Introduction

Becoming an entrepreneur is a lifelong commitment to oneself. To become an entrepreneur, one must face challenges, struggles, and sacrifices. Selling products is only one part of owning a business; managing people is another. The initial stage of business requires managing activities like accounts and marketing.

Small business management is one of the most challenging tasks for every entrepreneur. Business management also involves taking care of your employees, inventory/products, and customers. Besides, you have a solid plan for business expansion in the next 5 years. 

You have a vision of where your company goes in the upcoming years.

In this article, we will cover all the aspects of managing a small business. It will also discuss the required skills and tools for small business management. Let’s get started!

What  Small Business Management 101 Means?

A type of business in which the number of employees is not more than 500 is a small business. Small business management includes supply, finance, managing employees, etc.

Unlike large businesses, small businesses do not have dedicated departments for management. In small businesses, the business manager makes decisions such as hiring people.

Examples of small businesses:

• Offline or online retail stores

• Street food businesses

• Printing businesses

• Baking businesses

• Photography businesses  

Why Is Small Business Management 101 So Important?

Management is very crucial for running a small business. So, l write some important reasons why management is important for small businesses. Let’s start!

For Improvement of Employee Productivity and Performance

In a large business, a manager sets a specific goal or task for an employee. Hence, he need not approach the manager again and again for work. But, in a small business, the owner or manager interacts with his employees to find out how things are going.

Everything a small business owner says impacts employee productivity or performance.

An employee is the Foundation of Company’s Growth

It is important to keep your good employees for a long time if you want your company’s foundation to be strong. In many businesses, a good employee of a company makes up the first manager of that company.

Employees are important for a company’s growth. They also handle tasks like product development and taking forward the company’s vision.

Positive Cash Flow

As per recent small business statistics, choosing the right employees is challenging. And if you want to maintain a positive cash flow then you need to solve both problems. 

What Are The Most Essential Skills for Running a Small Business 101?

Business owners must have these essential skills to grow a small business. So let’s look at them!

Good Communication Skills

Good communication skills are important for running a successful business. They help build good relationships between manager employees, and customers.

You must have transparency and make yourself available to the employees. And help them to solve the problem.

Strategic Management

As per the article Strategies and Strategic Management in Small Business:

• It is important to have a strategy or course of action to carry out a small business.

•  It helps in responding to “complex and dynamic environmental forces.”

Data Analysis for taking Decision

Research and manage all the information and data you need for data analysis.

Take the decision of these questions on the basis of research and data. Such as

What will be next month’s strategy? What position should hire the next employee? Why were your profits down? How to grab new customers?

Time Management Skills

Completing your task on time also improves the chances of getting results on time. You need to set a clear-cut goal for your company. Also, set daily, weekly and monthly tasks for employees or you. Focus and delegate tasks between your team.

Leadership Skills

A leader helps to lead, organize and motivate their team members. A good leader also works hard with their team members. So, managers must have leadership skills for getting the best result.

Tips For Managing a Small Business 101

Now I would like to give some tips and tricks for managing a small business. The below tips can help to boost your business career.

Develop Better Relationships and Trust with your Employees

According to statistics, 70% of managers are not able to communicate with their team.

A manager must have great communication skills to build relationships and trust. He should be able to give necessary feedback to his employees to improve the quality of work.

Creating an honest and open culture in the office helps to empower or inspire your employees. They can share their ideas to grow your business. Building relationships and trust are very important for retaining your employees. Make yourself available to your employees as much as possible. Connect yourself and your team members through instant-messaging tools.

Build a Strong Hiring Plan

You need to hire the right employee to grow the business. You need to build a robust hiring process to get the right employees.

The employee should have adequate knowledge of your industry. He also knows other things like related equipment communication skills time-management skills

Moreover, the employee should be honest, hardworking, and a learner.

Use Tools to Save Time

Starting a new business means spending on various things like

OfficeFurniture, Employees, Products, Packaging, Manufacturing, Logistics

But don’t forget to buy useful tools that help you save time and money. These tools are also helpful in growing your business online. There are a lot of tools available in the market which provide similar services. Do proper research (avoid high-budget equipment) before buying equipment.

Focus on your Daily Work

When we rank our daily, weekly, or monthly projects, it will help in achieving better results. Some business owners or managers use the Eisenhower matrix to focus their tasks. With this matrix, you can figure out which tasks are most important and which are not.

Small businesses must first complete urgent projects to grow.

Identify Your Customer Base

You must mention your potential customer base in your business plan. Knowing your buyer increases your sales and reduces the marketing expenses.

Don’t Forget about Compliance and Security

Security is a very important concern for every small and large business. you need to manage all the important things. Avoid free stuff or tools. You need to store different information like customer data,  phone records, etc.

Learn Small Business Management 101 from Courses or Books

Consistent learning can help to achieve success or in other words “learning is the key to success”. There are various courses and books where you can learn small business management. Companies train their managers to enhance their managerial skills. Yet, there are plenty of books out there for learning how to manage a small business. So, I would like to give both the syllabus and books in the below points.

We will discuss some books. Management skills are one of the most important skills for running any business. You can learn some management skills from reading some books. It is important to develop your management skills by reading management books. Some books are:

• Traction – Get Grip On Your Business

• The Lean Startup

• An E-Myth Revisited

• Blitzscaling

• A Hard Thing About Hard Thing

Many companies offer dedicated courses for small business owners to manage their businesses. Through these courses, you will get many management skills at a very affordable cost. You can get these courses for free or sometimes pay on google. These are some courses :

• Fundamentals of Project Planning and Management

• Foundation of Project Management

• Foundation of User Experience Design

• Introduction To Finance and Accounting

• Small Business Marketing Using YouTube

Most Essential Tools For Managing a Small Business

Now it is a fact that without using technology you cannot grow your business globally. Being a technology-driven company is essential for every business. Choosing the best tool for managing your business is very important. Give thought to Investing in tools and technology if you haven’t. You will get enough ROI by using the tool. Technology helps your business become more reliable by optimizing your workforce.

There are a lot of benefits to using technology. Below are some of them:

• You can Incentivize meaningful conversations.

• Create a network to exchange your ideas.

• Managing workflow to increase productivity.

• Automate marketing.

• Easier accounting.Better operation management.

Thus, we will discuss the most essential tools for managing a small business.

For Team Communication

Communicating with them is very helpful to achieve all targets. But personal communication is not possible every time. So Tools like Flocks, Slack. Rock, Gmail, Zoom, Titan can help to communicate and help to stay connected always with your team.

For Project Management

Project management is another very important activity in small businesses. You can use some tools like Asana, Trello, Google Drive, or Dropbox to manage your files and documents.

For Increasing Team Productivity

Productivity is a must to get satisfactory output from your team. There are tools for increasing productivity in a workspace like:

• TimeDoctor and RescueTime: For time management.

• Zapier and Automate.io: To automate your process. 

• Doodle: For scheduling.

For Marketing Automation

Designing and Marketing are important aspects of a business. There are a variety of CRM apps like ZOHO, HubSpot. Tools for email and social media marketing are Buffer, Hootsuite, MailChimp, or CovertKit.

For Accounting

Accounting is very critical and it’s very hard to manage without tools. You can use the following tools for storing data, making payments, invoicing, etc.

• QuickBooks

• FreshBooks 

• PayPal

• Stripe

• Xero

• Wave

• Turbo

• TaxH&R Block

For Operation Management

These tools can help a lot in operations for small business management 101. Operational tasks like Consumer services, Contract Management, Performance Management, Recruitment, Learning, and Development. You can achieve all your targets by implementing tools such as:

• ZendeskHelp

• ScoutDocuSign

• HelloSign

• BambooHR15Five

• LinkedIn

• RecruiterAngelList

• LinkedIn LearningGeneral Assembly 

Hence, these are some lists of tools for small business management 101.

These tools can help to:

• Increase your productivity

• Reduce your expenses

• Multiply your profits

Conclusion

You can’t run any business without management. Management is the backbone of every business. Small business management101 is not easy but also not impossible. In this article, you learned a lot about some hacks of management. You can use different books and courses to improve your business management skills. Some useful courses are also available on educational websites like Coursera and Udemy. Figure out the best course at an affordable price.

You can use the tools in this guide to manage your business processes. So, I would like to conclude this article with the hope that you have learned something from this article. 

Citations

Strategies and Strategic Management in Small Business by Gabriela Lobontiu

https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:3575/FULLTEXT01.pdf

https://chronicle.website/small-business-management-101/