How to Juggle Several Roles as a Small Business Owner

Running a business is always challenging, especially if you have to wear different hats in the organization from accounting to management and marketing. For small business owners, it is common to serve multiple managerial positions in the business. This is because you don’t always have the luxury to delegate work to different departments. The tasks simply are not impactful enough to justify hiring more employees. Your business card may read CEO, but at any given time you may be required to be a marketing consultant or accountant. Fulfilling multiple roles can quickly become overwhelming, and it may be challenging to keep up.

Unfortunately, the success of your business depends on how well you wear these different hats. If you fall short in one department, then the whole business is negatively affected. Included below are some guidelines that you can use to ensure your small business remains successful while you are busy fulfilling these tasks.

1. Organize your work responsibilities.

The first step to staying on top of all of your obligations is organizing them. Identify the different roles that you play in your business and organize them appropriately. Consider using the Evernote app to stay organized. Evernote lets you add relevant emails, files, webpages and more to any note for easy access. Different digital notes and notebooks can be created for each responsibility, allowing small business owners to keep their multitasking from turning into chaos. Once all of your responsibilities are laid out, you can then focus on setting goals for each aspect of your business and work towards these goals.

2. Find help to avoid overextending yourself.

As a small business owner, it may be difficult to hire employees because resources are tight. However, performing every business task on your own is difficult and you will quickly burn out. While hiring staff means additional costs for your small business, they can increase efficiency and will alleviate your stress. Having at least one staff member will ensure that you concentrate on the bigger picture and not always be stuck in the day-to-day management of the business. Look for one employee that can wear other hats when you are not capable of doing so.

3. Identify your responsibilities.

Most small businesses fail because owners do not know what they are supposed to do and when. When you start a business, you may not anticipate all of the bookkeeping jobs that come with it such as accounting. It is essential to identify all of the responsibilities that you are required to fulfill when drafting out your business model. By doing so, you can identify strengths and weaknesses. For example, you may not be good at handling finances, but are good at marketing. Once you have identified this, you can establish strategies that help you strengthen your weaker areas. In a few years, you will be more proficient at these weak spots than when you first started.

4. Make long-term plans.

Although working on everyday business tasks is important, it is essential to also dedicate time to the company. You may get caught up in accomplishing your daily tasks and forget why you started the business and what you want to achieve from it in the long run. You should always set long-term goals for your business as well as short-term ones to ensure that you stay on track.

Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to wear different hats in the business and still run a successful empire. You can follow these guidelines to ensure your small business succeeds.