The road to setting up your small business is always bound to be a little bumpy. After all, you’re busy finding your feet, placing yourself among existing competition on the market, establishing your brand, and establishing your presence in the consumer market’s consciousness. However, as things settle down, many small business owners find themselves sticking with the exact same routine that helped them to get to a comfortable stage of operation. Some would say “if it’s not broken, why fix it?” But this is a mindset you should avoid if you want your business to prosper and flourish. After all, as your business begins to grow and expand, your technique and process will have to change in order to accommodate increased interest, sales, and orders. If you are stubborn and try to do things as you always have, you can start facing serious problems and your company’s reputation and image will suffer for it. So, to help you along the way, here are a couple of different techniques you can try out to ensure that your small business runs smoothly at all times, regardless of its growth and expansion!
Bringing your Manufacturing Process In-House
When you first start out in the realm of business, chances are that you’ll outsource a whole lot of your work. After all, it would be nigh on impossible to do everything alone from the outset and, as we are all well aware, many hands make light work. However, as your business progresses and expands, and you become more certain that there’s a market for your products out there, you’re likely to consider bringing various business practices back in-house. While outsourcing may take a huge weight off your shoulders, you lose a whole lot of control over your business process. You become reliant on others, having to simply trust that they will carry out work as you expect and meet the deadlines that you set out. If your designated manufacturer experiences staffing issues, equipment issues, or mismanages their time and overbooks themselves, you could find your products arriving late and you may miss deadlines of your own. By bringing things back in-house, you can keep an eye on proceedings. You also gain immediacy – if you need particular work to be carried out quickly, you can focus on it and ensure that it is complete to a stricter deadline than usual. Operating in-house also ensures you know exactly how your products are being made and who they are being made by. This means that you can be one hundred percent sure that everything is responsibly and ethically sourced and crafted and avoid disruptions to business associated with scandal regarding unethically sourced products.
Having the Right Equipment
Now, the first step you need to bringing things in-house, is to invest in the right equipment to complete the work to a high standard. This is likely to involve a fair amount of investment. You want top end machinery to get the job done right first time around, so are likely to have to invest in specific machines. You should look into every aspect of your manufacturing process, from the machines themselves to the viking pumps that help them to work smoothly. As long as you get the best quality items, your equipment should pay for itself quickly enough and then you’re not having to pay someone else for the use of their machinery. You’ll be generating a higher percentage of profit, as you will have fewer expenses and outgoings.
Understanding How to Use the Equipment
When investing in any equipment, make sure that you or your employees who will be operating it fully understanding its workings. This may involve taking specialist courses, but this will guarantee that production runs according to plan and the products it creates are up to a standard you’re happy for your clients to receive.
Taking on Reliable Staff
Another common mistake that many small business owners tend to make is leaving their business understaffed for far too long. This is understandable. After all, when you create your own business, you’re in complete control. You work for months on end alone to get things off the ground and up and running. You will often grow to believe that you don’t need to take on staff. That they’re just a needless expense when you can take on the extra work yourself. But as you start receiving more and more orders or contracts (and consequently more and more responsibility), you’ll soon grow to realise that you’re not a robot. If you try to go it alone, you’ll end up burning yourself out. What’s more? Your business will suffer for it, as it will stay in the same spot rather than moving forward and generating more profit. Rather than taking steps in the right direction, you will find yourself constantly tied up with administrative tasks, correspondence, and customer service. In short, you need help to succeed. The notion that many hands make light work really does ring true, as long as you take on reliable staff members.
Full Time vs. Part Time Staff
The first decision that you have to make when deciding to take on staff is whether you want full or part time employees. When you become an employer, you have certain responsibilities, and one of these is guaranteeing the contracted hours that you advertise with a position. If you only need a little help here and there to start with, part time staff should suffice. However, if things are getting busier and workloads are getting heavier, you may want to advertise full-time positions.
Carrying Out Interviews
So how do you go about taking on the right staff members first time round? Well, one of the most commonly carried out checks in the business owner’s toolbox is an interview. While someone may seem perfect on their resume, they could prove to be less than desirable once you meet them in person. Why? Well, because character and attitude can make all the difference when it comes to deciding whether someone will bring the right mindset to their work and whether they will fit in well with both your brand’s ethics and any existing members of staff that you may have. So, gather up any resumes that catch your eye and offer the potential candidates interviews. Getting to know them on a more personal basis will help to make the final decision more simple.
Requesting References
While it’s not always necessary for people to include references on their resume, it’s always a good idea to request them if you think you have found someone that you would like to take on. Why? Well, it means that you can get a previous employer’s honest opinion of the person who is looking to join your company. A good reference will provide you with a green light to go ahead with offering the individual the position. But every now and then you will hear reports of lateness, unexplained absences, lack of productivity, bad customer service or even antisocial behaviour. In cases such as these, you’ll know that this person may be worth avoiding as a potential employee. Sure, sometimes people’s behaviour can change, and people may deserve a second chance. But at the end of the day, you’re going to be paying them to fulfill a particular role within your company, and you want to be as certain as possible that you’re going to get your money’s worth.
Offering a Thorough Induction
When you finally take on staff, it’s important that they are familiar not only with their role and workplace, but the roles of all the other individuals that come together to create the final product that your company is selling. This will allow all of your staff to work together and get a good grip of what your company is about. They can pool their skills to advance their output effectively. By offering a thorough induction when they join, they will be clear on what is expected of them and who to contact should they have issues, problems, or require help and guidance.
Provide Health and Safety Training
Technically, you only need one member of staff on each shift to be trained in first aid. However, it’s a good idea to train as many of your employees in first aid as possible. Why? Well, a major incident could result in multiple people needing to be treated at once and you never know when the individual harmed may need first aid carried out on them too. Enroll as many staff members as possible on official training courses. This will ensure that problems are rectified quickly, sickness and recovery time among your workforce is reduced, and will boost the quality of the work space, resulting in healthier and happier staff members.
While you are bound to experience hiccups at some point or another when running a small business, there are steps that you can take to make the process as smooth as possible. Hopefully, these sage pieces of advice should make your manufacturing and staffing processes as simple and straightforward as possible at least!