How To Start Controlling Your Business
Do you set aside time regularly to plan what you want to do in your business? Or do you fly by the seat of your pants waiting to see what the next day, week, month or year will throw at you?
Business planning is ‘the secret’ on how to manage a business successfully. Planning and setting goals is important because it helps your business grow faster and with you in control.
The truth is, if you don’t know where you want to go or how you’re going to get there, you’re much less likely to succeed.
8 Steps To Controlling Your Business
If you look at almost any business that fails, there’s always a reason. The owner didn’t do 
enough research before starting, they got into too much debt to support the business, or they weren’t implementing the plan that they created or weren’t willing to adjust and listen to others.
1. Write Down Your Plan
When you create a plan it’s imperative that you write it down so that you have not only a record, but also a list of steps in chronological order that need to be accomplished to reach the next step. Take that plan and break it down to in manageable periods of days, weeks or months so that you know what you need to do each day to ensure the success of your plan.
FREE Checklist: Business Systems & Automation2. Use Data to Adjust the Plan
Remember that when you write down your plan, it’s based on assumptions. If your forecasting strategies start showing you that your assumptions were incorrect, change what you’re doing on the fly to make more sense with the facts that you’re uncovering by your actions.
3. Open Your Mind and ListenÂ
If others around you are giving ideas and advice, especially if they’ve succeeded in places you haven’t, listen. You don’t have to do exactly what they say but it’s important to realize that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You can take other people’s ideas and make them better if you want to.
4. Track EverythingÂ
In order to make good choices, you need to know what’s working and what’s not working, and why. Also, you need to know how much money you have coming in and going out. You need to know what you make most of your money from and what you spend most of your money on. You need to know how many clicks you got on that sales page and how many of those converted and where they came from.
5. Delegate Strategically
As a business owner, you can’t do everything. You never will or should do everything either. Even if you’re multitalented, you’ll make more money and have a better quality of life if you hire experts to whom you can outsource anything that isn’t your main money-making activity. Having said that, you can outsource that too.
6. Use Tactical Automation
Choose automation and business systems that don’t replace engagement. Use it for routine things like adding people to your email list, sending their product to them, and letting them know you’ll get back to them soon.
7. Focus on Net Profits
One thing people often do is talk about “revenue”. Revenue is important but it’s not as important as net profits. Your net profit is the amount of money remaining after all your operating expenses, interest and taxes have been deducted from your total revenue. You can have millions in total revenue and your profit might only be a few thousand dollars once everything is deducted.
8. Follow The Plan
When you create a plan, make sure you follow your plan. This is how to manage a business successfully. Open your calendar and do or assign someone else to do what’s on your list. When you make adjustments, make a note of it so you know when and why you did it. It’ll be very important later to account for the changes.
Free Checklist: How To Improve Business Efficiency
If you’ve been doing everything yourself, you’ll quickly find that this is a limiting factor in the growth of your business. It starts to feel like your business is controlling you more than you controlling your business. Putting systems in place makes things quicker, and it makes it easier to outsource, giving you more time to focus on growth and new ideas. You must work smarter and not harder to improve business efficiency.
To learn more on how to manage business growth download my free checklist, A Guide To Business Systems And Automation.
