HOPSON POTTER BUSINESS

Running a small business is much harder than running a corporation. Surprising? Not if you’re a small business entrepreneur.

As a fledling business owner on a restricted budget you have to multi-task,juggle,prioritize and balance. Unlike corporations, you don’t have a specialized professional team to help you manage, allowing you to focus on more critical business strategies.

Neither do you have the capital to afford such luxuries.At best you have about twenty employees that you need to train, supervise, motivate, schedule and pay. 
You’re the sole manager, running your business on a shoe-string budget with only 24 hours a day.

Given such stressful financial and time constraints, how can you successfully maintain a balance between excellence, efficiency, and improving productivity all on your own? 
The answer? Think big.

Manage your business like the big corporations do.

Corporations rely on efficient organization that is cost-effective. Yes, even big companies have budget (granted big, but not unlimited) constraints that warrant resourcefulness. Today big businesses resort to business management software whenever possible to replace business processes that were once done manually, reducing costs of labor, time and human error.

Scheduling employees, for instance, used to be a tedious, time-consuming task before automated scheduling software made rosters, schedules and shift management a breeze. 
Today, small businesses can not only easily be a more efficient organization with the help of such software but can also obtain business software at no cost.

The business software market offers a variety of free trial software programs for evaluation before purchasing.

The downside of those programs are either a time limitation (meaning you might not get fully acquainted with all features) or limited in features (meaning you can’t test all the features). If you like the program, you find out it carries a corporate price tag.

On the other hand, there are companies (few though they exist), such as Kappix, that offer free fully functional business management software, with no time/feature limitations.

Kappix, a leading provider of employee scheduling software, provides businesses of all sizes with DRoster Employee Scheduling. DRoster creates, manages, and automates shifts, rosters, schedules, personnel contact information, job descriptions and tasks.

DRoster Employee Scheduling software enables a small business to manage its workforce in advance. You can ensure replacement for absentees, breaks, time-off, vacations. Kappix gives small businesses the professional edge that big companies have. This software provider is an example of the few quality providers of true free business management software.

Now you can “think big” – focus on more critical business issues and leave the scheduling to DRoster. Kappix provides DRoster at no cost along with free support. Their employee scheduling software is intuitive and designed to meet the scheduling needs of a myriad of industries.

Free software like Kappix’s DRoster Employee Scheduling Software, can afford you the time to boost productivity without sacrificing valuable money and precious time. Think big, like the big successful corporations. At no cost.

Owners of small business have many tips for their job. Some plan to the most detailed thing, others are impulsive and cursing the dolts who did not order enough whatchamacallits. However, none of them has good results.

The first trick to planning is to plan for the positive. Trying to anticipate and prepare for every possible obstacle is a negative approach, and self-limiting. The only necessary plans are those that will lead to success. If you want 200 attendees at your next event, plan how to bring in 400, even if your hall will only hold 250. Don’t let your production capacity keep you from bidding on jobs that will strain that capacity.

The second trick to planning is to identify the essential elements of success. For your event, you need a sound system, refreshments, and your printed materials.

Sure, other items will come up, but set up the essentials, and you will have a framework for any other needs to fit into.

The third trick to planning is allowing lead time. “Too little, too late” should never apply to your business. Being “too busy” is never a valid excuse. “Too busy” comes from an earlier lack of planning. If you are in this vicious cycle, the only way out is to discover what is essential and do only that until you are caught up.

The fourth trick to planning is thoroughness, which is different from obsessing over details. Whether you are planning for a major client project or a minor office rearrangement, make a list of the essential actions. Always, always make a master written list of essential actions when planning.

The list can change over time, but the list is absolutely necessary, or guaranteed, something will slip through the cracks and lead to a crisis.

The fifth trick to planning is to plan with a purpose. Plans can encompass any time period from minutes to years. Merely planning how to use your time, however, will not move you forward at any great pace. You can get a lot done and still not accomplish much of what you need and want to accomplish.

Example: you plan to meet with the mayor from 3:00 to 4:00 to talk about parking ordinances. If that is the whole of your plan, you may not accomplish much. A real plan would be meet with the mayor in order to show him how changes in the parking ordinances would benefit the city. With that plan, you can gather your data, practice your arguments, build your Powerpoint presentation, all with a single end in mind.

Similarly, planning to double your landscaping equipment sales in the next year does not give you much of a framework to hang actual actions on. Instead, plan to quadruple your client base by expanding your sales area and establishing the superiority of your equipment through dramatic demonstrations throughout the year. That plan will get you where you want to go.

Finally, be sure to include others in your business plans, especially your staff. They have to plan their own actions and decisions to fit in smoothly with your plans. Key staff should have a complete picture, and lower-totem-pole staff need to know about anything that will affect their decisions and actions in that department. After all, your staff will be the ones who will help you bring your plans to life, even if your staff is only one part-time bookkeeper.

In summary: no planning means constant fires to be put out and bridges collapsing; too intensive and painstaking planning means projects take too long and cost too much. Just enough planning means the company grows through a series of successful actions that always contain some element of surprise. Some level of occasional challenge keeps life interesting. Plan on it.