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Fathers in Business – systemising your small business

Jeff — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 08:41:29 +0000

Systemise your business spend more time at home doing the real business

In the last article we looked at some tips for fathers in business.

One of the tips was about systemising your business so that you as a business owner can get away and spend more time with your family without the business relying on you at all times. As a Father this is a natural desire. Systemising your business is often seen as a panacea and easy fix. Then reality is though that there are a series of stages that a small business goes through to actually reach this level.

This includes fixing and working on various parts of your business before investing in creating business systems

The problem with most small businesses is that they cannot afford to hire salaried business development experts. Small businesses realise that to get some expertise on board means that they could then grow their businesses effectively which means that they could then afford the expertise to grow their businesses… yes it’s a classic catch 22 situation.

Systemising your small business

The secret is to outsource this type of work to people who can show you the templates and then coach you through the process. Outsourcing someone to assist you implement processes and systems means that in effect you are adding three ‘departments’ onto your business.

1. Your marketing department – Making sure that every obstacle that stands in the way of getting your services / products sold are overcome

2. Your operations department – The sole purpose of this department is to investigate and implement ways of doing your work quicker, cheaper and better.

3. Keeping score department – What you cant measure you cant manage – keeping track of everything from finances, compliances, strategic planning implementation, systems implementation, staff etc etc.

On top of this you have someone holding you to account for accomplishing milestones moving your business towards one that is more profitable and less hands on for you the business owner.

Fathers, we owe it to our families and children to spend as much quality time as possible. If you are not in the luxurious position of working from 9 to 5 and then being able to walk away from work every day then you owe it to yourself and family to put in small business systems and processes so you can start doing this.

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10 Things you should consider before starting a business in New Zealand

Jeff — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 08:42:38 +0000

You can just do it in NZ
1. Do what you like or love to do
2. Is the family on board?
3. Like a bad marriage its not so easy to walk away
4. Working to exhaustion everyday is not good
Its Game OVER – If you run out of cash - SO don’t
1. Be MISERLY on expenses in the very early days
2. Sort finances first – cashflow forecast at a minimum
3. Aim to pay Bills and Tax on time
Nice people everywhere – want you to succeed
1. SO don’t go there alone
2. If you don’t have a track record – its 99% certain that no-one will give you any money
3. Chamber / Biz Office – Brochures, Tax, Business Planning templates
Plan of attack – Fail to Plan - plan to fail
1. Be clear about your own limitations
2. Childcare – Work Space
3. Don’t give up your day job if possible
4. Don’t wait till its perfect – start
Market Research, Market Research, Market Research
1. Can you get some commitment from potential customers
2. Who are your potential customers
3. Network, be nice, alliances, planned word of mouth, co-operate,
Have the end in Mind at all times
1. Ask yourself- What is my ‘Exit Plan’
2. Become intimate with measuring money – Equity, Income, Profit, Cashflow
3. When established talk to a Business Growth expert about using leverage to grow ‘rapidly’
Have a ‘hit by the bus” plan
1. Protect personal assets
2. Risk management
3. Insurances – Property, Life, You
Your new bestest buddies
1. Don’t skimp on experts -accountants, lawyers
2. Mentors, Coaches
3. The Bank
Be a marketing smarty pants
1. Be different from your competitors
2. Look like a pro – fake it till you make it
3. Definition of marketing – removing all obstacles that stand in the way of you and your customers
4. Can you bootstrap it?
Remember this quote – “Don’t be too meek, modest or half hearted about your aspirations – Life is not a dress rehearsal”

Resources

www.boostbusiness.co.nz

www.business.govt.nz

www.ird.govt.nz

www.poriruachamber.co.nz

www.wellingtonbusinesscoaching.info

www.bni.co.nz

Business Ideas

www.springwise.com – Business Trends

http://www.entrepreneur.com/businessideas/index.html – 100s of Business Ideas

Three tips for fathers running businesses in New Zealand

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Three tips for Fathers running your own New Zealand business

Jeff — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 03:24:49 +0000

After years of holding down steady jobs many Fathers take the leap these days to go into business for themselves.

The reasons for this are many, set your own hours, control your destiny, get paid what you’re really worth however it would be fair to say that these days’ fathers also see spending more time with their Children as a major factor in making this decision

Self employment, on the face of it, offers fathers flexibility and time to spend with families and children. Fathers also see self employment as a way of giving them those choices about Housing, Schooling and Lifestyle aspirations.

The reality for many business people is different to this. Long hours, being at the disposal of clients, cash flow problems and the other stresses of running businesses often compete for time and ends up compromising families and relationships.

It takes a strong man to take on board all these issues and then be with their children 100% fully engaged at the end of a 12 hour day with 4 hours of book work once the children have gone to bed. But this is what we as fathers must do. Fully engage our children – that doesn’t mean going over board – but more an attitude of letting your children know that when you are with them you are fully attentive. This includes engaging with them rather than trying to make phone calls or staring at your laptop, answering questions (over and over again) and doing your fair share around home to give mum a hand.

Fathers and Business

To fulfill the important job of fatherhood there are 3 things you should be doing on a continual basis in you business

Automate the business as much as possible – What tasks can be dome automatically without you. Outsource where possible
Systemising roles, jobs, marketing, and operations – as much as you can. Make the business run without you as much as possible. Its never to early (or late) to start doing this now
Take a day off every week. Business problems and issues will wait for you

The real Business is fatherhood. Dads your business whilst important is just a means to an end. Make it enjoyable and as stress free as possible, especially while they are young and think you are pretty cool.

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