By RK Fischer & Associates

01/06/2014 Are there times that you feel you are working 24 hours a day on your business, but do not believe that you are getting what needs to get done accomplished? Do you at times feel overwhelmed? If this is the case, you are most likely experiencing what most small business owner have experienced at some point with their business. This experience is usually a symptom of working too much "in" your business versus "on" your business.
It is not uncommon to have worked to grow your business to a certain size, but become stagnate and have difficulty in jumping to the next level of growth. If you are trying to figure out if this might be you, then here are a few characteristics to determine where the differences are regarding working "in" versus "on" your business. This list is not all inclusive and you can probably add a few lines yourself.



Department In Your Business On Your Business Finance/Accounting Plan your business spending based on your bank balance today Have a budget and spend money based on your budget Determine who you need to pay each week based on the money in your bank accountWrite cheques to suppliers but do not send them to make your accounting reports look 'balanced'. Review and handle your finances on a monthly basis· Collect your accounts receivables on time• Manage your expenses• Plan your spending based on business need and planned free cash flow generated by the business Make sales without consideration of whether you are going to make money on the sale Knowing what you make on every sale Human Resources Your business solely relies on you being in the business and micro manage employees (in other words; you are the business) Have managers to manage day to day Have a lack of trust of those that work for you and cannot seem to hold onto good staff Empower your employees and have many long term employees Do not have job descriptions, objectives, or provide reviews for employeesAssign jobs based upon who is available at the time of the need Understand skill sets required to run and grow your business and hire accordingly. Employees understand what they are required to do and are reviewed accordingly Sales Always looking for the elusive "Hail Mary" sale Manage your business based on forecasted sales Manage sales one at a time Understand target market and target prospects and track leads accordingly Take any sale and hope that you made money on them. Have a sales process that is followed. Sell primarily on customer need and ensure you set pricing and margins such that you know when to walk away from the opportunity Marketing What's that? Sounds expensive! Have proper branding and messaging for your business and products and services such that people know who you are and what you offer before they start talking to you Throw money at marketing and hope it sticks without knowing it was the appropriate marketing for your industry or business and never calculating a return Planned targeted marketing and calculating your return , while at the same time making sure some marketing is creating awareness Operations Looking at the shelf and determining what you think you need to reorder Tracking and knowing your inventory levels at all times Keep employees around who are not always utilized - "just in case" Have workload and productivity planning to ensure efficiency in your business Deal with customer issues as they happen Have high customer retention and satisfaction rates as you have a handle on any issues Do not have proper processes and systems in place to manage the business Invested in developing processes and applications to track and help manage business
As a business owner if find you are spending too much time "working in your business" and not enough time "working on your business", you can turn this around, but understand this won't happen overnight. In some cases, it will take letting go of some of the power and delegating which means you need honest and capable employees. You might have to employ a different mindset which at times is hard, but will be key to your success. As a business owner you need to focus on the top line revenue, margin and expenses and make sure that you have the right people, processes, and systems in place in order to help you manage this and make the right decisions.

RK Fischer & Associates

RK Fischer & Associates is a business consulting and coaching firm that helps business owners increase value in their business by improving their operational and bottom line financial performance which enables them to achieve profitable growth. All of the services we provide are focused on meeti…

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