand or on call, your operations can come to a grinding halt.
That being said, there are some IT glitches that can be resolved without calling in the experts if you take the time to familiarize yourself with the equipment you have. For instance, if your computer is running slowly or certain processes aren’t running as they should be, there very well might be some simple troubleshooting that you can do. Invest a bit of time into learning your equipment so that you can be ready to get things back on track should small hiccups happen.
4. Human Resources
Your human resources department plays a vital role in the level of employee satisfaction that your company has. Anyone looking to retain their employees and avoid high rates of turnover should take the time to become more familiar with the best human resource practices.
The other aspect of HR that you should be mindful of has to do with compliance measures. If you don’t meet compliance standards, you could very quickly bring your business to a grinding halt. Educate yourself about how you and your workers can compliant so that you can keep things running the way they should.
