How to Make Your Business Thrive
To Thrive in Business, Manage Your Priorities!
It's a common struggle for many small business owners to find themselves working in their business rather than on it. This can make it difficult to see the bigger picture, like not being able to see the forest through the trees.
It would help if you stepped out of the forest to see what's happening within your business.
The Problem: Owners work in Their business, Not On It. Therefore, They can't see the forest through the trees!
It's hard to see a clear path forward when you're busy doing the day-to-day work in the business.
The solution: step away from the front line to get a clear view and manage more effectively.
Step out of the daily grind to focus on strategic matters. Hire competent people to handle the repetitive, daily activities.
As a business owner or manager, your main priority is maintaining your company's viability and relevance. You can achieve this by understanding and monitoring your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), which include revenue, profit, growth, risk management, expense management, and investment. Understanding your KPIs will enable you to set targets and then track your progress using appropriate KPI metrics.
Qlik, an analytics and data integration firm, explains KPIs and their importance in performance measurement. Qlik also offers a free KPI Planning Guide that can be downloaded, serving as a valuable resource with insightful information.
In today's ever-changing VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) world, it's not just beneficial, but crucial to ensure that your resources are being utilized in the most effective ways. The initial step, and a non-negotiable one, is to take the time to formulate a strategic plan. This plan will not only help you understand how systems drive strategy, but also how automation can be leveraged to help you achieve your goals. In this dynamic business environment, strategic planning is not a luxury, but a necessity for survival and growth.
How to Achieve Your Business Priorities
Analyze
Review your financials in depth. Are you profitable? Why or why not? Where are we in relation to our goals? Look for significant movements and correlate any activities or related events. Take notes and summarize your findings.
Systemize
Take a good look at your processes and procedures. Where are we getting bogged down or wasting energy? What tools or systems can we put in place to remove this obstacle? How much time can we save that may be better utilized towards generating revenue?
Prioritize
What change(s) would make the greatest impact on our bottom line? How long will it take? What needs to happen in what order? Who will take care of what?
Manage Progress Using Key Metrics
- First and foremost, are we making money? Check the bottom-line.
- Are we growing according to expectations? Why or why not?
- How can we scale? Can we streamline routine process and procedures?
- What are the biggest threats to our survival? How can we mitigate the risks?
- What is our greatest opportunity going forward? What is going well and why?
- Are our employees productive? How should we invest in our greatest assets?
Pay Attention to the 3 P's: Performance, People & Profit
Performance
Make it easy for your people to do their job. Give them the right-tools to do the right-thing, at the right-time. This includes streamlining processes towards activities that offer high leverage.
People
Employees that are happy and successful in their role produce the best results. Encourage entrepreneurial-like thinking. Create incentives that reward desired behaviors.
Profit
Without profit, everything else is mute. Look for significant movements in your bottom line, calibrate your resources accordingly, and be ready to pivot when necessary.
Simple and easy.
What is the Big Picture?
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About Linda Reddin
Linda understands business through her experience as a bank manager for seven years and a business operator for the last fifteen years.
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