5 Tips to streamline your small business to avoid entrepreneurial burnout

Many people think that the boss is always living their best life. After all, entrepreneurs get to set their own rules, keep their own hours and do whatever they want, right? 

Well, the reality is often quite different. From ensuring that sales targets are met to keeping customer success imperatives front-of-focus, keeping staff motivated to streamlining day-to-day operations, being an entrepreneur is hard graft, and our local business owners are feeling it!

According to Indeed's recent survey, "52% of respondents reported experiencing burnout in 2021".

So, if you're feeling the heat, don't stress—we've got your back! Here are five tips to streamline your small business to save you time and effort, and help you avoid that dreaded entrepreneurial burnout.

💡 1. Invest in your people with upskilling 

Few realisations are more stressful for an entrepreneur or small business owner than knowing your current team does not have the requisite skill sets to help grow your business.

If this sounds familiar, don't panic—remember that you chose your team for a reason. Investing in that potential you identified is a key metric in your business's sustainable growth. 

As an entrepreneur in 2022, you know that industry best practices evolve every few months, with new technologies and insights driving innovation. Up-skilling employees ensure your business stays ahead of the competition and is agile enough to take advantage of any operational or business edge that may present itself, without the need for constant, time-consuming oversight.

Furthermore, ensuring that your employees are motivated and feel valued drives productivity.

Hellopeter Tip: 

Define very clearly what skill sets your business needs or will need in the near future and, together with your team, chart how your skills-development plan will meet those needs.

🧠 2. Work smarter, not harder

The temptation for most entrepreneurs is to meet each challenge with hard work. While that attitude is commendable, various accessible and affordable tools are available to streamline your approach and avoid burning out.

If, for example, your business receives or makes a lot of phone calls or emails, automated engagement software allows you to initiate conversations at scale or craft appropriate, growth-driven responses without wasting time and effort.

If you're looking to improve your Search Engine Optimisation (how high you rank on Google) and make it easier for your customers to find you online, there are affordable solutions to boost your organic search results, Hellopeter rating, Google presence and Google star rating without investing hours of your valuable time.

Hellopeter Tip:

Do your research! Investing in software solutions can be intimidating if you're not a 'techie'. However, companies like  Hellopeter offer affordable, easy to use, 'plug-and-play' solutions across the business-growth board. 

Hellopeter's Entry-Level Business Account is FREE, and the Growth 1 Plan is available for less than R500 a month!.

📊 3. Do your market research

The most successful companies became that way by understanding precisely what their market wants and needs. In 2015, it's estimated that companies spent about $68 billion on market research alone. After all, how can you meet your customers' needs if you don't know what they are?

These days, however, more and more businesses realise that, instead of initiating complicated and time-consuming market research protocols or hiring expensive market-research firms, they can just skip the middle-man and get the information they need. They simply need to get it directly from the horse's mouth!

Online consumer review platforms are more sophisticated than ever, allowing you access to customer-generated opinions about your business, product line, and customer service. Today, most of your market is engaging on online review platforms. So, make sure you're listening!

Hellopeter tip: 

Scaling your business's communications and engagement allows you to draw invaluable insights—in real-time—about your customers' behaviour, preferences and expectations, and without massive expenditure and undefined return on research investment.

📧 4. Don't be afraid to outsource

One of the defining traits of an entrepreneur is the juggling of a million different tasks, all at the same time. However, the unfortunate truth is that most entrepreneurs just don't possess the time or the requisite skillsets to do everything at a high level. So, attempting this often leads to increased stress and inevitable burnout.

Often, small businesses hire individuals who can add value across multiple workstreams. But, especially when it's time to scale your reach, engagement or operations, bringing in a ringer can help reduce stress while ensuring the job gets done to a high standard. Trust us when we say that you really don't want your intern designing your website for you!

Hellopeter Tip: 

Conduct an honest cost benefit analysis about the resources available to you, the importance of the task in question and the cost of bringing in a hired gun. You might find that bringing in someone to accomplish an important task quickly and efficiently is more beneficial (and less stressful) than doing it yourself and making mistakes.

⭐ 5. Let your customers do your marketing 

There's nothing more depressing than sitting in your shiny new store, and no customers walk through the door!

You've got your storefront (brick and mortar or online) sorted. Your product line is amazing, and your team is ready to rock. But, until people hear just how fantastic you are, they'll never know! 

Did you know that up to 90% of your potential customers are searching online reviews about your business? Furthermore, those online reviews are trusted up to 12 times more than your own product reviews or marketing efforts!

That means that most of the people who will ever buy from you are driven to action by the opinions of your previous customers.

Hellopeter Tip: 

Invest in an affordable, proven, online review management platform that allows you to engage with customers, and solve their complaints or queries in real-time. Then, share your amazing customer service results as adverts, social media posts, and at your pay points to drive traffic, positive narratives and, ultimately, sales.

So, if you're an entrepreneur or small business owner, bookmark this blog for the next time you feel the heat. Then, take a deep breath and check back with our five tips to streamline your business and save you time and effort. 

So, in a nutshell, remember to:

💡 Invest in your people

🧠 Work smarter, not harder

📊 Do your market research

📧 Outsource when necessary

⭐ Let your customers do your marketing for you!

Keep calm and streamline your business with Hellopeter in 2022!

While we have you, check our 16 short success stories of how some of Mzansi's leading SMEs leveraged Hellopeter's solutions toward sustainable growth.

Create a FREE Hellopeter Business account today!