Small Business Time Savers
Small businesses often find themselves lacking in resources and time, refusing additional clients or customers simply isn’t an option if a business wishes to grow and become more successful. This often leaves business owners working long hours and with very limited free time. We explore services and ideas that can help small businesses save time and free up resources to focus on delivering the product or service they offer.
Project management tools
Having full awareness and visibility of business tasks is important for many small business owners, this often makes it difficult to delegate and can result in a bottleneck situation. A free project management tool such as Trello is a great way to help save time on emails and chasing for approval or information. Trello displays information in the form of cards, each card is placed into a list to categorise the action or task. Individuals can then be assigned tasks with deadlines, others can add attachments and comments where needed. Once a system such as this is in place it can remove the need for multiple emails, searching for documents, team calls and more. This frees up time for the business to spend on important tasks such as growth and providing excellent service to existing and new customers. Tools like Trello also provide a clear view of accountabilities if used correctly, removing any confusion or uncertainty around who is responsible for that job or task.
Social media management tools
Being on social media is essential for most businesses, customers use social media to post reviews, complain, and find out more about a businesses products and services. When a business lacks a social media presence it can miss out on essential conversations and feedback about its products and services. Manually posting on social media takes time and can result in errors. Services such as Later allow businesses to schedule social media posts across several social media sites, manage the time they are posted and easily view replies and direct messages in one place. This tool can help save businesses time logging in and out of social media platforms and needing to post outside of working hours. Later is free for smaller businesses with a few social accounts or there are other tools on the market that offer similar services.
Fuel Cards
As part of their operations, a small business may have 1 or several vehicles that employees can use or are required as part of their job. A small bakery may make local deliveries or use a van to pick up ingredients from suppliers. A childminder may use a vehicle to pick up children from school and drop them off at home. A dog walker will use a van to pick up the dogs and take them to a secure walking area. A small software company may use a vehicle to visit clients and demonstrate their services. There are many reasons a small business may require a vehicle that requires fuel to run, as part of that fuel management a business must process fuel receipts, claim the VAT back on business fuel and reimburse members of staff if they purchased the fuel. A business fuel card helps to manage this admin and provides an easy way for businesses to view fuel expenditure and provides credit on fuel expenses to ease cash flow. Some fuel cards are completely free and have no minimum contract or minimum usage, these fuel cards are ideal for small businesses looking to save time on administrative tasks.
Hire the right employees
A key way to save time that is often overlooked is hiring and retaining good employees. HR professionals agree that it takes around 3 months to onboard an employee. This doesn’t take into account the time needed to create job applications, interview candidates, fully train and wait for the employee to complete their notice period. It is essential to hire the right employees and retain employees that are valuable to the business in order to save time and maximise business resources. Implementing a hiring process and training procedure will help to increase the value of these tasks. In addition to hiring, retention can be increased by fairly paying employees, providing additional employee benefits and listening to employees comments and concerns. Through effective hiring and retaining valuable employees, small businesses can save time and money and increase business efficiency.