What is the next level for you in your business or with your ideas? In this blog I want to share some operating techniques you can use to grow your business. Does the next level for you mean, you have to start your idea, or expand your business, take your products to the global market, add new products, engage new partners etc? Whichever your next step would be, it is important to design some simple frameworks that would help you run your business even in your absence. Here is why setting up a framework is important.
5 reasons why a solid setup can help you grow your business
- Your setup is expandable. If you already create a system around what you do, it is easier to expand and scale what you do based on a system that is proven to work.
- As you set up, you begin to see loopholes in your idea or working process. It is easier to fix these loopholes. You can systematically generate information to evaluate and reshape aspects of your business.
- A framework would give you ownership of your idea and set you aside from others in the same space. You become even more responsible and accountable. Check our blog on accountability for more.
- With a functional setup or system that you have applied, you can build a track record of accomplishments that gives you authority in your industry sector.
- Let your business operate in your absence – freedom.
There are so many of such frameworks to allow you setup your business, but let’s take a look at just these few – Legal setup, financial setup, bookkeeping setup and operational setup
Legal setup to grow your business
Depending on what you are doing or what your ideas are, identify areas that you think need proper setup. It is important to structure your business legally within the jurisdiction of your geographical region. It could be as simple as registering a business name. Here is our 3 part blog about legal setup – how to start a business in Nigeria part 1, part 2 and part 3.
Financial setup gives credibility
I will go straight to the point here. Start by opening a separate bank account for your business or ideas. A current account at a bank of your choice is the best option to start with if you want to truly grow your business. Most banks would require some kind of legal setup to register and offer you a current account. Now the rule is that, never, I say never use this account or the Credit/Debit card to withdraw or pay for anything private. At the end of every month, you will see the incoming and outgoing expenditures from your bank statement.
If you require any kind of grant, loan, funds or investment from a third party like a bank, investors, organisation and such, be rest assured they might want to see your business bank statement. Imagine they see you paid for hair extensions from the business account, except if the extensions was for a photoshoot for your brand or such, if not, it only shows how irresponsible you will handle their money. This little secret is how they check your credibility too. So to grow your business, be responsible with your finances.
Bookkeeping, record keeping to grow your business
This is very important. Bookkeeping as the name goes, explains it all. Keep records of what you spend. For example, not all incoming cash or payments and expenditures will be done via bank. Some will be done by cash or on credit. Bookkeeping means you will have a system to record this daily. The easiest is if you buy a notebook and you use it. Also, it is important you think about the business operations in our absence.
For example, you have to travel and so therefore withdraw a certain amount you now know is needed in a week to run the business. You give your manager this amount. If you have a recording system, teach the manager and let the manager keep records of how they spend the money you leave with them. This is basic bookkeeping. To grow your business in the future, you might employ someone with a more robust knowledge and structure for this if it becomes tedious.
Operational setup
If you run a business that demands you sustain a certain routine, like open up at a specific time, get the products ready at a specific time and then round up at a specific time, you might want to observe this routine for a week and write out every activity you do. Then find out which is consistent. Find out what you use often. If for example you notice you use a delivery service often, you buy packaging often, you need specific raw materials, or you have to clean often, write out all these processes chronologically and hang them on the wall. Also create an SOS contact list for the key contacts that would help you achieve this process like the delivery guy, the cleaner, the packing company contact person etc. This SOS contact is necessary if you will expand or grow your business.
Other employees would need to know who to contact and when to contact them. For Example, indicate, “contact delivery guy every monday to remind them about pick up on wednesday”. “Or contact a packaging company when we have just 50 packaging left” depending on how long they need to deliver and how much packaging you use daily. Note that it is more efficient to have them deliver things to you rather than you shopping weekly through the market. If it is inevitable and you must visit the market, remember to factor the time invested in traffic and purchase into the price of your products.
Service providers also have to set up
This principle will apply even to service providers. Find out the repetitive work or activity you do every week and set a framework around it. For example, we release a blog every monday and a video. So we know automatically that the blog has to be ready the friday before and on mondays we would promote the blog and video. We have created a template for writing our blogs. We have created a template for promoting the videos. These templates are cloud based and can be accessed by any team member. I recommend using simple free cloud based tools like google drive and workspace. So service or intangible product businesses have a whole lot of frameworks to create that can make work seamless.
There are many more areas to create a framework, but those explained briefly above are very important aspects. This was a very technical blog on setting up frameworks and routines to grow your business. Stay with us as we release more implementation tools for you. Subscribe not to miss out and hey, we are launching our mobile app soon to build a tribe of social entrepreneurs beyond borders. Want to be in our network, pre-register now. Thank you for reading to the end and share with anyone who you believe will need the information, it might be your manager.
Cheers,
Joana
