Best Small Business Productivity-Boosting Strategies in 2020

Editor's Note: Take a look at our featured best practice, 5S Poster (3-page PDF document). ​5S good housekeeping and workplace organization is a set of basic management principles that are widely adopted in industries today. The cornerstone of 5S is that untidy, cluttered work areas are unproductive. 5S is a powerful improvement process that gets impressive results. In a nutshell, the [read more]

* * * *

From knowing how to fill out a W-9 tax form correctly to supervising employment and on-the-job training of new team members – there is not a single aspect in the entire business ecosystem that does not require the owner’s control and partake. When working as an own boss, you will need to learn and master tons of useful skills to make sure all the processes within your company are tuned and running smoothly. Thankfully, there are always strategies you can adopt to make managing a small business easier.

1. Delegate Small Tasks

The majority of small company owners are natural doers eager to perform all day-to-day business tasks themselves. Even when they do delegate, these people often feel the need to keep a close eye on things. While such a hands-on approach is laudable, it is essentially counterproductive and makes the whole idea of delegating pointless. There are only so many hours in a day and knowing when to deputize the small tasks to others is a crucial skill in a good manager’s arsenal.

Take some time to learn your employees’ professional strengths and weaknesses. Doing so will allow you to delegate tasks to people who have the abilities and experience necessary to handle a specific assignment with maximum efficiency. It is a known fact that employees who are trusted with more responsibility tend to be more interested in making the business succeed.

2. Automate Business Processes Where You Can

Running a small business is often associated with doing repetitive tasks, most of which can easily be automated. Small company owners often feel reluctant to invest in workflow automation since they worry that they will not be able to cover the expenses or fear it will cost some employees their jobs. However, automating monotonous steps not only helps increase your bottom-line earnings but can also clear an additional workforce to take care of some more pressing and creative tasks.

You will first need to conduct an in-depth analysis of the business processes to know which areas of your small business can be automated most usefully. Many small company owners prefer to start with sales and digital marketing and work their way up to production and distribution.

3. Combine Tasks and Stay Concentrated

Focusing on a single task for a long time is more productive than switching between many smaller activities. To achieve the best results, consider batching a few tasks that involve similar processes and skills into one. Instead of handling your email correspondence routine at different times of day, try doing it in one go. Even though such a task will take longer to complete, you will end up with more time to spend on other essential activities – all while staying 100% focused.

4. Embrace Changes

Any good or bad change in the company starts with you as a small business owner. Getting too comfortable with how things are going and not trying to change, improve, or modernize your products, ideas, work processes, and marketing strategies is a dangerous path, which leaves you vulnerable to competition.

An idle and complacent business owner cannot expect his employees to readily embrace the change or show more enthusiasm and eagerness in their work. In the turbulent economic times that we are experiencing today, being willing to adapt to change in a flash is what keeps small businesses afloat and thriving.

5. Take Advantage of Innovative Technology and Tools

The surest way to boost the efficiency of your small business is to make use of the latest and most innovative technologies and tools, which were specifically designed for solving business productivity issues. Pay close attention to the following tools that are popular among small business owners:

• Calendly – a handy web-based app that allows you to streamline your meeting scheduling efforts. No need to exchange numerous emails with your colleagues when planning a meeting. Share a Calendly page link that is attached to your business calendar and see if you can find a time in your busy schedules that will work for everyone.

• ZipRecruiter is a trusted job board site. It automatically shares your post across multiple other job board sites, enabling you to reach a wider audience of potential candidates and improving your chances of finding the right person for the job.

Final Verdict

Building a thriving small business requires one to invest a lot of time, energy, and money. To increase your chances for success, you have to delegate, stay focused, embrace change, employ new solutions and technologies, and be willing to automate repetitive business tasks. Making sure that your business processes are efficient and optimized will help your company withstand any economic turbulence.

Do You Want to Implement Business Best Practices?

You can download in-depth presentations on Visual Workplace and 100s of management topics from the FlevyPro Library. FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives.

For even more best practices available on Flevy, have a look at our top 100 lists:

• Top 100 in Strategy & Transformation
• Top 100 in Digital Transformation
• Top 100 in Operational Excellence
• Top 100 in Organization & Change
• Top 100 Management Consulting Frameworks

These best practices are of the same as those leveraged by top-tier management consulting firms, like McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and Accenture. Improve the growth and efficiency of your organization by utilizing these best practice frameworks, templates, and tools. Most were developed by seasoned executives and consultants with over 20+ years of experience.