How to run a successful business without being business obsessed

I liked the martial arts business because I felt that it had the potential to be run only less than 8 hours a day. I said potential too… because when I first quit my regular job to pursue my karate business I found that I was working 12 hours a days. I was business obsessed. I thought the more hours that I worked the more successful the business would be. Instead, it burned me out and hurt my bottom line.

I see now that being business obsessed is a huge problem. I needed to work smart, not harder - to make a business more effective. This idea started me on the path of working towards reducing the number of hours but at the same time increase my results. Now that we're $10,000+ a month business, my business makes more money, but I actually work only about four hours per day.

Eight Steps to conquering business obsession and working fewer hours
Step 1: Automated billing – This step alone saved tons of hours. Chasing after people every month for their tuition is no fun. Automated billing makes collect tuition a cinch. We require this for every student. Okay, I hear someone saying that I will lose customers with these strict billing terms. Actually, I found this helps qualify good customers. If a customer does not like these terms, in essence, they are saying that they really cannot afford your services.

Step 2: Train your staff – For every hour of staff training, I free up about two hours of my time. A good staff multiple your effort ten-fold. In addition, you need to avoid the temptation to do tasks for them. During the day, I could easily finish the administrative tasks for my student manager, but I remind myself that it’s not my job. I use to do this and watch my student manager sit at the front desk bored out of her skull.

Step 3: Forward Business Phone to Cell Phone – During the typical day, we receive very little phone traffic. Most of the phone traffic is at night after people return from work. I was hanging out at the school all day, but found this added to my burn out. In addition, the only walk in traffic I received was time wasters like sales people attempting to sell advertisement or local vendors looking to chat. By forwarding my phones, I can work from home and still answer the important phone calls during the day.

Step 4: QuickBooks Integration - My billing company offered the option to integration my billing system with QuickBooks. I paid for the upgrade. Now, I push a button and in a few seconds, I’m done. The extra money is well worth the hours of time saved. As a bonus, I save money in accountant fees too.


Step 5: Website Opt-in - Here’s another upgrade I paid for. My website allows customers to Opt-in. The website opt-in automatically enters their information into my system for follow up. This saves the effort of manually entering their information and puts them in the cue for automatic follow up e-mails and our monthly newsletter.


Step 6: Create our own customer list – When prospects coming to my school or call, we get their address and e-mail. It’s easier than you think. This way, I can put them on my mailing and e-mail list. If they don't sign up right away, we consistently try to reconnect on a regular basis with them through mailings and our e-newsletter to entice them to join our school.

Step 7: E-newsletter – We had a newsletter that we printed and mailed every month. It was time consuming, expensive, and ineffective (not to mention wasteful with all the paper). Instead, we e-mail a monthly e-newsletter. No paper, no stamps, and it’s easy to put together. Customers can unsubscribe automatically (I don’t want to spam them). I blend elements together to easily make the newsletter. Feedburner Buzz Boost is great for this. With Buzz Boost, I create an automatically updating calendar of events, blog articles, and school announcements. I post this newsletter on our student section website too. All these elements create a synergistic effect because I use the same messages in many forms.

Step 8: Write a Blog – My personal blog at http://timrosanelli.blogspot.com gets more hits than my school website, therefore, casting a larger net for capturing the attention of potential students. In addition, you’re creating an atmosphere of being the obvious expert in our community for the martial arts. Currently, I have hundreds of reader following my own and schools adventures at the blog. Since not everyone is in my community, it also creates the opportunity to generate other products that you can market to these remote students.

Next steps: I generated more ideas to maximize my results and minimize my time. I plan to implement them by the end of the summer.

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