Owner of MBK Studio. Stewart Woodruff says spending 60 minutes a day on business can reap rewards

A good definition of a successful business owner is someone who can leave his business for an extended period, whether planned or forced, and for it to continue to prosper without their presence. Can yours? Think about it and what will happen to your business? So you either have decided your business will prosper or falter, so read on or relax. If you are in the falter section, like the majority of small business’s, then how can you prepare for such an eventuality? Well everything is possible if you follow sensible business procedures and I shall be outlining a number over the coming months that have been helpful in the running of my business. They are not fool proof and I am constantly educating myself by listening to the right people and reading the right books. However I have found that one of the most important procedures a business owner can introduce into their business life is to spend a regular period working on their business rather than in the business.

Happy Hour

Most of us spend all our working life working in our business dealing with the day to day running of our businesses and spend little time focusing and planning the future for the business. We are too busy, but this is probably the biggest mistake we will ever make as we all can be busy but unhappy. The most important thing for the success of your business must be getting and keeping customers, as with no customers we have no business. However how much time do you actually spend everyday doing that? Could you spend just 60 minutes a day, 60 minutes where you don’t answer the phone, don’t read your emails and don’t talk to anyone, 60 minutes when you can focus on doing stuff that will have an impact on growing your business, stuff that will impact on your bottom line. So now you have reserved this slot into your schedule, it does not matter when it is during the day as long as you follow the ‘do not disturb rules’ and it suits your working life, then what are you going to do in this slot.

Sponsored Video

Lauren Goodbrand of Kitchens International on winning the Kbsa Concept Designer Award 2024

Achieving sales targets

How about starting with a real simple question, how much do you need to turnover this year to enable you to pay all your outgoings and leave your self with a wage and money over for investment and a holiday? Break it down into chunks, workout the figures and write it down, it is more permanent and real. Now what do you have to do to achieve this; how many projects a month or week and then how are you going to get them. That’s one task that will fill one of your slots and will focus you and what you need to achieve. Other slots can focus on a piece of marketing that will help you achieve this target, email marketing, Adwords campaigns, web site work, leaflets, etc. By focusing on actual projects you take more responsibility for the task and break it down to manageable chunks. What do you need to do to get and keep customers, focus on these issues, without disturbance, during you 60 minute sessions? Think about it, it may change your business forever. It is doing that to mine.

This article first appeared in the March issue of Kitchens & Bathrooms News