Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

By Henry Brown
For your small business to succeed you will need to keep a close eye on the way you use valuable resources. The good news is you can read all about the best ways to properly manage them in the post below.

Money
The bottom line of any business is money, specifically profit. However, to make a profit you need to be able to manage all financial aspects of your small business well.

First, when it comes to money management in a small business you will need to have a clear idea of what is coming and going out. This is crucial as if the former is smaller than the latter your profits will struggle.

In addition to your small business’s incoming and outgoing figures, overall, you will have a breakdown of where your company’s money is being spent. Indeed, keeping a close eye on your costs can be very useful not only to avoid issues with fraud but also to make sure you reign in spending when it gets out of control.

Another essential part of managing money in your small business is making sure you keep accurate and up-to-date financial projections for the next quarter, year, and five years. By doing this you will have a better chance of keeping your small business on track financially, as you will be able to compare the real earnings with the projected and so make any adjustments to increase it when they are needed.

Information
In today’s market, information is one of the most critical resources at any small business’s disposal. This is because instead of having to rely on instinct we can use the accurate and detailed data that can be mined from the right software. Indeed, there is a vast range of software that can provide valuable data to small business owners, including the information that can be gained through online analytics which can give you insight into a range of things from who is buying your products, how many people visit your business’s website, and how customers respond to specific touch point in their online journey.

Of course, internet analytics is not the only source of useful data you can use to help you make informed decisions for your business. There are also programs specifically designed for different industries that offer uniquely insightful data. One such program is this field service management software, , which can be used to spot trends, save time, and improve service. Although, that’s not its only functionality as it also makes scheduling field appointments a breeze!

Supplies & resources
In small businesses supplies and resources are one of the resources that is most wasted. Unfortunately, this can end up costing your company a lot of money unnecessarily. Not to mention how bad waste of physical resources, or energy is for the environment. With that in mind, you must have a clear plan to preserve the supplies you use in place.

One effective way of managing the supplies and resources that your business uses, is to reuse whatever is safe to do. For example, some small businesses re-use the offcuts of fabric or paper from their production processes as packaging materials when they send off their products to customers. In this way, they conserve resources twice because not only are the cut-off not wasted, but they won’t have to pay out for new packaging materials either.

Time
Everyone knows the famous business saying that ‘time is money’. Yet so many small business owners forget this when running their own companies. Unfortunately, if you are paying someone to do something in your business, every moment that they use inefficiently costs you unnecessarily!
Of course, you mustn’t get into a micro-managing situation here, as this can severely deplete morale, another resource that we’ll cover below. However, making sure that employees use their time optimally by providing them with workflow processes can be very helpful, especially if they have tasks to do that require several steps.

Additionally, encouraging those that work for you to batch-work their work can help your small business save a considerable amount of time. This is because by batching together tasks that are the same your employee’s focus will not have to be split, and so it should make the task easier and faster.
Lastly, if you want to save the precious resource of time in your business then you will need to have a radical approach to reading and responding to emails. Where possible, turning off email notifications and allowing only two half-hour stretches in the day where emails can be read and replied to will save your business countless hours over the long term. It can also help to help to reduce employee stress, which is something we’ll get into in the next section on morale.

Morale
One of the most crucial resources in any small business is the morale of the people that work there. Morale is all about how people feel about working for your business, how engaged they are with their work, and motivated to get stuff done. Without enough positive morale, your business can suffer as any little obstacle can turn into an immovable mountain.

That is why it’s so important to work hard to encourage positive morale. Happily, there are several tactics you can use to achieve this. One option is to do what you can to reduce stress on your employees, for instance, instead of expecting them to pick up the work of a colleague that’s off ill, get an agency worker or freelancer in to help with the workload.

Secondly, offering your employees flexible hours that better fit their lives and outside responsibilities can work wonders. After all, many people have family and community responsibilities that they value and ensuring that they can meet these without adding more stress can help them stay positive in aspects of their lives including work.

Lastly, you can boost morale in your small business by making sure people are rewarded for their hard work. That means going above and beyond the payment they receive in wages, and giving them additional rewards such as gym memberships, extra paid time off, and even a fun day out for the whole team when they have completed a specific target.
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Henry Brown is an online marketing executive. When he isn’t talking shop, he’s roaming the streets of London, uncovering the extra-ordinary in the ordinary.