Posted At: Jun 03, 2023 - 734 Views
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Starting a business is easy, keeping it going is difficult. No one feel happy about starting a business and not being able to keep it going that's why it's important to understand business management.
In a nutshell, Business management (Small or Big) is the process of managing the overall functions of a business. It's about understanding and managing business activities to improve business growth and revenue.
I will like to believe that the person reading this, is a business owner an aspiring/intending business owner, so based on my assumptions, Here are a few tips for developing an overall business management skill set.
Focus on Decision-Making
Decision making makes up a-lot on leadership. Strategic decision-making is the essence of effective business management. To make sound decisions, it's important to weight the significant risks and advantages of every decision. Certain decision might require you to carry out market research to find better alternatives, analyse data, and consider the consequences to make informed decisions.
The good news is no one is 100% (one hundred percent) perfect in decision making, and young entrepreneurs starting a new business, the likelihood of making the wrong decision is on the high side, so don't beat yourself when you make mistakes, in-fact I highly recommend making mistakes on your first try than getting it right.
Delegate.(The power of Division of Labour)
You know there is this magic that comes with division of labour ? Yes! there is, and i will explain. “Remember the tower of babel ? it won't have been possible without division of labour. or why do you think the Almighty God had to confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
Many entrepreneurs think they can handle growth by themselves, but that's a mistake says Emma Wimhurst, author of "Boom: Seven Disciplines to Control, Grow and Add Impact to Your Business"
“Force yourself to delegate, invest in quality people you can trust and put stringent reporting in place so you’ve always got a finger on the pulse,” she says. I personally recommend hiring based on attitude rather than skills (almost any skill can be learnt) and then making sure that your employees all know the values of the company.
Seek Mentorship
First and foremost, to be a great leader you must first be a good follower. With that being said, just before you run off to starting your own business, it's a good practice to first get a job, not in a big company now, but in a small company where you've access to the owner/manager/CEO as the case may be. This practice will help you learn a bit from where you work on how to manage your own business. Here, it will be to the CEO/MD/Manager easy with freedom to ask questions.
Business management is a challenging concept; it requires certain qualities and skills. One of the best ways to learn business management skills is to seek mentorship from business leaders. Learn from their previous instances and the knowledge that they impart.
Photo by Markus Winkler
Even after starting your own business, its still advices to have a mentor or someone your can always talk to. Your previous boss at your former work place before starting your own business can still be your mentor.
Analyse and Plan your business growth.
Study your business, to know factors causing any sudden change in the business, wether positive or negative. For entrepreneurs It's important to know whether your business' growth is because of actions or external factors, sometimes growth can hide potential problems as well; for instance, you may currently lack competitors, and have an inferior product that is benefiting from a great sales team or you may be relying too much on a single for this kind of circumstances, the effect of any slight disruption in the system or market will be catastrophic to be business exposing the business to treats
Planing and sticking to your business growth plan, gives your total control of your business expansion, because now you know why, how and the reason behind everything thats working within and around your business. Setting up your business growth plan, your formal document (Business plan) should include details like market research, capitalisation and staffing issues, your goals should be clear. The plan should also contain a contingency in case things don't go as expected. “You also need to know when to cut your losses and move on,”
As with a neglected child, you ignore the growth of your business at your peril.
I will love to keep writing about small business management, however i don't to make this post lengthy and boring. I will be continue this in my next post about business and business management
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