Tag Archives: Corporate Business Solutions

Monitoring Your Staff

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An essential task of running a business and ‘being the boss’ is the monitoring of your staff and how to go about it without making it obvious you are checking upon them.

If done the wrong way, you can engender fear in your staff as they could feel you don’t trust their abilities or work commitment.

If done the right way, employees will not be aware that they are being monitored and will accept monitoring tasks as simple methods of safeguarding staff, protecting resources, or improving productivity.

Employers monitor their employees in several ways; dedicated software is increasingly being used, but more traditional methods are checks of emails and voice messages, recording telephone calls, and the use of CCTV.

Who do you Need to Monitor Your Staff?

Some of the reasons for monitoring staff include:

Cybersecurity

Most IT security breaches happen through employee negligence. By monitoring and restricting employees’ online activity, a business can protect its systems and information from outside attacks.

Data protection

Globally, there has been an increase in hackers gaining access to the personal information of clients and blackmailing the business, requesting money or the information will be released across the internet. Tracking employees’ actions can help ensure that employers become aware of any data breaches as soon as possible and that relevant rules are complied with.

Leaks of confidential information

Monitoring may not prevent a leak, but it can help spot one and gives the business a fighting chance of damage limitation.

Internal rules

Monitoring can help employers ensure that many policies and internal procedures are followed correctly, and any misconduct is detected immediately.

Remote working

With the increase of remote workers, employers need to make sure they are not being taken advantage of. By tracking communications and login details they can confirm that employees are performing their job appropriately.

Boosting productivity

Some data generated from monitoring can be analyzed to help devise strategies that could increase production.

Many of these issues may seem to apply only to large businesses with hundreds of staff and thousands of clients.

However, in an SME with lower staff numbers, the key knowledge within the business is retained by a very small number of the staff. This places even greater emphasis on ensuring that knowledge is not shared where it shouldn’t be, whether accidentally or on purpose.

In a small or medium-sized business, it becomes even more important that staff is aware of the monitoring and the reasons behind it. So, make sure your business has the following:

  • Have policies in place that clearly explain the extent of the monitoring being undertaken, with an explanation of why it is needed
  • Regular check the policies are up to date and have been brought to the employee’s attention
  • Regularly review alternative, less intrusive options for monitoring as part of a risk assessment
  • Develop processes to ensure that the information collected is kept securely, is seen by as few people as necessary, and gets deleted when no longer needed
  • Do not jump to conclusions when the monitoring reveals potential misconduct. Sometimes all that is needed is a reminder of policies or some retraining.

Take care when monitoring employees, infringing their rights could result in claims, fines, and reputational damage that has a lasting effect on the business. Corporate Business Solutions Inc. can help you understand your rights and those of your employees.

What are Your Employees Posting on Their Social Media?

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Have you ever looked at the social media accounts of your employees or those who are applying for a job role with you?

NO doubt you have heard stories from time to time of people posting stories and images on their social media accounts that have affected their jobs.

A couple of stories that quickly come to mind for me include a young lady who worked in an extremely strict religious school and posted photos of herself slightly worse for wear at a party on a cruise ship holiday. On her return to work after the cruise, she was fired.

Another example was a graduate student applying for a job with an adventure tourism company. They checked out his Facebook page and saw a photo of him canoeing down an overflowing city stream during a heavy rainfall without a life jacket or helmet. Personal safety of clients is a No. 1 priority in any adventure tourism business. He did not get the job.

Have a Social Media Policy

Now imagine one of your employees has publicly posted something that would harm your business in some way if enough people realized that person worked for you.

How do you react? How would you learn about it in the first place?

To limit the possibility of anything like this happening, it would be extremely wise to have a social media policy. This can make your staff aware of what they should not be expressed on social media where most of the world can potentially see what was posted.

Here are some topics that you need to make your employees aware of to reduce the risk of this information becoming widespread across the internet to negatively affect your business.

Violating Company Policy

Sharing warnings or personal company information – do not post about staffing decisions, new products, or any private or proprietary information if your company has not shared the information online.

Supplying references/endorsements on LinkedIn – if your policy does not supply references for leaving staff, will you allow your staff to make references on social media for former colleagues?

Negative comments about the job or clients – even with privacy settings in place, anybody can repost these sorts of comments on their account or take a photo or screenshot and repost.

Deceptive posts – taking a sick day from work and posting photos of you at the beach or a sporting event, etc.

Off-color, racist, sexist, or inappropriate comments – this is especially bad if they refer to a co-worker or client, but even if the target is unrelated to the workplace an employer does not want to be associated with someone making these kinds of comments publicly.

Have a Policy on Computer Use

Job Searching or Doing Other Work while at Work – scanning job search sites, preparing your resume and cover letter, or doing work on your side gig on the employer’s time is non-productive from your employer’s perspective and unethical behavior.

Misuse of email – use of the work email for personal communications is rarely appropriate. I know of a young married Director of a stockbroking firm who used his business email address for accessing dating sites and arranging meetings for “coffee” during the workday. He even emailed one of his personal “contacts” several times a day and in their online conversations, he would regularly criticize the other company Directors.

This was a prominent business in a small city, so it would not be difficult for many of his “contacts” to work out who he and his company were and post something embarrassing and damaging to the business. He was the son of one of the business founders and when his emails were discovered, his promising and privileged career ended abruptly.

Any employer is well within their rights to limit or restrict access to various corners of the internet, including social media sites, dating sites, pornography, and personal communications.

Provide Guidelines for Smart Social Media Use

Rather than restricting your social media policy to telling your staff what they can’t do, also provide guidelines so they can see how to use social media without accidentally doing something wrong.

Post smart – before posting, take a moment to think if your content could affect your employer in any way

Keep it confidential – don’t disclose any news about your employer – good or bad – unless you have asked first. Sometimes your employer will want their staff to spread the good news, but not always.

Be intelligent – if you are job searching, use your account and details for all communications

Think Before You Post

This is the best and simplest advice you can give your employees.

Once something is posted online it’s hard, if not impossible, to take it back. Even a deleted Twitter or Facebook post can be preserved through screenshots.

If there is any doubt about what you can, or can’t say, keep it to yourself. Ask yourself whether you need to say that and what you’ll gain from it. The answer is probably not enough to take a chance of losing your job.

Corporate Business Solutions can provide you with advice around preparing appropriate documentation to cover these situations and have many satisfied clients.

College Graduates Must Find the Business and Role that is their Best Match

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Every year a new group of graduates enters the job search market armed with resumes of varying quality and a brand-new shiny certificate saying they have an appropriate qualification to work in your business. Filled with excitement and anticipation of their first ‘real’ job, graduates are tempted to take any job in their career field with any company.

But have they thought about the work environment that best suits their working style? To get the best value out of any new graduate employee, you need to make sure they are aware of how your business and the role being offered are a good match for them. A graduate might see your advertised job as their dream job, based solely on the job title. But if you are a small business, a start-up, or a long-established company with hundreds of staff, their experience will potentially be vastly different.

You need to understand what aspect of their career field they want to specialize in, and what are their long-term career goals. A start-up company might be exciting and mostly employ people in their age group. That could have some advantages for their social life. But will that environment provide the experience to help them grow within their career field and gain greater experience to enable them to get where they want to get in their career?

Can the new graduate be assured the business will still be thriving a year from now? Starting a business during the current pandemic, or any time when the economy is struggling is always going to be challenging.

In a business with many staff, what sort of professional development and mentoring is provided? Will the new graduate feel just like a number, left with little support to grow? Perhaps most staff are much older, and they might struggle to develop workplace relationships. Other factors a graduate need to consider when seeking their first job after graduation include:

  • Where do they want to live?

A business in a bigger city might mean higher living costs. It might mean moving away from family, friends, and partners.

  • What type of industry do they want to work in?

They might want to work in sales, but do they want to sell items like alcohol, tobacco, firearms, etc.? Or does the business have a bad reputation for some reason? Do they want to work for a company that has structured training programs, or would they prefer to learn on the job from more experienced colleagues?

  • Work-life balance.

Are they happy working long hours and weekends, or do they value being able to get to that evening exercise class? Are they working in one location all the time, or do you often have to travel around the country spending many nights away from home? Or will they work from home? How would that affect their personal life?

Are they after the highest pay rate possible to live a luxurious lifestyle or pay off that student debt as quickly as possible? Or are you comfortable making less money knowing they will be doing meaningful work?

If you can uncover the answers to these questions, you will increase the likelihood of finding a new graduate who will stay with your business for the long term.

Viewing the Corporate Business Solutions Reviews you will find help with recruiting new graduates.

Managing Conflict in the Workplace

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Leadership and conflict go together. If you cannot or will not address conflict in a healthy, productive fashion, you should not be in a leadership role. You shouldn’t fear conflict; embrace it – it’s your job.

You can try to avoid conflict (a bad idea), but you cannot escape it. Conflict in the workplace is unavoidable. It will find you whether you look for it (good idea – more later) or not. Being able to recognize conflict, understand its nature, and be able to swiftly resolve the conflict are prime leadership qualities, failure to do this will lead to your downfall.

Good conflict resolution skills will lead to good employee retention. But if you don’t deal effectively with conflict your best talent will leave for a better workplace environment. Failure to deal with conflict can result in loss of productivity, the stifling of creativity, and the creation of barriers to cooperation and collaboration. But good conflict resolution skill sets will build a sustainable business model.

Typically, the two main causes of conflict in the workplace related to poor communication or letting emotions drive decision-making.

The following tips will lead to more effective handling of conflicts in the workplace:

Define Acceptable Behavior – having clearly defined job descriptions for all staff to know what’s expected of them. Make it known what behavior will and won’t be tolerated. Having a published delegation of authority statement, encouraging sound business practices in collaboration, team building, leadership development, and talent management will all help avoid conflicts.

Approach Conflict Head-on – You can’t always prevent conflicts at work, but if you seek out areas of potential conflict and intervene proactively and decisively, you can prevent many conflicts from getting started.

Understanding the WIIFM Factor – understanding the other person’s “What’s In It For Me” position. If you understand their motivation, you can avoid conflicts by helping them achieve their objectives.

The Importance Factor – pick your battles and avoid conflict where possible. If the issue is important enough to create a conflict, then it must be important enough to resolve. Do whatever is necessary to open lines of communication and close any positional and/or philosophical gaps.

View Conflict as Opportunity – the outcome of many conflicts creates great teaching and learning opportunities. View a conflict as an opportunity for growth and development. Differing positions when addressed properly can stimulate innovation and learning whereas two people who are on “the same page”  are less likely to come up with different positions. Smart leaders look for the upside in all differing opinions.

Resolutions can usually be found in conflicts where both parties are seriously seeking a positive outcome. Being prepared to compromise, forgive, show compassion and empathy, find common ground, be an active listener, and place the goals of the business ahead of your pride and reputation will always allow you to be successful in building rapport if the underlying desire is strong enough.

But, if all else fails and positional gaps cannot be closed, resolve the issue not by playing favorites, but by doing the right thing.

Let Corporate Business Solutions be your guide when you are facing conflicts in your workplace.

Causes of Low Employee Retention

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Studies have shown that employers prefer to employ someone who is already in employment over someone unemployed. But this means that another employer is about to lose a member of their staff.

This means that all businesses need to work hard at retaining their best employees. Losing any worker can be disruptive, and the business is then faced with the costs of recruitment and the loss of institutional and customer knowledge.

High employee turnover impacts a business’s profitability and can also affect customer satisfaction, plus it is costly to recruit new staff. Every leaver should be asked to take part in an exit interview so the business can understand the reasons for leaving and find ways to fix addressable problems.

Excessive employee turnover is preventable. Here are the main reasons employees leave.

An employee has no purpose – they work just because it is a job to do. But businesses that have a strong mission have more motivated employees who live the business brand.

Low Pay – it’s been found that workers who change jobs earn on average an extra 5.2%. If your pay rates and benefits are near the top of the scale it makes it more difficult for competitors to lure away your employees. Ensure you apply annual pay increases. Pay rates are the easiest way for employees to gauge how much you value them and their efforts. So, unsurprisingly, underpaying what an employee feels they are worth is the number one reason they move on.

Being overworked – when employees feel they are performing tasks without appropriate resources to be successful, they feel a lack of control and consistently face more daily stress than they can manage. A combination of emotional and physical exhaustion with a sense of hopelessness and self-blame, manifests in behavioral and physical issues, commonly referred to as burnout. Ensure all employees have enough resources to do their job and that their workload can be achieved in the hours they are paid to work.

Bad managers – while some bad managers take credit for the work of others or play favorites, more commonly it is because they are just bad at managing others. Good managers know the ability of their staff and uncover their skills and motivations, capitalizing on them for the good of the business. Bad managers don’t do this and fail to get the best out of their staff or demotivate staff by criticizing perceived underperformance.

Little feedback or recognition – employees who receive positive feedback rarely seek employment elsewhere. The only thing worse than bad feedback is no feedback at all. When employees lack guidance bout their performance or how to develop their skills, they feel they have no direction and no future with the business.

No opportunity for growth and development – if there are few opportunities for promotion, the next best thing is providing career development opportunities to get better at what the employee does or to learn new skills and move into different departments. Without this, the employee can be left to feel as if they will be doing the same daily tasks forever, and that doesn’t encourage them to stay where they are long term

Toxic Work Culture – it has been reported that as many as 25% of US workers dread going to work! Many of the reasons are caused by a combination of the previous issues mentioned but can also include poor relationships with workmates with issues like bullying and harassment raising their heads. When employees feel included, respected, and empowered to do their job without being micromanaged turnover is usually low.

Viewing the Corporate Business Solutions Reviews you will find businesses with good staff retention rates.

Identifying Bullying in the Workplace

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A 2008 poll on workplace bullying found that 75% of workers reported being affected either as the target or as a witness. More disturbing was a 2019 survey of 2081 workers with a staggering 94% claiming to have been bullied at work! More than half said they were bullied by their immediate boss.

Causes of bullying were reported to be aggressive emails (23%), co-workers negative gossip (20%), and someone yelling at them (18%).

Just because getting bullied seems to now be the norm does not make it right. There are plenty of businesses that respect their employees and have zero tolerance for bullying and other forms of harassment.

When management gets to hear of bullying claims, you can usually expect the claimant has been putting up with a negative environment for quite some time before taking this problem to the management level. Therefore, any bullying claims should be treated seriously and be fully investigated.

A workplace bully who management support by ignoring their behavior can cost a business thousands of dollars due to high staff turnover. Be aware that the bully is unlikely to admit there is anything wrong with their behavior and is even less likely to display it in front of management.

Here are six signs that bullying is occurring in your workplace.

Temper tantrums – shouting, name-calling, and other types of verbal abuse, undermining comments about co-workers, blaming others for mistakes but quick to take credit for any successes. When you observe the suspected bully do they interrupt the target, belittle them, make inappropriate comments or spread rumors and negative gossip?

Subtle signs of bullying – the bully may seem fine in your presence but behave in a much more sinister way to the target in private. Watch for unreasonable demands, sabotaging a subordinate, constant questioning, and generally making life more difficult than for others.

Observe the behavior of the suspected victim – it may be easier to identify bullying from the change in behavior of the targeted victim. Are there sudden changes in their behavior? An employee who becomes increasingly withdrawn has increasing error rates or suffers stress-related illnesses and absences from work are displaying signs of being bullied.

Is an individual being isolated or left out of important communications? –  If a particular individual never copies a co-worker into emails or invites them to important meetings, there could be a problem. Other obvious signs include refusing to speak to the target and forgetting to return their messages.

Investigate any allegations of bullying immediately – sometimes you may not be aware that bullying is taking place until you are specifically informed. Remain neutral, ask the victim for physical evidence like emails and ask both for witnesses to any incidents.

Examine your organizational culture – competitive workplaces tend to ridicule underperformers and this kind of behavior can become normalized. Top management also has a direct influence on bullying. Are bullies being rewarded with promotions that encourage them to continue with their behavior, perhaps even taking it to greater extremes? If one bully has been allowed to operate for some time, others will likely copy their behavior.

For Corporate Business Solutions for issues like these, check out http://www.cbs-cbs.com/services/.

Identifying and Handling Difficult Employees

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While hiring procedures and employee standards of conduct should be of utmost importance in starting your business, no process is perfect. Employees who know the right words to say but act against company values can still slip through the cracks.

This doesn’t mean that they are hopeless, but you as the business owner need to know how to identify problems in the workplace before they become disastrous and figure out how to best discuss this with otherwise productive employees. This guide will help you to identify and solve problems with employees that might be dragging your production down.

Over-Confidence

Confident, independent employees that are also good team players are an invaluable addition to your firm. The problem arises when the confidence comes without humility where even high-performing members believe that they can do no wrong.

These crew members can be especially difficult when they can keep other employees quiet due to their high performance, but that makes it especially important to address the issue. As the business owner, you need to remain calm while discussing the problem.

These individuals can turn into great leaders if they have the intelligence and maturity to realize how they are affecting your firm and what they can do to improve.

Refusal of Responsibility

If a team member constantly has a non-personal reason for every point you mention in a performance review, that is an issue. Responsible team members will admit to their mistakes but be aware and confident enough to admit when something is out of their control.

While these employees can be irritating it is important to hear their side of the story, conveying patience and diligence. Sometimes those who are constantly complaining might feel unseen or unheard. Certain employees might have complaints that are unfounded or unreasonable, but that doesn’t mean that all are to be dismissed.

Workers who cannot provide a reason for their gripes might not be mature enough for your workforce, but others might have insight into how things could do be run better or how your team could get more operational support. Don’t just write them off as a complainer, but their attitudes should be tempered if it’s detrimental to morale.

Lack of Communication

Some businesses require constant socialization, especially in a high-volume or high-stress environment. Workers that are not suited to this kind of work should be identified and ruled out in the hiring process, but it is not always so simple.

Employees who suddenly go dark or stop offering reports despite a good history should be met with. An individual’s work-life balance could be disrupted and that needs to be discussed. Some employees are hesitant to speak about family or financial difficulties to separate the office from home.

While this is an admirable attitude, it can be damaging to both the worker and the company. Sudden changes in work ethic are often the result of emotional difficulties, and employers should always check in with their workers.

Giving an overworked or overstressed employee time off or a lighter workload can improve team cohesion and employee retention as they know you care for their overall well-being. Letting your workers know that you see them as more than a non-feeling resource is never a bad decision.

Personal difficulties with workers often stem from temporary hardships or inner issues that they’ve never had to address. As the business owner, you can be the one who can turn those perceived flaws into advantages for both parties. Always discuss potential issues with your employees before you move to immediate criticism.

No matter how you want to improve your workforce, Corporate Business Solutions can help arrange the best scenario for both your business and your employees.

How to Hire for Remote Positions

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Hiring is always a tricky topic for even the most experienced corporations and hiring departments but trying to put together a team that will usually work from outside of the office can introduce an entirely different set of issues. 

Luckily, the evolving work environment has allowed hiring managers to adapt alongside employment trends, so firms can save on office space by hiring remotely and ensuring that their workers are dependable and efficient. 

Avoid Unnecessary Applicants 

Subjecting both your staff and potential hires to rounds and rounds of virtual interviews can prove to be a very inefficient process. Making sure that your job posting provides all requirements and responsibilities but also avoids any sort of filler content can save both parties a great deal of time. 

Remove any irrelevant content about local lifestyle as you may be hiring internationally for a remote department. Tend towards bullet points and clear lists so that every applicant can be clear on what will be required of them and determine whether they can meet the challenge.

 Use Open-Ended Questions 

Learning how an applicant thinks is always an important part of the hiring process, but this can be far more useful when you don’t have a chance to meet him or her face to face. Preparing a template for your hiring managers ensures quality control of the hiring process, but it also helps to make sure you are learning the right things about your potential hires. 

Asking people how they would deal with a disastrous meeting or resolving conflicts in the workplace is far more important than making sure that they have a certain amount of experience with a given network system or coding language. Knowledge can be taught, but wisdom and experience cannot. 

Plan Interviews in Bulk

 While it can be daunting, planning a few days of back-to-back interviews can be the most efficient approach. Most remote positions will attract plenty of applicants due to the lack of travel for interviews and widespread internet access. 

This frequent contact with hiring candidates will make comparisons easier and you can meet with your team to trade notes at the end of each interview block. Without rigorous notetaking, it can be difficult to remember faces or voices over virtual or phone interviews. 

If you and your hiring personnel can handle to high-volume, planning blocks of interviews can be good to ensure that you never forget a candidate that stands out amongst all the others, so good workers don’t get lost in the shuffle. 

Give Them a Tour 

Just because an employee is working remotely doesn’t mean that they’re not a part of the team. Taking a candidate on a tour of your office space over some sort of visual-telecommunications app can give them an idea of your work philosophy and make them feel a more personal connection with you and other employees.

 This can also give applicants a sense of your firm’s capabilities, who they can report various things to, and introduce themselves to fellow workers. Small touches can make workers feel valued and close to one another, even if they are on other continents!

 Hiring is never an easy process. The birth of remote work has come with its benefits and drawbacks. Entrepreneurs can now save on real estate, but they must be even more diligent when filling remote positions.

 Planning job postings to be direct and clear can help cut down on obviously unqualified applicants. Designing interview questions to gauge workers’ personalities and values over binary knowledge can help make up for the lack of physical contact. 

Planning interviews in a compact time frame can make remembering exceptional candidates easier. Finally, giving a virtual tour of your office helps to increase a sense of camaraderie and ensures potential hires that your firm is very much a team despite physical distance. 

No matter what advice you may need in your hiring process, CBS-CBS.com can help you in all aspects in finding the best employee to serve your company!

 

 

 

 

 

Qualities of a Great Employee

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Identifying high-value job candidates and employees is a crucial aspect of any business. If you are a wise entrepreneur, then you will have put considerable care into your hiring protocols and hold frequent performance reviews along with clear guidelines.  

This guide can help you and your hiring managers better identify the intangible aspects of individuals that can be a great resource to your firm. 

Appreciate Ambition

 While it may not always show up in his or her work metrics, look for employees and candidates that demonstrate a growth mindset. People with this worldview are looking to constantly improve themselves, be it in or out of the workplace.

 Appreciate those who talk about their hobbies and passions with a desire to learn and improve, as this almost always crosses into their attitude at work.

 An ambitious worker can always be taught, while a capable but unwilling employee can be a drag on both the productivity and morality of all those around them.

 Ambition can also be infectious, as growth-minded workers are usually positive people and can motivate the rest of your firm to improve themselves.

 Search for Cooperative Independence 

Going with ambition, eager workers are often quick to learn their jobs so that they can perform without excessive supervision, but this should not be confused with isolation. Any successful team needs to strike a balance between autonomy and communication with the rest of their department. This will depend largely on an individual’s role within a firm, but the concept remains the same.

Don’t confuse constantly needing assistance with being a good teammate. Good employees should be willing to ask for help when necessary, but they should never want to be a drag on production. A good crew should want to give back as much as they can while learning how to handle their role.

Hire Humility 

Much like maintaining harmony between independence and being a good team member, you need to find the proper balance between ambition and humility. High-performing but arrogant employees can quickly rise to become toxic leaders that poison your business. 

Seek ambition, not arrogance. Positive but ambitious employees grow precisely because they are humble to admit that they aren’t perfect and can always be doing better. Surrounding your employees (and also yourself) with these personalities will always result in good outcomes no matter what your company provides. 

This can be especially difficult as many candidates know the right words to say in an interview but don’t always do the right thing in their actual work. This is partially why the traditional annual performance review is going away in favor of more frequent evaluations.

Curate Confidence 

Humility does not mean meekness. Find employees that are growth-minded but confident in their current abilities. These workers are often innovative, take calculated risks, and don’t require constant assurance and supervision that they are doing their work properly. 

Candidates that are demure or too quick to agree during the interview process might become well-meaning employees, but their constant need for advice or comfort might not work well in your business model. A lack of confidence can even be disastrous in fast-paced, high-stress, or even dangerous work environments. Encourage your workers, but avoid those who need coddling. 

No interview or performance evaluation protocol will ever be perfect, and this is mostly because work culture and employee production can’t always be broken down into concrete numbers. Intangibles can make or break a seemingly stable business model. 

Never forget to pay attention to the social or soft skills of your employees/potential hires. If you’re interviewing a candidate that is unproven technically but demonstrates the previous qualities, then you might have found a diamond in the rough. 

For all other company culture or hiring advice, Corporate Business Solutions Consultants can make sure that your entire staff is happy and productive. 

Top Mistakes Small Business Make

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Entrepreneurs either fail because they lack the methods, systems and controls for their business model, or they lack to ambition to go entirely in on their project.
Sometimes avoiding the wrong decision is just as important as choosing the right path.

Poor Planning

All of the ambition and care in the world is only as good as the plan to implement it. Hall of Fame UCLA basketball coach John Wooden said, “Failing to plan is planning to fail” is certainly on point for entrepreneurs. With the speed of today’s market, it’s more important now than ever that your business model is mapped out and ready to commit to a fast-paced market.

Create a Business Plan That is System-Dependent Rather Than People-Dependent

Most entrepreneurs begin their business because of a skill they have to produce a product or service.  However, it’s not their lack of expertise in creating a product or delivering a service that causes businesses to fail.  Rather, it’s the lack of systems to manage and run the business that becomes the weak link for the business owner.

Does the business have a cash management system that can accurately predict the cash needs of the business 13 weeks into the future so there is time to plan for unexpected shortfalls in cash flow to meet all financial obligations?

Does the business owner have a modern management dashboard which allows him to see all the critical variables and business metrics to make informed decisions based on the numbers rather than simply relying on his gut feel for what he should do?

Being Too Rigid with a Business Model

Flexibility might be just as important as planning out your initial designs for launching your entrepreneurial project. The speed of the business world means not only ensuring that you have a solid vision of what you are trying to accomplish with your small business, but you need to be able to adapt depending on the product or service that you are trying to provide.

This can vary extensively depending on your business model. Maybe your service would be better for your customer by operating outside of a brick-and-mortar setting.

You might want to consider moving your culinary dreams to a food truck instead of a permanent location. Your consulting firm might be better served by going entirely remote. Maybe your employee pool could shrink or grow depending on operational cost and demand for your product/service.

The point is to never get too rigid in your business planning. Always be ready to flow like water around any potential obstacles in your entrepreneurial endeavors.

Sloppy Financial Records

No matter how much you love your business, it can’t get anywhere without proper funding. Either carefully handling your accounting in-house or outsourcing it to a third-party firm can save business owners a mountain of headaches down the road.

This is important for both tax purposes along with making sure that your financial situation is above board when trying to finance or sell your small business.

It can be easy to forget about monetary details while you try to grow your empire, but many entrepreneurs have found themselves in a mess of paperwork after years of neglecting their monetary records.

Failure to Track Customer Behavior

Tracking customer trends is vital to your ability to meet demands no matter your small business’s goal. Buyers are flocking to social media and the digital marketplace no more than ever. There are very few industries that would not benefit from establishing a digital footprint.

Modern society has reached a point where even elderly clients are constantly engaging in e-commerce, so taking to social media is no longer the cutting-edge form of engagement it once was. Stay on top of the customer trends in your industry to make sure that your marketing strategy is never losing ground.

There are just as many ways to plan a successful business as there are to launch a model that is destined to fail. As the business owner, you have the most power over how your ambitions play out. This can be intimidating, but it can also be very empowering.

No matter what aspect of your business you want to improve or what pitfall you want to avoid Corporate Business Solutions is ready to help you at any time!