Why soft skills are crucial to your business success, and how a Business Manager utilises them.

In today’s highly competitive market, a well-rounded approach to business operations is necessary to maintain a competitive advantage, and there’s only so far you can progress without having to effectively utilise soft skills. As a Business Manager, soft skills such as effective communication, strong leadership, collaborative teamwork, and problem-solving are not only essential but critical to excelling in our role and providing valuable support to your business.

So how can soft skills help in your business?

1. Effective Communication: Utilising soft skills to communicate effectively is crucial for businesses. If you can nail this then you can probably nail every one of the skills I discuss below. Enhancing transparency and keeping open lines of communication can lead to enhanced team dynamics, clarity of vision and expectations, and a better overall culture which leads to smoother operations and stronger relationships across your organisation. A business manager will foster this in your business, or implement training to help develop these skills within your team.

2. Enhancing leadership skills: to be a great leader you need to be able to motivate and inspire. Using strong communication skills and leaning on emotional intelligence and empathy can be crucial to understanding and supporting your employees and colleagues. A business manager should lead by example, and raise the bar for the organisation. Implementing avenues for open communication, feedback, constructive performance evaluation and a supportive atmosphere where employees feel heard is crucial to success as a leader. There is a great quote from Simon Sinek, “Leadership is not about being in charge. Leadership is about taking care of those in your charge.” There is so often a breakdown of leadership here, which leads to resentment, a breakdown of the team dynamic and a lack of emotional investment in the business. If you support and encourage your employees they will undoubtedly be more likely to perform at a higher level and be more emotionally invested in the success of the business.

3. Conflict resolution - there will always be conflicts in business and the workplace and being able to handle these with diplomacy and empathy is essential to ensure success and smooth running of your business. A skilled business manager can mediate disputes, communicate effectively and help foster and maintain a healthy work environment.

4. Problem solving - a general rule that I advise any employees of and practice myself is that you never go to someone with a problem, unless you have a solution to offer. Using critical and innovate thinking, thinking outside the box and being able to effectively communicate solutions are all key to problem solving. A business manager with strong problem-solving skills who utilises all their soft skills effetively can navigate challenges smoothly and find innovative solutions that benefit the business.

5. Team work and collaboration - soft skills are crucial to fostering good team work and collaboration so that your business can run smoothly and efficiently. Clearly setting expectations, communicating deadlines, sharing ideas and discussing set backs are all essential for keeping a team working together and with the end goal in mind. Soft skills like empathy and active listening, something that people talk a lot about but rarely implement, can take a lot of work but they ensure that trust and respect are built within the team. A business manager can implement training, team-building days and foster real connections with your employees to develop a motivated and cohesive team as well as enhance productivity.

Soft skills such as effective communication, strong leadership, collaborative teamwork, and strategic problem-solving are absolutely essential for achieving any business's long-term success. These invaluable skills significantly improve internal communication, foster meaningful collaboration among team members, and enhance relationships with clients and customers. As a dedicated business manager, integrating these crucial soft skills into your team not only helps to create a positive and supportive work environment but also drives overall productivity and ensures that your business operations run smoothly and efficiently. This holistic approach is key to achieving sustained success in our roles and contributing positively to your business's growth.

My top 5 time management tips for small business owners.

We all know time management is key to running a successful business. It leads to greater productivity, a greater sense of achievement, and to you hitting your business goals faster and more efficiently.

So what are my top 5 time management tips that I utilise myself and recommend to clients?

1. Prioritise tasks: By this I don’t mean rushing through your to-do list. I often quote Stephen R. Covey here, who recommends not prioritising your schedule, but scheduling your priorities. What you want to do is identify the high-priority tasks that are crucial to your business and focus on them. Drown out the noise that can distract from this and stay laser focused on your goals and mission.

2. Use time tracking: If you follow me on social media, you’ll have noticed I speak a lot about this. That’s partly because I use it a lot to keep myself focused. When you are working with mulitple clients and with multiple priorities it’s absolutely key to track your time, not only to ensure you are billing and allocating time to your clients correctly, but to set yourself deadlines within which to complete work. It means you are less likely to procrastinate and more likely to actually complete a task. I use Harvest for this, which is an excellent time tracking tool.

3. Delegate EFFECTIVELY: This is key to freeing up your time to focus on strategic activities that drive growth. There’s a difference between delegating and doing it effectively, hence my emphasis on the word. Assess workloads and skills and delegate to team members or contractors who can complete the job for you efficiently and without too much input from you, otherwise you might as well do it yourself! By entrusting specific tasks to employees or contractors with the right expertise you will gain more time to focus on your skills and drive the overall success of the business.

4. Set realistic goals: There’s nothing worse that setting yourself unachievable goals, because when you inevitably don’t achieve them all it can lead to frustration and a lack of motivation. I set daily and weekly goals but keep them short, then if you have completed them and have time left, start on your other key goals. I have a list of goals I want to achieve more broadly and those are the one’s I will go to if I have hit all my other key goals for the week. Keeping this achievable also prevents overwhelm which can lead to a freeze response.

5. Avoid multi-tasking: Again this is a skill I talk about a lot. Multi tasking is not that effective, it means you are running around trying to complete multiple tasks without giving them the appropriate focus, which can lead to reduced productivity (see my other blog post for more info on this). Focusing on one task at a time and ensuring you complete it is much more effective and you’ll find you actually complete these tasks faster leading to greater productivity.

Effective time management is a cornerstone of business success. From a business perspective, it enhances productivity and increases efficiency. From a personal perspective that can lead to a greater sense of achievement, boosting confidence and morale, and promotes a healthier work-life balance. By managing time well, businesses can achieve their goals, satisfy customers, save money and reduce stress and exhaustion. If you want to know more about how I can help your business achieve greater productivity and growth contact me for a 1-1 strategy session to develop a personalised action plan for streamlining your operations and achieving your business goals.

Why are brand guidelines important for your business?

I go on fairly incessantly about brand guidelines, and with good reason. From an operational perspective having a set of guidelines makes for a much more efficient business, but aside from that, it is what can cement your business in people’s mind. It creates a perception of your business for current and future clients, it will make them feel like they are in professional and experienced hands and creates a clearly identifiable business that helps you stand out in a crowd.

So why specifically are they important and how can they help your business?

Firstly let’s talk about consistency. The consistency that brand guidelines create helps your audience follow you and identify your work quickly, it’s more professional and your work is recognised and trusted. They also enable your business identity to be consistent across all platforms. Think of any of the biggest brands in the world and what is the first thing that comes to your mind? I guarantee you it will be an image, their text, their brand colours! Who doesn’t want that sort of immediate recognition!

Like I said at the start, from an operational and business management perspective it’s really important to have a clear set of brand guidelines. By that I mean a logo, a colour palette, set texts, styles and graphics, and where and how they are meant to be applied. You can also count your messaging, slogans and tone of communication as part of your brand guidelines. Having them set saves time and resources. When everyone is working off the same template it means less time editing and designing and more time to focus on your business message and marketing effectively. It also means your team fully understands what your brand stands for. Added to that is the fact that when you are onboarding new employees you can train them faster in your messaging and allow them to understand your mission and values more clearly by introducing them to your brand standards. Bottom line is, it maintains the integrity of your brand when everyone is representing it the same way and that in turn leads to more effective and powerful messaging.

Ultimately they are a strategic tool that can significantly impact your business’s success. By ensuring consistency, enhancing recognition, saving time and building trust, brand guidelines help to create a strong, cohesive brand that will make your business resonate with clients.

Is multi tasking an effective way to work?

Some feel that by multi-tasking you are being super efficient, and I see it on CV’s all the time listed as a skill. I would argue the opposite, essentially if you are having to multi task it means you are overwhelmed and having to rush through items and do multiple actions at the same times. When you are multi tasking you might feel like you are getting more done but the reality is you are probably not doing those tasks to the best of your ability or as productively as you would like. I know if I am jumping from one thing to another the chances of me actually completing one of those tasks is slim. I’m more likely to do a little of all of them but not actually finish them off, leaving me feeling unproductive, demoralised and inefficient. You are also significantly more likely to make mistakes if you are multi tasking as your focus is split, so your quality of work is generally not as high. In today’s busy landscape it is so easy to descend into the urgency of multi tasking as we become overloaded with work. As a Business Manager one of the key elements I look at in a business is how productive and efficiently they are running, and managing tasks and priorities is a huge part of that. So if multi tasking isn’t the best way to work, what is?

Learning how to effectively manage multiple priorities is a better skillset, but it takes work. You need to plan, prioritise and focus on specific tasks. You’ll find you probably get more done by just focusing on one task at a time and actually completing it, you’ll also feel more positive and productive leading you to actually be, yep you guessed it, more productive! There’s a great quote by Josh Billings “Be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get here”. It makes me laugh but it’s right, procrastination is where dreams go to die. Prioritise by importance, use time blocking and don’t allow any distractions. I use the same rules to manage my inbox so it doesn’t become overwhelming. Further to that use automation to manage your tasks and projects so you aren’t having to keep everything in your head. I think it really depends on what kind of a person you are and how you like to work as to how you manage your day, but a few simple steps like setting task reminders, setting time limits and blocking out distractions really help. Plan out your day (I do this the night before) so you know exactly what you are getting into the next day. It means you can wake up with a clear mind and clear purpose as to what you are doing that day rather than feeling a bit scatter brained and running from one thing to another without a clear goal in mind. It’ll also help you manage urgent situations that arise rather than feeling immediately overwhelmed. Another huge tip is learn to effectively delegate. As a Business Manager a large part of running day to day operations is handling delegation tasks from a business owner, but also delegating to the team effectively. This is where team collaboration and communication are key and developing those will enable your team and business to run much more efficiently.

What is a Business Manager? And do I need one?

What is a Business Manager?

What is a Business Manager? Honestly, sometimes even I struggle to articulately describe my own job! That’s not a bad thing as the role is really varied and part of our appeal is we can turn our hand to so many things. Even if it’s something I haven’t done before I’ll be able to research it and implement it for you without missing a beat. A Business Manager essentially can take over the organisational side of your business. Fundamentally we are here to help you focus on the big picture and drive your business forward while we run around in the background ensuring everything is running smoothly, efficiently and cost effectively! Some call us their right hand, or wing women and it’s true, we are there for you in a pinch. Generally, we are the most organised people, we love structure and efficiency and getting things done promptly but to an exceptional standard. We’re analytical and problem solvers. Myself, I’m all of those things and a perfectionist to top it off and it seeps into all aspects of my life, but people love it when I bring my perfectionist ways to their business. Sometimes it takes an outsider to see something that isn’t clear to you or you are too busy to be able to manage. Having someone look at processes, policies, procedures and tell you where they can be strengthened is invaluable. Even more invaluable, is having someone set it all up for you so you don’t even have to worry about it. It makes businesses more profitable, and often significantly less stressful. That’s a serious win win.

So next question….Do you need one?

I was talking to a friend the other day who runs his own business, which is only about a year old, but is doing extremely well. When I started to explain what I do, he immediately said, I think that’s what I’m going to need! He’s at that stage of his business where, in his own words, he doesn’t have time to do his job because he’s too busy sorting out all the admin and organisation. Something which is not his forte. He has a vision and an immense skillset, he doesn’t have the time nor the inclination to be the organiser and nor should he. That’s where a Business Manager comes in. We can turn our hands to creating SOP’s, project planning, system automation, financial analysis, people management, budget management and events, honestly the list is fairly endless. I’ve worked in so many different companies and I’ve learnt new skillsets at each one. Part of the appeal is being able to quickly understand the business and analyse where you can help. So if that’s where you are at with your business and you just don’t have the time to make everything happen and happen efficiently, then yes I’d say you need a Business Manager!

If you’ve decided a Business Manager is something you need, or want, the most important thing is you get one who works with you, who understands your business, your needs and your vision. It’s incredibly personal to share your business vision and you need to do it with someone you trust and someone who truly gets the person you are and the way you want to work. That’s why I’ll always offer a free, no obligation call before we decide to work together, because I may not suit you and you may not suit me. But I will say this, once you have one, you’ll never look back.