11 Small Business Essentials: Create a Cozy Little Company That Can Survive Anything

Despite the sometimes daunting and even scary nature of growing a small business, most owners want to feel relaxed and confident in the company’s operation, not threatened or uncertain. 

They want a cozy little business that can survive anything. 

In this post we provide a list of small business essentials that will help any owner achieve the ultimate business operation.

Introduction to Small Business Essentials

I have found most of the small business owners I’ve had the pleasure of working with over the years to be very courageous and capable people. 

Running a business is not for the faint of heart. You have to be resilient, have the ability to think fast on your feet and accomplish so many things that you’ve never been trained to do. 

Regardless of this, I think that experiencing stability, security, resilience, warmth, comfort, and joy while building your business is not only possible, but a requirement if you’re going to be in it for the long haul. 

It shouldn’t only be unrelenting hard work, future uncertainty, and blood, sweat and tears. 

However, at this very moment, if you are experiencing the chill of customer dissatisfaction, the menace of disgruntled employees, deficits in your bank account or a sense of doom and failure, it’s my experience as a long-time business coach that you could be missing one or more of the 11 small business essentials that I’ve laid out in this article.

1. The Profit Engine 

The vroooom! in your business boom

The profit engine is the source of raw power in a business. The explosive combustion element at its very core. 

It’s your offering, your products, and services.

It’s the essential element that your business machine (employees, sales, marketing, production, etc.) is built around and upon. It has the capacity to take your business to the stars overnight, or leave you sputtering on the launchpad.

If you have yet to experience the kind of celestial success you dreamed of when starting your business, or you want to travel to even brighter stars, consider the following points:

• A profit engine drives the growth of a company. To the degree it fails, a business will too.

• A small business can break down utterly if it fails to meet market demand with their product or service by even just a hair. 

• As a small business CEO, you might not even recognize when your profit engine is failing. Don’t automatically place the blame for any slump with marketing or sales. If the product is taking gargantuan efforts to move, it’s a good time to revisit and restudy the market vs. your offering.  

• Well-constructed profit engines can blow the competition away. Success isn’t just a shot in the dark.

• You can either fill an already existing consumer demand with your product or service, or you can create the demand. Either path will take knowing your market like you know yourself. 

Failure to pay attention to, actively manage, and adjust a business’s profit engine when necessary has led many companies astray, rendering them unable to reach greater heights. 

And there is no cozy comfort in that.

2. Business Protection & Legal Support

Your business strong box

I’m not trying to give you advice on how to structure your company, which legal firm to hire, or what insurance company to go with in this post.

But proper business registration steps, legal support, and the right business protection have all got to be included in a list of small business essentials. 

• Go to sba.gov to find out how to register and launch your business the right way. 

• The link above also includes information about what types of business insurance are necessary for your particular type of company.

• A website called Chamber of Commerce (not a government site) has thoroughly researched the best online legal services for small businesses. They’ve looked into a ton of other services as well which can save you a lot of time when it comes to finding the right business support.

Be thorough when it comes to this aspect of your business. What could offer you more snug security than the knowledge that your business is impervious to existential threats stemming from overlooked legalities, unforeseen liabilities or contentious litigation? 

3. The CEO’s Dashboard 

A looking glass for the business visionary

Every small business CEO needs a dashboard that will accurately reflect the health of each area of the operation.

Setting up a good dashboard will allow you to see at a glance whether you're staying on course or veering off into the ditch. 

Here are some things to consider when setting up your own unique dashboard:

• The array of KPIs that you include in your dashboard don't have to be complex. You want to make it easier to manage your business, not harder. 

• Don't track so many statistics or key performance indicators that areas needing your attention the most are obscured. 

• Don't track so little that your dashboard tells you nothing of value either. You want it to indicate the necessary, actionable steps in order to keep improving things or avert disaster as the case may be. 

• Keep the design of the dashboard simple. The most user-friendly and cost effective way to create your dashboard is to utilize either Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets to create proper charts of all your relevant KPIs.

To learn more about which key performance indicators small businesses should track, read our post titled, 5 Basic KPIs to Track in Your Small Business: Follow the Signs on the Road to Success.

For examples on the best dashboard design to use, read: The Best CEO Dashboard for Small Businesses (with examples!).

4. Planning and Execution

How business dreams become real

There is a vital bridge that must be constructed and utilized if you’re going to win in small business. 

This bridge spans the distance between a business owner's hopes and dreams for their company and what, in the end, they're actually able to achieve. 

It's the bridge from planning to execution.

• It’s no overstatement to say that any failure in business, at any time in history, was a failure to thoroughly plan and accomplish the objectives that would bring about success.

• In order to plan properly, a business owner or executive must have full information at hand, plus an ability to thoroughly study and analyze that information. 

• Start with an elementary small business dashboard as laid out above, then expand it as the business grows. 

• Making business decisions without taking the current state of the operation into account by thorough review of its key performance indicators can place a business on the verge of collapse. At the very least, it will eventually bring about a failure to thrive. 

• You must also have a workable system that will put your plans into effect. Such as a way to issue (publish) your plans, a way to implement them, and a way to verify that they were successfully executed with a clear view of the results.

• The ability to plan and execute competently is probably the most valuable skill that small business owners could develop in themselves. 

Anyone can learn to plan and execute well. Every business owner should. It's the only guarantee you'll ever have of creating the business you always dreamed of.

5. The CEO’s Assistant

A business owner’s loyal second

It can be really hard to go it alone when running a business. Though many small business owners start out that way out of necessity (aka: lack of resources). 

You've got to start somewhere and that’s okay. But whether you have the wherewithal to immediately hire an assistant or not, you need to be thinking in that eventual direction and plan for it from the get-go.  

• When starting out, it takes at least two people to start generating some real power and momentum to begin to scale an operation. One person can only do so much.

• Ideally, an assistant works to support and unburden a CEO, making it easier for him or her to do the job of growing the company. Hire someone who has the basic skill set to help you build out the rest of the company as you start to scale. Someone who will be loyal to you. 

• The assistant role could take one of many forms, it wouldn't necessarily have to be titled “Assistant.” Depending on your business and its needs, it could be “Foreman,” “Office Manager,” “Sales Manager,” “HR Director,” etc. The point is to begin to unburden yourself and have the support you need to scale. 

• The assistant would be an executive in their own right, invested with the power and authority to really handle the hell out of things for the CEO.

• The CEO grows the business and allows the assistant to grow with it, into roles of more and more responsibility and authority. This is a great way to scale and expand while you build out the positions underneath the both of you. 

There’s nothing like having a competent and reliable second, no matter their title, to give you that warm fuzzy feeling of comradery and protection when you need it most. 

Even the boss needs reassurance sometimes.

6. Business Communications: Policies and Procedures

The animating lifeblood of any business

Have you ever walked into a business and been completely ignored? 

Doesn’t feel great.

How about the times you couldn’t get answers or acknowledgements from your own team?

Very frustrating.

Warm and welcoming small businesses always leave people feeling happy and satisfied with the experience. That kind of cozy outcome is only made possible by genuine, personal interaction and sincerely helpful communication. 

• Office policies regarding in-office communication protocols are not only helpful to management, but the whole team. 

• A policy, for instance, that lays out a “24-hour response” turnaround for routine business emails, and an “immediate response” turnaround for matters marked urgent, will give everyone in the office a sense of being heard and understood in a timely manner.

• Customer interaction policies that give guidelines on how to greet, assist, or follow up with clientele ensures that you won’t have random, unsanctioned-types of approaches that could lose you customers.

• Having grievance policies to help both employees and customers communicate and resolve difficulties will go a long way toward preventing employee discontent and bad customer reviews.

• Putting good communication policies in place that suit an individual business's needs will decrease frustrations and boost the company’s productivity levels.  

Without them, it’ll be luck of the draw on whether your company’s reputation will survive for the long haul.

7. A Comprehensive Employee Training System 

The toolkit for building a small business fortress

Out of all the things listed in this post, I find the essential training of employees to be the most severely lacking in small business today. 

I believe the problem, in part, lies in the fact that not only are small business owners never provided with a manual on how to train staff, but they usually don't have the proper training materials they would need in order to do so either.

Some important things to note are:

• Lack of employee training can cause a revolving door with employees, causing the business to be unstable and customer service to be unpredictable. 

• Owners themselves can tend to fly by the seat of their pants (most of the time very competently), so it’s easy to see why they struggle with how and what to train their employees on.

• Creating training content (policies, guidelines, videos) is a gargantuan task for even the most resourceful business owner.

• If the goal is to have incredibly strong, reliable, and stable employees, there’s no getting around training them well.

The problem of providing employees with the knowledge and skill they need to do their jobs at the highest levels of competency is a solvable one.

Click here to get information on getting custom-made training content created for your small business.

8. Consistent and Effective Marketing Campaigns 

Small business power thrusters 

No matter how long a company has been in business or how well-known, it’s essential that its product and services are actively marketed. There isn’t any, “Well guys, we’ve made it now. No more marketing for us.”

• When a business starts to sink, marketing can be one of the first things that gets cut from the budget because of cost. 

• When marketing gets cut, a business will start to sink even further. 

• The right marketing strategy will always help to boost and recover a business as long as there is a sound profit engine at the heart of it and good service being provided. 

• There are so many marketing options available for small businesses today with no or very little cost that there is no excuse for not getting the word out. 

• There is no “right” or “wrong” marketing strategy for any particular type of company or industry. And any marketing is better than no marketing at all. Go first with what has historically worked for your business in the past, then add on more lines of marketing from there, as your budget and resources allow.

• Always track the ROI (return on investment) of any marketing being done, so that what is working can be reinforced and what’s not can be adjusted or eliminated.

In its most basic form, marketing is simple, so don’t overthink it. Fundamentally, it’s offering as many people as possible something beneficial that they will or could buy.

Keeping your marketing efforts fired up to stay flush with loyal customers will give you a toasty warm business year after year.

To learn about the ultimate marketing asset for small businesses, check out the Top 7 Reasons to Create a Newsletter for Your Small Business.

9. Accurate Bookkeeping and Accounting Systems

The structural integrity that your business needs to remain strong

When no standard bookkeeping and accounting practices are happening, it can spell big trouble for a small business. Straight books and accurate accounting practices are essential for succeeding long into the future.

Here are some points to keep in mind when it comes to your financial management practices:

• Clean and accurate books help protect your business from possible government penalties and punitive action.

• You don't have to be highly skilled at bookkeeping and accounting yourself in order to set things up properly. The most widely used bookkeeping software, such as Quickbooks and Freshbooks, have simple tutorials to help you set things up right from the get-go. Enlisting the help of a part time bookkeeper is usually very affordable for most small businesses as well. 

• Employ a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) or Enrolled Agent (EA) to do your year-end tax accounting. 

• Learn how to read and use the basic financial statements of a small business: income statement (profit and loss), balance sheet, and cash flow statement. These are executive tools that can help you increase business. 

• Establish a routine to review and manage your finances on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual basis in order to maintain good control of your money and assets.

• Included in that routine should be a regular and consistent allocation of reserve funds into a separate savings account, providing another layer of protection to be used only in case of emergency. 

Ample profit margins and increasing revenues that provide more and more cushion between your company and any potential failure of bankruptcy should be a priority objective for any small business CEO or owner. 

When it comes to financial management, longevity of the operation and the ability to weather any storm is the bottom line. 

10. Customer Relationship Management System

Your small business goldmine

Failure to manage and keep good track of both potential and current customers can cost small businesses astronomical amounts of money. And not just money that was in the bank and is now lost. 

Veritable riches that were at a business owner's very fingertips yet never realized because of the disorganized and discombobulated state of customer records is one of the biggest financial losses a small business can ever experience. 

If you want all your hard work of client acquisition to have maximum and lasting impact when it comes to increasing the long-term survival of your company, then think about the following: 

• Failure to manage customers in an organized way and keep proper records on them will cost you money and lots of it. 

• If your customer records are not in an orderly state and currently being utilized to reactivate and further your customers’ journeys with your company, then you are probably sitting on an untapped goldmine at this very moment.

• Though consistent new customer acquisition is a must, it’s always easier and less expensive to reactivate past customers than it is to get new ones. Make sure you do both.

• Organizing your records will help you start to reap the benefits of that customer base you’ve worked so hard to build. There are lots of customer relationship management (CRM) software options out there with very affordable monthly subscription fees and the technical support you need. 

If you want to experience the warmth and friendliness of customer loyalty over and over again, get your customer relationship management system in tip top shape and put it to good use. 

11. Quality Control Protocols

The velvet glove of assurance that puts your business in good hands

Failing to have consistent review and adjustment protocols that ensure customers are increasingly satisfied and employees are evermore competent and happy on the job can cause the small business owner mountains of grief. 

When considering your QC (quality control) processes, keep the following points in mind:

• Quality control processes should encompass the review of a business’s products, services, employee performance, customer service, as well management activities, business image and company branding. In other words, every major department of the business should be QC’d one way or the other. 

• QC’s should be set up in such a way that bad situations are prevented or addressed before they’re broadcast online. 

• Depending on the size of your company, you can have someone dedicated to QC functions alone or doing it as part of their other responsibilities. Logically, it would fall to the management over a particular department.

• Set up a regularly scheduled employee review process with consistent follow-up. Though not legally required by the U.S. Department of Labor, it’s ideal to conduct employee reviews every quarter or semi-annually. At the very minimum, annually.

• Establish and broadcast thoroughly the ways in which anyone, whether customer, executive, or employee, can submit written or voice recorded grievances and receive assistance. Anyone in contact with a small business should be able to seek out genuine help and get it. Anything short of this is just bad business.

Let people feel the warmth of your establishment through your excellent quality control protocols. It’ll keep customers coming back and help employees feel as though they’re in the best place they could possibly be, second only to home.

Summary 

The exact timing on when you actually get each of these small business essentials into place is, of course, unique to each business. But the faster you plug each element in, the more rapidly you will increase the scalability of your business. 

And don't wait until you have the majority of positions filled and have grown heavy with the weight of the company on your shoulders to start concentrating on each of these essentials. By that time you might be too overwhelmed to focus on their establishment.

If you'd like more information or details regarding any of these elements, please reach out to Mainstreet Mastery at info@Mainstreet-Mastery.com, or visit our website at Mainstreet-Mastery.com.