Tips To Ensure Your Small Business Success in 2011

Tips To Ensure Your Small Business Success in 2011
By David L Stein

Experience has taught us that those small business owners who consistently grow their revenues, market share and profitability year after year generally excel in the following areas of professional management skills:
• They Have A Plan
• They Set Goals and Monitor Progress
• Effectively Organize Their Work
• Hire and Motivate Talented Staff
• Practice Effective Communications
• Monitor Market Trends & Use High Impact Marketing
• Know Their Limits



Planning: Successful business owners recognize that the Business Plan is their blueprint for success!

A carefully crafted Business Plan will guide their identification and setting of meaningful goals for the business, assist them in analyzing the feasibility of a new business, explore the key elements of an existing business, define their customers and competitors, and point out their businesses strengths and weaknesses. And, the end product will detail their plans for the future.

Goal Setting: Like Lee Iacocca, consistently successful business owners have learned the value of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen. Many of them take it a step further by creating S.M.A.R.T. Goals and make a commitment to regularly monitor their progress and take action where necessary.

SMART goals are:
• Specific
What does one wish to achieve? How will they achieve it? Why is it important to them? Clearly define the outcome they want.

• Measurable
Establish concrete criteria for measuring their success. Use actual numbers, target dates, or specific events to indicate when their goal has been achieved.

• Achievable
Their goals should push them past their comfort level but are still attainable with effort and commitment.

• Relevant
Their goals will be important to them and the success of their business. They will have the ability to directly impact the outcome.

• Timely
Such goals should have a time element established. This will keep everyone involved on track and prevent them from simply pushing a goal off infinitely into the distant future. It will matter now and they will have a sense of urgency about it.

Organizing: While small business owners often wear many "hats", or have a variety of tasks and responsibilities to manage, they are generally quite organized and have learned how to set priorities and, where possible, delegate the work to those who can process it in a timely and cost-efficient manner. They recognize that time - theirs and their staff's - is a valuable resource that needs to be managed efficiently in order to ensure their continued profitability.

Staffing: The successful small business owner typically begins the hiring process with a carefully developed job description that reflects the needs and expectations of the business enterprise. Applicants' skill sets and experience are then carefully compared with the need, references checked and team compatibility considered.

Since staff is recognized and treated as a valuable resource, successful business owners give careful attention to how they might best motivate their employees to effectively contribute to the growth and profitability goals of their business.

Communications: Since learning comes from listening, small business owners have perfected this art in order to ensure that they are learning about their customers' needs, competitors' successes and team member suggestions for improving their company's overall success. Only after they have carefully listen to such input, squared the input with their company's objectives and developed solid implementation strategies, do they communicate performance expectations with their team members.

Marketing: As the saying goes, "The only constant in life is change" - and so is the marketplace. Successful small business owners carefully monitor such changes and then respond accordingly. Rather than wasting money on ineffective advertising that may have been promoted by a good salesman, they know their market, know where their customers are and what they will respond to - service, quality product or service, price - and then reach out to them in their own unique environment.

Limitations: Most every successful business owner has a very clear idea of their skill and experience limitations and, accordingly, will seek assistance from those who are better equipped to help and provide professional guidance. They have mastered the skill to manage their internal and external resources in a manner that will help they to strengthen their less effective and productive areas.

With little effort and an open mind on your part, you can help yourself achieve your desired business goals and objectives by understanding and utilizing these helpful tips.
Dave Stein is a small business coach/consultant, http://www.steinassociates.biz, residing in Roseville, CA and can be reached via email, dave@steinassociates.biz or telephone 916/749-5060. He welcomes inquiries and offers a FREE consultation to small business owners within his local market area.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_L_Stein