If you’re running a micro-business, whether it’s a basic blog that allows you to earn affiliate income or a Shopify store that enables you to be your own boss while working from home, it is important that you do whatever you can to make it as efficient as possible if you want your venture to be as successful as it has the potential to be.
With that in mind, here are some very simple things you can do to maximise your micro-business’ efficiency right now:
Use collaborative tools
If it’s just you writing content for your blog, then you can skip this one, but if your micro-business collaborates with even one other person, then you are going to want to download a few key collaborative tools. Like Slack which will allow you to discuss projects remotely, and EverNote, which will enable you to share documents and make changes to them, with any and all of your employees/freelancers, making life much simpler for you all.
Use freelancers
Speaking of freelancers, it is often a good idea, when running a micro-business, to use freelancers for tasks that aren’t exactly your forte. Sure, you could learn the basics of graphic design to make a new business logo or bone up on the basics of web code when you need a new piece of software for your website, but wouldn’t it be easier to hand those jobs to a professional freelancer who can get it done quickly and to a higher standard? Yes, it will likely cost more, but as they say, sometimes you have to speculate to accumulate.
Automate the accounting
Accounting is vital to any business, but it is also time-consuming and it can be too easy to make mistakes when you aren’t an expert. Luckily, there is accounting software that will take care of everything from bookkeeping to payroll. Use it and you will hardly need to spend any time on accounting at all, which means you can divert your time and attention to those business-growing tasks that you are good at because that is where your value truly lies.
Track time
Tracking your time, and the time of any employees you may have, might seem a bit pointless or intrusive, and it might seem like it is taking up more time that you could use for more important things, but it really isn’t. By tracking how you use your time, you can very quickly work out where you are wasting it and which tasks can be consolidated or eliminated to improve efficiency. So, even if you only track for a week or a month, it should have a positive effect on your micro-business overall.
Efficiency is something that you build over time, much like your business, but it is even more vital in a micro-business where margins are often tight, than it is in other companies, so it is definitely worth taking some time to gather together the right tools and collect the right insights that will enable you to be as efficient as possible.
