When you’re a small business owner, you know that time is a precious resource. There is only so much work you can delegate to your staff, but taking on too many tasks yourself can hurt your company’s productivity, costing you money in the long run. Thankfully, there are budget-friendly solutions for these major time sinks. Here are three to watch out for.
Social Media
Whether your business is based online or has a brick-and-mortar location, you likely have a social media presence. Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram – all of these platforms require regular updates. You also need to interact with your followers. If you’re not careful, social media management can take up a large amount of your time.
To stay focused each day, turn off your email and social media notifications. Schedule how often you will check your accounts. This could be as often as every hour or as seldom as once a day, depending on the needs of your business. You can also try using one of the many free social media scheduling tools that are available. These applications, like Hootsuite and TweetDeck, allow you to schedule posts in advance, track follower growth, and more.
Manual Payroll
Many small businesses don’t have a payroll department, especially when they’re first starting out. One common way of reducing business-related fees is calculating the paychecks manually. If you don’t have many employees, this method can work well. As your business grows, however, payroll-related tasks will become more complex and time-consuming. You could find yourself staying late to crunch numbers instead of working on other important tasks, like customer outreach. You could also make mistakes that come back to bite you later.
One solution is to invest in payroll software. It not only saves you time but also reduces the risk of human error. Some small business owners prefer to outsource their bookkeeping tasks. Another option is to use business voucher checks. These checks make it easy to track payroll deductions, saving you time and hassle when you need to pull up payment details at tax time.
Business Meetings
Ah, the dreaded business meeting. Are they really necessary? Some of them definitely are, but there’s a pretty good chance that some of them aren’t. Each meeting should have an agenda, a time frame, and at least one objective. Otherwise, there’s a greater chance of the meeting veering off topic, wasting both your and your employees’ time. It’s also a good idea to only include people who really need to be there. Having too many employees at a meeting makes it harder to get everyone’s input.
To cut back on the number of meetings at your company, consider using a project management tool. It’ll be easier to keep track of ongoing projects, which can help you decide if a project status meeting would be beneficial. It also provides a place for employees, including those who work from home, to communicate between meetings.
Keep your small business running smoothly, and incorporate one of these time-saving tips.
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