Date: October 7, 2022
Guidance for New Entrepreneurs
Starting your own business is both thrilling and precarious. As a first-time entrepreneur, you will find that making mistakes is a part of the learning process. Keep in mind that the knowledge you gain along the way is valuable and helps you to avoid making the same mistake twice. But sometimes common mistakes can become costly. The good news is that most of these common mistakes are easily avoidable. Here are some tips to save you time and money.
• You need a plan – It is critical for the success of your business. If your financial plans aren’t stable, you’re putting yourself and business at risk by venturing into the unknown, unprepared. Having expert guidance on your side is a shortcut to sustainable growth and success. A fractional CFO can give you clear insight into several key factors. They will help you make sure that you are pricing your services correctly, show you how profitable you are, and guide you on all the financial aspects of running your business. They can help you determine who (and when) to hire, and who (and when) to fire. With the guidance of an expert, you’ll be on your way to growing your business and reaching your goals while avoiding common missteps.
• Delegation – It can be difficult to not do everything yourself. Outsourcing and delegation are necessary to making sure you don’t burn yourself out or waste your time doing things that are not bringing revenue into the business. Delegating will allow you to focus on the big picture, which you can only see when you’re working ON the business, not IN it. You may want to consider hiring a second-in-command to oversee the day-to-day operations as this will help free up your valuable time to bring in new sales, infrastructure and develop new products/services.
• Reading Between the Lines – Doing your own monthly accounting is time consuming, and leaves you open to making costly mistakes. Hiring an accountant to handle your monthly accounting will not only save you time, but also help you protect your business by ensuring you have the visibility you need to know how your business is performing. If you don’t have timely, accurate financial reports in place each month you could make the wrong financial decisions that put you into cash flow crunches which are stressful and uncomfortable. As an added bonus, when it comes time to do your taxes, you will already have everything ready to go without the hours and hours of gathering documents, running calculations, and hoping you get it right.
• Get to know your team – This will make a huge difference in your company culture. As the business owner, your expectations of your staff will differ from your expectations of yourself. Get to know your employees’ strengths and utilize them! A useful way to see your teams’ strengths and weaknesses is by using the Myers-Briggs Test (there are several different tests that offer valuable insights, so that you can find the right fit for your needs). If everyone on your team takes the tests, you will have a clear overall picture into who is good at what and how you can build off of each other’s strengths. Understanding where everyone’s strengths and weaknesses lie will help ensure you’ve got “aces in their places” and that everyone is operating in “their zone of genius”.
We love protecting and empowering small business owners so they can achieve (or exceed) their financial goals. If you are looking for an expert to help guide you, or are in need of monthly accounting services, click here to schedule a complimentary consultation with one of our business growth experts. We’d be happy to give you a no-strings-attached assessment of your business.