Key Habits For Small Business Success

People often wonder how highly successful Australian small business owners make a large amount of money each year. They often want to know the secrets to being successful. Here are ten habits of highly successful small business owners.

Focus: Every small business owner and employee wears multiple hats. The nature of a small business also means that you experiment as you continually refine your business model to meet changing market demands. But this small business reality does not give you permission to abandon your focus. You need to have a primary focus around which the company is aligned at any point in time. It should be as clear for each of your employees as it is for you. If it’s not, then it’s your job as a small business owner to determine and communicate it—not once, but in an ongoing way that your employees and you have a rallying point around which you are orienting at any given time.

Urgency: For your small business to be successfully urgent, you need to start telling the truth about your busy-ness. It is very easy to appear urgent as you hustle about your day with a full calendar and an overwhelming to do list. But real urgency builds on focus. You are urgent about the things that really matter and you self-impose requirements to deliver things quickly. Think about how you operate before going on vacation. You know you’ll be in less communication for the week and your mindset and motivation responds in kind. You get your desk flat and have things handled at a certain level so that you can let go. But what if the end of each week was like the day before vacation. What would get accomplished?

Execution: All the focus and urgency in the world means little if you never follow through on what your plan is. This year, do you intend to create a sales culture, achieve an aggressive revenue goal, or launch a new product? Whatever you choose for your focus, your main touch point each week should be – how am I doing on execution. Otherwise, it’s just another good idea.

 Keep Paperwork Organized: You have to handle a lot of paper as a business owner, from bills to contracts. It's easy to get bogged down in all that paperwork, which depletes your energy and interferes with your ability to focus. Buy filing systems, plastic bins and boxes to keep paperwork stored and out of sight. You can find great deals at yard sales, but don't wait too long to find what you need. Make a decision as soon as you receive a piece of paper, as to where to put it. The trash bin should be one of your options.

Find the Right People: The third habit you must develop is the habit of hiring the right people to help you achieve your goals. Fully 95 percent of your success as an entrepreneur or executive will be determined by the quality of the people you recruit to work with you or to work on your team. The fact is, the best companies have the best people. The second-best companies have the second-best people. The third-best companies have the average or mediocre people, and they're on their way out of business.

These habits may well provide you with seven of the keys needed for achieving success in your small business. For details contact us at 03 9597 9966, where Australian Business Advisors will help you out.