Tag Archives: small business

12 Stress Management tips for Business owners

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What is your strategy for managing the stress of running a small business?

To help you find new strategies for managing the stress that comes with running your small business, we asked small business owners and entrepreneurs this question for their best advice. From taking time to enjoy nature to setting boundaries, there are several different ways you can manage your stress.

Here are twelve strategies to managing stress while running a small business:

  • Remember Your Why
  • Regular Trips Out In Nature
  • Think About All The Impact You’re Making
  • Spend Time With Your Pets
  • Take Longer Breaks When You Need Them
  • Schedule Self Care
  • Personal Retreat Sessions
  • Give Autonomy To Your Team
  • Mindset Routines
  • Blocking Time
  • Setting Boundaries
  • Use The Pomodoro Technique

Remember your Why

When times get hectic, like they often do, it’s important to have your why statement clearly defined and visible to see at all times. Usually, when I’m feeling stressed, it’s because I am too caught up in the weeds and working “in” the business. By regularly scheduling time to work “on” the business, I start by remembering our why statement which brings my focus back to the big picture. This helps me get pumped and feeling way less stressed. — Jenn Christie, Markitors.com

Regular trips out in Nature

Here at Cruise America, we believe in working hard and playing hard. That is why the majority of our executives take advantage of our RV fleet and take regular trips out in nature. We find that this time out of the office reminds us of why we started this company years ago and the amazing experiences we provide for our customers. That’s what makes every day in the office well worth it! — Randall Smalley, Cruise America

Think about all the Impact you’re making

It is so easy to get caught up in the stress of running a small business and losing sight of why you first launched your company in the first place! Whenever I feel overwhelmed, I just think about all the good my company has done for cities and their communities over the last 37 years and it makes it all worth it. — Blake Murphey, American Pipeline Solutions

Spend time with your Pets

The best part of working remotely is that I get to spend all day with my dog! Whenever I start to feel stressed or overwhelmed, I love taking him on a walk or playing fetch with him on the beach. It is a great way for me to step away from my desk, get a healthy dose of Vitamin D, and of course spend some time with my fur baby. –– Carol Bramson, Side by Side

Take longer Breaks when you need them

Many people stress at work. They do overtime and compensate by accumulating extra holidays and taking spare time off. But by doing so, there’s also the impending fear of stress from having to go back to work. I make the most of every day at work, with myself, and with colleagues. I take longer lunch breaks when I want to—an extra hour to go to the lake or stroll around the city. And if you find yourself dozing off, ask colleagues to get a coffee outside of the office—or if you’re still lucky enough to get some sunshine—go for a gelato run collectively! Nobody ever says no to ice cream. — Hung Nguyen, Smallpdf

Schedule Self Care

Schedule self-care and breaks into your daily schedule. When you map out each week in your digital calendar or physical planner, schedule self-care, family time, and exercise first. These are your non-negotiables. Then schedule everything else work-related around these non-negotiables. Your self-care is unique to you! It may vary from a scheduled meditation time to daily walks, to 30 minutes reading a fiction book. But if you don’t plan for it, work will chip away at life, leaving you little in the way of work-life balance. — Reese Spykerman, Design by Reese

Personal Retreat sessions

Personal retreat sessions are a wonderful strategy to help manage the stress of running a small business. Retreat sessions create plenty of downtime and space for reflection, which is exactly what small business owners need to move naturally towards solutions that can solve stress-inducing issues. Continue Reading…

10 smart spending tips from frugal Small Business owners

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How can small business owners be more frugal and spend smarter?

To help you and your small business to be more frugal and spend smarter, we asked small business owners and financial experts this question for their best advice. From polyphasic sleep to developing your IT skills, there are several tips to help your small business to be more frugal and to spend smarter.

Here are ten ways your small business can be more frugal and spend smarter:

  • Google my Business
  • Unsecured Loan or Line of Credit
  • Outsource to Experts
  • Free Trials
  • Check annual discounts for Services
  • Reevaluate your Digital Marketing Strategy
  • Budgeting ahead to Avoid Impulsive Spending
  • Use Free Software
  • Automate and Delegate
  • Only Spend if it adds more Value than it Costs

Google my Business

Google Ads offers small businesses a great opportunity to develop visibility in search result pages. By expressing a willingness to bid on keywords relevant to a business, small business owners can pay per click to attract potential customers to their website. However, as competition amongst advertisers increases, so does the cost per click. In our industry, keyword costs can be $50 – $100 per click. With rising advertising costs, small businesses have less and less margin for profits. To spend smarter, small businesses can invest in an organic search presence to increase their visibility for keywords without paying for each click. One simple step for small businesses is to start a Google My Business page to increase visibility on the local level. Alternatively, businesses can blog about topics similar to keywords in a Google Ads account to reduce paid ad costs and increase organic traffic. — Dan Reck, MATClinics

Unsecured Loan or Line of Credit

Pre-revenue businesses still need to spend in order to launch a new venture. Sometimes the best time to be frugal is when a small business owner is seeking financing and needs to pay extra attention to the interest rate that comes with an unsecured loan or line of credit. Many funding sources tout simple application processes and short pre-approval turnaround times. Be careful not to move too fast on a loan that carries a higher interest rate. Instead, take the time to do your due diligence because some upfront work can save on long-term frugality. — Craig Johnson, Unsecured Funding Source

Outsource to Experts

Let’s say that you’re a small business owner who wants to invest in something like SEO (search engine optimization). You can pay an SEO agency like us $2,500 per month, or $30,000 per year to perform SEO at an expert level. Or, you can hire an SEO manager internally for $65,000 to $85,000 annually to perform SEO for a company. Sometimes, it saves to outsource certain services to experts instead of hiring internally for a business need. Consider the alternatives before posting a job description to a career page. –– Brett Farmiloe, Markitors

Free Trials

Sending secure communications typically comes with a cost to ensure security and compliance. However, some communications companies offer free trials to test their service. For example, our company offers small businesses the ability to send a free fax. If a small business owner is looking to be frugal when it comes to communications, seek out these free trials as a way to save money and discover services that can truly support your business. — Eli Patashnik, iFax

Check Annual Discounts for Services

If you know that you are going to be using a service for an entire year, see if you can pay the entire year in advance for a discount. This often netted us 10-20% discounts on services that we were already paying for. Even if a service doesn’t appear to offer this type of discount, you should inquire as some companies will offer quarterly or semi-yearly discounts as well. I also recommend a quarterly review of your small expenses and ensure that everything is being used. There were many times, we were able to cut costs by simply realizing that we no longer properly utilized a specific service. — Matt Blake, Entrepreneur, Investor and Partner

Reevaluate your Digital Marketing Strategy

Look at your digital marketing ad spend, analytics and metrics. Are you meeting goals and objectives? There is a lot that can be done organically (non-paid) with content marketing — blogging, videos, podcasts — in conjunction with social media marketing, that will help with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and drive traffic to your website without spending money. Continue Reading…

Four effective ways to make your business more efficient and profitable

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By Sia Hasan

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

A phrase you’ll hear over and over again when you run a business is “time is money.” And, for the most part, it’s true. Especially when you have workers paid by the hour, it’s tough not to see their time as a reflection of your business’s value. Most modern offices have lots of wasted time that could easily be trimmed to save everyone a headache, and save you money. These tips will give you some good ways to start saving time.

1.) Software and Automation

Managing a team of people can be tough on your own. Requests for breaks, time off, and sick days add up over time, and you can wind up with a lot of money thrown out the window. Relying on pen and paper systems will frequently become a headache and errors are inevitable. Investing in good management software will save time in more ways than one.

If you’re supervising a team and want a good way to manage their time clocks, a time card calculator is a great tool to have. You can track their productivity as well as their reported hours, giving you a better idea of how their time has actually been spent on a certain task. Automation is also a necessity in modern business, as certain tasks just can’t be done as well by a human as by a machine. Give the monotonous tasks to your software and watch as you gain time back.

 2.) Minimize Distractions

A lot of wasted time during the workday comes down to unnecessary distractions. While it’s good for employees to bond over a conversation in the break room and feel comfortable stopping by each other’s desks for a chat, it’s best to keep these interactions at a reasonable minimum. Encourage employees to take their lunch breaks together to cut down on the need for conversations throughout the work day.

But time can be wasted by work-related interactions, as well. Most meetings can be summarized easily by a mass email, and chat software can easily interrupt an employee’s train of thought, so consider replacing longer meetings with a shorter daily one. Allow employees to turn off their notifications, encouraging them to check their email during specific times, and allow them to have plenty of time for focused and productive work.

3.) Go easy on multitasking

Some individuals truly are great at multitasking, but the truth is, many of us are challenging ourselves to a task we’re not up to. Productivity doesn’t come down to the number of things you’ve worked on in a day, but the volume of work you’ve completed. Allow yourself to prioritize a certain task and work on it until it’s complete. Continue Reading…

Organize your Small Business finances with these 6 steps

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By Gary Bordeaux

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Owning a business comes with a great deal of freedom, but also with substantial financial responsibility. No matter what business you are in, making a profit is job one. The key to successful money management is organization. These six steps can help.

1.) Schedule

Set aside a block of time each day for minor operations such as scanning paper documents or entering figures into accounting software. One day each week, take an hour to monitor expenses, calculate profits and review the accounting.

2.) Separate

When you first start out, it may seem silly to keep personal funds separate from business funds. After all, you may be dealing with small amounts and infrequent activity. However, if you plan to grow the business, there will come a time when you need to know what belongs to the business and what belongs to you. It is cleaner and simpler to separate finances from the start, rather than trying to untangle your commingled funds later. Your business should have its own bank account and credit card as soon as it has a name, structure and business license.

3.) Prepare

If you have employees, you need to set aside money for several types of payroll deductions including federal income tax, Medicare and Social Security. Your state or province may require income tax and other employee taxes as well. A paystub generator can  help you and your employees keep current on state and federal requirements. Accuracy is paramount.

Avoid a surprise tax bill by setting aside a percentage of the company’s earnings from the start. Consult with a tax professional to get an annual or quarterly estimate, then reserve an appropriate amount of money each month.

This works with more than just taxes. You can prepare for any quarterly or annual expense if you know it is coming. Suppose you face an annual regulatory fee of $10,000. Simply set aside $833 each month, then when the bill comes due you can pay with ease. Even better, automate the process by having your financial institution sweep the $833 from the debit account to savings on the same day each month.

4.) Track

You need a good filing system, either paper or digital. A functional system allows you to retrieve information easily and quickly. It should be simple and intuitive, yet flexible enough to grow with your business. General categories may include: Continue Reading…

4 ways for a Small Business to thrive

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By Sia Hasan

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Building a company from scratch and being your own boss are the dreams of many. However, it is small businesses that have it the hardest, and you’ll need to bring your A game in order to survive the first year of operation. There are many ways that a small business may stack the deck in its favor, however. Here are the tips you need to know in order to keep your business from going under.

Maintaining Cash Flow

Businesses strive to make money, but a business owner must also cover his or her overhead expenses in order to stay in business. Therefore, one needs to maintain one’s cash flow in order to continue to compete. This is especially pertinent when it comes to invoices, as invoices can be great for consumers while being a detriment to smaller businesses.

An invoice factoring company can help you maintain cash flow by buying your invoices from you at a slight loss in exchange for immediate payment. While this isn’t much an issue for established, successful companies, small businesses can benefit tremendously from this practice.

Reducing Costs

Another important way to strengthen your cash flow is to simply reduce the costs of some of your necessary experiences. In some cases, you can outright eliminate expenses, as well. For instance, you can try to find better prices within your supply chain, or you can even buy directly from manufacturers in order to cut costs. In such cases, you need to be sure that you’re not losing too much in terms of quality or reliability, however. Continue Reading…