Successful leadership is what makes a business thrive. It leads to contented employees and happy customers. Most small business owners have the industry knowledge and sufficient funds to start and run their company, but other factors also affect their success. Below are four secrets that successful small business leaders do regularly, presented by TAPS Media.
1. Delegate the Details
Not taking care of the administrative details of your business can lead to problems down the road, particularly any neglected legal requirements. Instead of trying to juggle them all on your own, delegate them to professionals trained to handle them. Payroll and taxes are two areas you absolutely have to get right. It’s helpful to hire a payroll service to ensure your employees are paid correctly and on time. Outsource your accounting functions to a company that specializes in providing for the unique needs of small businesses.
If you are just starting your company, you can also speed up the business formation filing process by delegating the task to an online service. You can even delegate processes such as dealing with PDFs by using online tools to reduce PDF file size before sending out reports or paperwork.
Getting the word out about your small business is another job you don’t have to do on your own. Instead, hire a talented freelancer to build your company website and show you how to maintain it with new posts, articles, and uploaded videos. Contract with a social media marketing firm to give your company a consistent presence on your customers’ favorite social media platforms.
2. Communicate Regularly
No matter how small your business is, experts agree that regular communication with your employees is crucial. You want to ensure everyone knows the goals for the company, the plan to reach them, and the success everyone will enjoy when those goals are achieved. Sharing progress updates keeps you and your employees excited about the work and motivated to pursue the company’s vision. A great way to do this is to send out a weekly email with company news, recent successes, and personalized recognition for employees doing outstanding work.
3. Get Actionable Feedback
Every person has blind spots to behaviors that can derail their success with working with others. To help you recognize yours, set up a way for your employees to provide feedback about you, the leadership team, and the company. There are several ways to do this, including:
Conducting small employee focus groups
Having an open-door policy for anyone to meet with you about a concern
Creating an annual online employee survey
Meeting regularly with each of your leaders for feedback
Once you have identified behavior or attitude you need to change, take action to address it, and do the steps needed for improvement. Don’t rule out looking to an outside advisor for help.
4. Meet With Your Mentor
Every leader needs a guideline, someone or something with a track record of business success. There are two different ways one can go about this; the first is too have an online training and coaching platform as your guide, such as myQuest which is designed around the AFT Learning Model to create new innovative training methods and drive real behavioral change. Or a mentor that will guide you through any trouble spots with proven advice to challenge you to set new goals to grow as a leader. This trusted person also holds you accountable to overcome any necessary behavior changes identified in company feedback sessions. When you accept and take action on the mentor’s advice, you find yourself achieving success.
Each of these four secrets helps you avoid unnecessary setbacks to your company. Putting them into practice turns you into a successful small business leader as well. Then it will be your turn to share your secrets as a mentor to others.
