How Do You Know If You’re a Good Solo Business Manager?

When you do business as a solo small business owner, you alone are responsible for every aspect of the business.

If there are breakdowns in your product sales, customer relations, or financial management, there’s no one to shake a finger at except the guy in the mirror.

Now in a typical “regular” business, each of the employee managers that handle a department like those mentioned above will be scrutinized and evaluated in their performance.

They gain a reputation for, not necessarily their departmental knowledge, but their actual performance – the ability to turn their knowledge into output that can be tracked and measured.

But in a solo small business, there are not separate individual managers responsible for the various different operations that must happen.

In fact, sometimes the business owner has difficulty in recognizing that there may be a problem brewing on the horizon because he is not watching a particular aspect of his business.

He may be so involved in the overall business, so close to the problem, that he fails to see that he will soon have a major issue that could have been corrected had it been identified and addressed sooner.

So what is the criteria against which a good solo business manager can be evaluated or judged to see if he can make the grade?

I believe he is judged by the marketplace.

He has no way to be an objective judge of himself and his own performance.

What good does it do to have the business owner talk to himself about his mistakes and his need to solve some departmental problem?

No, instead, the market will be his judge.

If he can keep sales on track, if he can meet his business goals, he can feel satisfied that his performance is adequate.

In a solo business, performance is always the bottom line.

A good solo business manager is one that sets optimistic but achievable goals for his business in terms of sales and net income, and then manages the business in whatever way he can to meet his goals.

Solo business owners, particularly those who have no previous private sector business experience, are bound to make some faulty assumptions, poor decisions, and counterproductive strategy moves.  Success is never a straight line from today out into the future.

Management is not an exact science and the solo operator can only hope to do no better than to overcome his mistakes, push through his challenges, and still reach his business goals at some point in spite of the difficult down periods he will experience.

The great thing about solo business, though, is that the risk of failure can be minimized.

Owners can set up their business with minimal financial investment.

They can control the upfront costs and long term commitments.

Smart owners will outsource much of what they do, so there will be no employees to fire if things don’t go well.

Inventory costs can be kept to a minimum (or even be non-existent) depending upon the type of business products sold. (A real advantage of information businesses – no real inventory!)

Do you have what it takes to run a solo business?

Or maybe a better question is this: “Can you execute a small business into a profit machine?”

Really, anyone can do it.  But not everyone will have the commitment, the know-how, the persistence, and the temperament to be a success.  It has been stated that only about 5% of all business start-ups are still going after 5 years in business.  Those aren’t great odds!

Can you become one of the profitable minority that creates and grows a small business?

Yes, you can do it.  Take the time and make the effort to learn how to be successful in Internet small business.

To your online business success,

Steve Browne

www.stevebrownedirect.com

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