How to successfully build your small business
We’d hazard a guess that almost all people start a business not only to make money, but through a passion for what they do and a desire to have a better work/life balance. The likelihood is, though, we probably don’t love all parts of a business that help it succeed, such as finance, operations or paperwork. So how do you help your business grow when much of your time is taken up by those less exciting parts? We look at a few areas that are key to get right when working to build your small business.
Running an SME can be tough and there’s a lot of risk that goes along with building your own business, but putting your destiny into your own hands makes the challenge worthwhile. A large problem when you start out is the risk of neglecting your original idea; getting tied up with other admin, finance and operations. A Control Room Finance part time Financial Controller can take this pressure off you so you can focus on the bits you love.
Every business, and their problems are different. There’s no set playbook that anyone can use, your business is unique and we make it our business to know yours. Here are five things that we look out for when advising.
Decision making is key!
The only bad decision is making no decision at all. In order to progress, decisions need to be made – sometimes they will be right, sometimes they will be wrong, but indecision is often the worst of both worlds. If you don’t move forward decisively you can’t learn, and often the window of opportunity is gone. Our Financial Controllers can pull together a holistic view of your business – whether it be from sales strategy to people; culture to processes – to empower you to make the decisions that need to be made and give perspective on tough choices that we all need to make from time to time.
Regular health checks
As we discussed in how a financial controller can help improve the health of your SME, it’s easy to get stuck into your work and park a financial review to a time when it’s needed. We believe it’s necessary that you keep your finger on the pulse with key metrics that enable you to plan for your different stages of growth.
A business plan for investment and growth
At Control Room Finance we can provide advice to companies seeking investment, and if a business has already started their investment journey, we will use our uniquely-skilled team to help you put together a business plan and financial model to make sure that the story is watertight.
We enable founders to step back and view the business as a whole, to help identify any disconnects, then work to join the pieces to produce a formal business plan. Doing this work upfront saves a huge amount of time as potential suitors start to come forward.
Stay focused on your customer
It’s easy to get sidetracked with new products, new ideas and new ways of working...but don’t lose sight of the existing paying customer base. Even if your business is pivoting there is a customer base there, paying for a service or product that is enabling you to make decisions for the future, keeping them satisfied is often easier than acquiring new ones.
Do you really need to build your business?
Although growth and development are buzz words when talking about small businesses, not every business leader wants to grow into a multi-billion pound empire – many are happy to keep maintaining a steady income. If this is you, businesses need to develop internally so they don’t fall by the wayside. It’s essential to evolve and learn so the market and customers don’t move on without you knowing, and this is where Control Room Finance can help. We provide support to help make something good, better – for example by helping you find ways to work more efficiently.
There is no one size fits all solution to successfully building a small business, or any right or wrong decision, but we will work with you to find the right choices for you.