Can You Take Leave?
This is not a legal question or one of human resources, but aimed at you the business owner. When last did you take a considerable chunk of leave to relax and refocus and not put your cash flow of business in jeopardy?
Have a business model that allows for the owner to take time off is not something that just happens, it takes focus and effort to build a business that does not rely 100% on the owner’s time contribution or effort. Let’s unpack some of the issues that small business owners face:
1 Selling Time – The business owner sells their time as the primary source of income. This will always restrict the time the business owner can take off. Any time away from work reduces income. It is important to develop passive income streams from other staff, products or services.
2 Undocumented processes – No one else knows what to do, as all the processes reside in the head of the business owner. This results in errors of work done or just nothing been done when the owner is away. It is important to document procedures or at least train others to do certain tasks and processes up to a reliable level to ensure that the cogs of the business continue to turn whilst you are away.
3 Unreliable staff – Staff who are unable to do the job always become a liability to the business and require high maintenance from the owner or managers. Sourcing good competent staff is key to developing a business that can run without you at the helm all the time. This goes back to proper recruiting, training and management of staff at all levels.
4 Unproven business model – a business model that is not mapped out or is just made up as things go along, will always require a 100% effort to maintain any form of direction or stability. A business model with various forms of income streams, support structure, processes and reliable backups is key to growing a business to a point that when the owner is not present, things continue to function and the income continues.
Developing a sustainable model is key to not only growth but allowing you to have a holiday and still return to a functional business with cash in the bank. Our Productivity model can assist you with this is you are struggling to find focus and the idea of a holiday this year seem just a distant myth in your plans.
Small Business Web Assessment Tool
Having a website for your business has to be one of the best ways to attract new customers that you do not yet know. It has also become an important tool to validate your claims and product offerings as well as give potential customers access to your contact information and product details. More important is the conversations around your brand on social media platforms that support your claims. All these need to be set up and managed by your business. But how well does yours perform?
We use a number of different leading-edge website assessment tools, together with our experience, that not only assesses your current layout and design of your site but the ability to be used as a marketing tool to attract new customers and grow your business. Using this tool together with a number of other assessment techniques, we are able to give your website a full examination and under-the-hood assessment giving you a comprehensive report on how your score and what to do about any shortfalls.
We are giving away 20 free assessments this week to celebrate our 20 years of democracy in South Africa. If you would like to be one of the lucky 20 to get this free assessment report worth R350, then email us here with your domain name and a contact number and we will email you a full report.
Creating an Entrepreneurial Mindset for your Employees.
Creating an Entrepreneurial Mindset for your Employees
It is not every business that is able or willing to ask their employees to find faults with their work environment. But the Vineyard is encouraging all their employees to look for areas of frustration , anger and fear amongst their staff and guests and then do something about it. We together with Teen Entrepreneur have been busy running a series of workshops for the Vineyard staff this month on how to “Turn Pain into Gain” through an Entrepreneurial Mindset.
Session of up to 25 staff have work shopped areas of frustration in the hotel and then worked through these to a viable solution that can be presented back to management with a feasible solution. The response has been very positive with some great ideas already resented back to managers and in the process of implementation. Staff have also been empowered to take any issue forward together with a viable solution to management using the new defined processes and forms. A recognition process for staff for implemented solutions is also being looked at.
What a privilege it has been to work with such a forward looking and proactive company. We are looking for ways to roll this type of workshop into other hospitality businesses as well as into other sectors. If you are interested in learning more about this process and how it could benefit your business, then please contact us here.
Welcome aboard Chevon.
Chevon Cupido joins the team as a Strategic Assistant. She will be working alongside myself in supporting our clients and helping to generate modules, tools and workshop materials. She is based at our offices in the Upper East Side Hotel, Woodstock. If you want to get more info from us, then please contact Chevon direct on admin@ei.co.za
Great to have you aboard Chevon, trust your time with us will be productive and interesting.