Business owners face a mountain of challenges daily, ensuring that you have the right having business insurance is critical. At Eisenhauer Insurance, we understand small business, when Bob Eisenhauer founded our insurance company in 1980, he was the only staff member. However, hard work, determination, insurance knowledge and great customer service turned his small business into one of the largest single-office brokerages in Nova Scotia. Today Eisenhauer Insurance is proud to employ 20 skilled and intelligent insurance specialists in addition to the office staff.
According to Small Business Trends Magazine, the three biggest challenges that small business owners face is finance or cash flow, people, and time. This is illustrated in Bob’s own story. When it comes to finance, many small businesses run without adequate planning or oversight. While they monitor bank balances, accounts receivables, and expenses - most don’t have a basic financial forecasting and reporting/monitoring structure in place. If your business needs some help in the financial area, here is a best practices checklist to consider:
Get help to create a basic financial reporting structure with your choice of accounting software.
Document financial reporting guidelines to assure timely reporting and item entries that you, and your employees will follow.
Create a forecast of all important financial data, such as revenues, accounts receivable, and key expense types - Commit to a regular schedule to review the reports, comparing your results to forecasts and previous time periods.
Investigate short-term financial options such as a line of credit, credit card, silent investors, or other personal funds.
When it comes to people, every person is critical to the operation and one poor performer can have major negative impacts or sudden resignation by a key contributor can slow production of goods or services. If people is the area your business needs help with, here are a few ideas to consider:
Set aside a few hours regularly to carefully consider the performance of your current team members.
Determine those who are critical to your success and what you can do to motivate and retain them, then do so.
Determine those who are not performing successfully and what action you will take to address this, then do so.
Finally, it’s true we never have enough time, no matter how many hours a week you work. If you’re working more hours than you want and not feeling like you’re making progress, then consider these suggestions:
Write down your daily action items for a day or two, then review them and determine those that could be eliminated, and delegated. Then eliminate and delegate appropriately.
Establish more organizational structure in your daily activities, such as a daily “to do” list and time scheduling for key activities on your calendar.
Make a commitment to yourself to reasonable work hours and hold yourself to them, which will cause you to avoid low-value work.
You should never pass up an opportunity to improve your business and your work/life balance. Let Eisenhauer Insurance help with your business insurance need whether you’re a small manufacturer or a web development firm, or even a home-based business. At Eisenhauer Insurance, we understand that you want the most affordable and convenient coverage available that offers all the protection you’re business needs. To learn more about small business insurance, contact Eisenhauer Insurance by phone at 902-454-5888, toll free at 1-800-303-9684, or by text at 902-700-6262 today