5 business management tips to help run your small business smoothly

Managing a small business is not an easy job. Bigger businesses usually have the advantage of having specialized departments that focus on one aspect of the business. If you are running a small business, chances are you are wearing many hats and dabbling in many things like Finance, Marketing, Sales, Logistics etc. 

I know this because I saw my brother run his small business. It was his first time starting a business and he learned some hard lessons by making mistakes. 

However, you don’t have to make the same mistakes. In this blog, we look at some small business management tips that will come in handy. 

1. Keep personal and business finances separate

When running a small business, your personal and business finances may start mingling. If not nipped in the bud this can cause complications. 

When you file your returns or apply for a business loan, your financials would come under scrutiny. In such a case it becomes really important you maintain a strict difference between your business account and your personal account — this will also save you several headaches later. 

2. You need a good accountant 

I cannot stress this enough, it is absolutely essential that you hire a good accountant or if you are outsourcing, make sure you get a good accounting firm. 

When my brother first started his business, let’s say he trusted his financials with a not so competent accounting firm who used cookie-cutter free invoicing templates, overcharged for his services, and the work was sub-par. He ended up running behind officials for tax filings. Finally, when he decided to change the firm, they didn’t make the process an easy one. 

It’s better to do your research to get it right the first time because if the previous firm or accountant has done a bad job, sorting out the financials can be really messy. 

3. Train your employees

You cannot continue running your business all by yourself, it’s just not sustainable and you will burn out. Instead, you need to hire the right employees and train them.

Take the case of my brother again. I have seen him do a lot of the work simply because he felt his employees aren’t up to the mark. He would take on a lot of challenging work himself. It was after a while he realized this wasn’t sustainable. It wasn’t helping his employees learn and grow either. 

When you hire, your workload may not decrease immediately. In fact, it may increase for a while because you have to train your new employee. However, this is time well spent as in the long run it will take a lot of burden off your shoulders. 

4. Get the right tools 

Equipping your team with the right tools can make a big impact on your business. Take the example of one of our customers:

“There are two aspects that differentiate businesses from their competitors — selling in a modern way that goes beyond conventional sales techniques, and offering great customer support. Remember to give your team the best tools available to achieve these goals!”

– Jonathan Gustafsson, COO, Marineparts 

Marineparts was initially using a standard PBX phone solution before Freshcaller. As the company grew, so did the demand to route calls from different numbers around the globe to the right support team. Their previous cloud PBX system simply did not scale along with these requirements. It was then that they decided to move to Freshcaller and Freshdesk. The COO shared that with the right tools they were able to scale smoothly and deliver better customer experiences. 

As a small business, you cannot afford to have an unorganized way of maintaining financials, tracking leads or support tickets. Employing the right technology and tools can save you money and time and go a long way in improving the way you do business. 

5. Invest in marketing 

As a small business, you may not have the kind of visibility that bigger businesses have. You have to let people know the kind of products or services you are offering. You may offer the best product or services but people aren’t going to be lining up to buy. They have to know you exist. 

You should also find the right kind of channels to market depending on your industry, which would work best for you — networking events or booths? Will digital marketing work better? You would have to figure out which channel works for your audience. 

If you asked my brother, he’d say this is one of the earliest mistakes he made — he thought customers would come knocking on his door. Spoiler alert: They didn’t. He also spent quite a bit of money on digital marketing and later on learned meeting prospects face to face and attending events worked far better for his business. 

It might also not hurt to have an employee or a team dedicated to marketing, it is a crucial part of any business — it will help your business gain visibility, bring in customers and ultimately revenue. 


About Freshcaller

Freshcaller is a modern-day reimagining of our everyday phone system for customer support, sales, IT, and HR teams. With Freshcaller’s cloud-based architecture, it brings together the best of legacy features like IVR and advanced capabilities like Smart Escalations, Custom Call Center Analytics to help you set up a state-of-the-art business call center. Freshcaller offers phone numbers in 90+ countries, requires zero phone hardware, and is extremely easy to use.

If you want to find out more about what we do, check out www.freshcaller.com.