When you’re operating a company, you need many skills outside of just offering excellent product or service. Founders come from all types of backgrounds. Some start businesses with technical skillsets or maybe as artists with passion projects. However, running day-to-day operations, managing finances, and delegating to a team requires an entirely new set of skills. Putting your core operations on autopilot before growth can help insulate your company from many mistakes that small startups make. Becoming comfortable with operations usually comes with time spent learning and improving.
Our goal should be to create workflows that allow our companies to function without us micromanaging every single detail. Here are some core pieces of business training every small business owner should know.
Why Every Business Owner Should Learn About Operations
Spending a few hours learning about core topics allows you to plan for problems instead of constantly putting out fires. Running operations without the proper insight can lead to many costly mistakes. Incorrect pricing on your services, wrongfully drawn up contracts, and misunderstanding your inventory can drain your cash flow.
Learning how to make important business decisions with data rather than emotions can save you from spending during down seasons. Proper training will teach you how to build systems that will scale with your company. If your business can only run with you working 70 hours per week, it will never grow to be more than that. Creating logical processes allows your team to handle more workload as you move away from daily tasks.
Business Training for Small Business Owners
Let’s take a deeper dive into what every entrepreneur should learn about operations.
Financial management for entrepreneurs
For most non-accountants reading this, finances probably are not your favorite topic. Creative professionals and service-based business owners struggle to stay consistent with their accounting. So they just avoid looking at their balance sheet altogether. But understanding how to read your budget and cash flow is arguably the most important skill to protect your bottom line. Entrepreneur training should always start with learning how to properly budget and forecast.
If you know how to predict future income, you can prepare for any seasonal slowdowns. Another huge category of financial training is understanding cash flow management. Your company can be raking in profits but run out of money if your clients take 30- 60 days to pay you. Spend some time learning what your actual gross margins are after accounting for overhead costs and payroll.
How healthy are your business operations?
Answer these yes or no questions to determine if your business can run without you.
- Can your business run smoothly for at least two weeks if you took a step back?
- Do you open and analyze an updated cashflow statement each month?
- Are your daily business operations documented and able to be replicated by your team?
If you answered no to any of these questions, your operations can benefit from scaling!
Leadership Training for Entrepreneurs
Leading a team requires you to shift your mindset. In the beginning, we start businesses by doing it all ourselves. But once we hire someone to help with the load, we have to learn how to let go. Leadership training helps you understand how to set expectations and hand off the duties you once managed. Hiring employees who follow your company’s core values is easier if you can clearly communicate your standards. When you do a good job leading your team and building culture, high performers will stay with your company and save you from expensive turnover. Many newfound leaders feel extremely anxious when given this new responsibility. They start businesses because they’re great at their specialty, not because they know how to manage people.
Team conflict can often be avoided by having solid communication channels in place.
Marketing and Sales Training
The best way to watch your company suffer is to not have enough leads. Overall, small business development starts with finding a healthy mix of marketing efforts. Identifying your brand is the first step to telling the world why they should work with you. Branding can be made up of a few things, but make sure your value prop is clear. Anyone who walks into your store should know why they should buy from you instead of the business down the street.
Once you have your brand established, you need to focus on lead generation. There are many sales channels you can utilize to always have new clients coming in. But it costs 5x more to sell to a new client than to keep an existing one. Set up systematic follow-ups, develop a loyalty program, and have scheduled touches with your current clients. Providing exceptional service will naturally allow you to grow your business by word of mouth. Business training on marketing will show you how to calculate your customer acquisition costs.
Growth Tip | Customer Retention
Increasing customer retention rates by just 5% can have a significant impact on your bottom line. Take some time to learn how to automate your follow-ups and implement client retention strategies to increase repeat business.
Operations Training
There are so many small business owners out there who walk into work not knowing what to do. Don’t rely on memory for your daily tasks. When you sit down with your team, create documented processes for each task. These processes are often called standard operating procedures, or SOPs. Whether you’re processing a new client, paying weekly payroll, or ordering inventory. If there is a task that you do repeatedly, there should be a written procedure that your team can reference. Learn how to use modern productivity and project management tools to keep your team on task. When your operations are tweaked and running smoothly, you will never have to walk into work wondering “what should I do today?”.
Customer service training
How your staff treats your customers will define your local reputation. Did you know that most customers will share bad experiences 9 times more than positive ones? Startup business education should always highlight the importance of managing your online reviews. Set up notifications so you are alerted anytime someone leaves a review for your company. Quickly respond to both positive and negative reviews, and take the opportunity to make unhappy clients happy.
When you have consistent communication with your clients, they will feel secure. Large corporations can try to compete with you by offering lower prices — there’s no way for them to beat your personalized customer experience. Customer service training can help your team improve interactions with clients who leave negative reviews.
Technology and Automation Training
Technology is here to stay, and if you plan on growing, you need to adapt. One of the best small business growth strategies is implementing new technology. Automating tedious manual tasks is essential to scaling your business. Customer relationship management software is a great way to track all client information in one place.
From tracking sales pipelines to personalized communication, CRM databases have become necessary in business. Pairing CRM software with smart automation will eliminate tons of human error and free up hours. Connect all of your business software, so you have a window into the health of your company.
Continued Education
Just because your company has stabilized, doesn’t mean you should stop learning. Continue to learn about new business operations by reading books, listening to podcasts, and finding a mentor. Entrepreneurs should always be networking and building relationships with other business owners. Not only will you be able to share knowledge, but you can also find new operational efficiencies by collaborating.
Industry events are another great way to learn about new business operations. Stay up to date on any regulations that might affect your business and learn about new tools that can help you. Hiring a coach is like hiring a business consultant, but on a flexible contract. They can help you identify gaps in your operations that you may have been oblivious to.
Let’s Partner Together
At Havins Business Services, we strive to be your partners in your business journey. From Business Formation to scaling your operations, we are here to help! We specialize in workflow optimization, backend accounting, efficient payroll services, and tax preparation. We offer monthly consulting services that focus solely on helping you build internal capacity. Contact us today to see how we can help you build your dream business.