The Best Advice I Received and How It Helped My Business

When I first started my business, I was overwhelmed with advice about the best way to run a business. There are a few pieces of advice that became invaluable to me and the growth of my business. This advice is something I try to share with others starting a business. The advice I received not only helped my business grow, it helped to protect my finances.

Do As Much Of the Work Yourself as You Can

I wear many hats as a business owner. When I first started my business I was overwhelmed. I wanted to delegate jobs to other people to help ease the workload. I was then given the advice to try to do all of the workload myself, if possible. Hiring people to do jobs that I could do would eat up a lot of capitol. I would also have to pay taxes and insurance on the people that I hired. I decided to tough it out, and do the tasks myself. It was worth the extra hours I put into my business. I saved a great deal of money, and was able to take the money I saved and build up my stock.

Independent Contractors

Another business owner gave me advice on hiring people as independent contractors. This is especially important if you sell products. This advice helped me weed out the good and bad quickly. When someone is paid by the piece, they are going to work harder and produce more product. I found when someone was paid by the hour the amount of pieces they made didn't matter, and productivity decreased greatly. Also, the person I hired was responsible for their taxes and insurance. I only needed help at my peek times like the holidays. Hiring independent contractors gives me the flexibility to hire help only when absolutely necessary.

Know Where Your Money Goes

The best advice I received was to control my own business finances. I learned this lesson the hard way. When I first started my business I thought I should have someone help with the books and financing. When you give your financial power to someone else you may lose a lot money. I got financially savvy fast. I took an accounting class, and I know every transaction that goes in and out of my business. I am the only one that is authorized to make any financial business decisions. This advice saved me and my business from financial ruin.

Renting Equipment

I received advice at the beginning of my business about renting my equipment instead of purchasing it. This saved my business a lot of money. I rented mostly office equipment not knowing what machines would be crucial to my business. I found that a lot of the equipment I didn't need, and there was equipment I never thought I would need that turned out to be crucial to the operation of my business. This advice saved me from buying unnecessary equipment, and my capitol wasn't tied up in equipment and could be used to produce more product.