Christian Kruse takes us through the current state of marketing and how small businesses can cope up with the burnout that the pandemic brought with itself.
If you are like most small business owners, you probably have the tendency to want to do everything yourself. And, it is understandable since this is the passion that you are pursuing and you want everything to run smoothly. The excitement that comes with the realization of your entrepreneurial dream drives you to work long hours to ensure everything is streamlined.
What you don’t know is that you are fuelling a recipe for burnout. You will not see it coming, it will creep in overtime only to realize when you are already going downside. By this time, you have a difficult time making decisions, you are no longer eager to work and the initial passion is diminishing.
Small business burnout is a monster that needs to be nipped in the bud before it kills your business. Here are 8 strategies to help you avoid being a victim.
1. Simplify things
Some business processes are downright complex. For instance, if you have employees spread across the globe, you are required to understand tax and labor laws for each country for payroll purposes. Instead of trying to do all that, it would greatly give you the much-needed peace of mind if you have a way of doing such a payroll in a simplified manner. You can utilize one of the global payroll solutions, such as Global PEO to have everything centralized in one platform. This service automates payroll, keeping you compliant, t with labor and tax laws even when they change.
2. Delegate
In as much as you would want to do everything yourself, you need to come to the realization that you can’t do it all.
Insisting on running a one-man show will leave you fatigued with little or nothing to show for it. Identify tasks that you can delegate to your employees and prep them on how to do them.
If you have no budget for employees in some areas such as accounts, consider outsourcing them. Also, utilizing some task management tool will enable your yo better manage the workflow and more easy to delegate. In this way, you will have a better overview of the timeframe and the progress of the tasks. Eventually, when you see that someone from your team or a certain task is legging you can interfere and contribute in fixing it.
3. Prioritize tasks
As a business owner, you are going to have a million things to do in a day. Trying to do them all at a go will make you feel overwhelmed and demotivated. You need to take it easy and understand that you don’t really have to burn the midnight oil tackling business tasks. Rank the tasks according to priority and then focus to deal with one task at a time. If it is a huge task, break it down to small doable chunks and then tackle each mini-task at a time.
4. Take regular breaks
Even with a lot to do in your list, your body deserves to take a break in between tasks. Otherwise, you will be compromising your health by working for long hours without a break. Furthermore, stepping away from work for a few minutes is a great way to re energize.
You will be surprised how your creativity will flow after a short break. There are multiple ways how you can use your break time to rejoice and free up your mind. Try taking regular walks either in the park or in the office. If you take breaks in the office you can use it to connect with the employees and talk about matters not related to work. Simply fun topic that, first let you know your employees better but also losen up your mind a little bit.
5. Take care of your health
With so much stress subjected to you on a daily basis, your body will have so much pressure to deal with. You need to stay healthy for you to be able to withstand such daily stressors. Ensure that you are eating healthy and exercising regularly. Take in enough water and make sure that you get 7-8 hours of sleep every night.
6. Learn to say no
When your business is still at the foundation, it can be a struggle to turn down work. This is the time you are building your clientele base and looking to stabilize your cash flows. However, taking more than you can handle will only work negatively for you and your business. Have a criteria for gauging clients and a checklist for work that you can accept. Setting such standards will help you say no without feeling guilty.
7. Be realistic
Again, the pressure to gain clients at the beginning of the business can easily lead you to overpromise on what you can do. You then try to outdo yourself so that you don’t disappoint the client. Overworking will only make you tired and the risk of delivering substandard work can be heightened. To be on the safe side, be realistic on what you can do from the start.
8. Socialize
When building up a business, the long hours at work can easily rob you of your time for socializing. You might think that you don’t need it, but networking with friends and family is a good way to rejuvenate your body and mind. In as much as possible, make sure to take time out of your schedule to visit your friends and just get away from work.
Now, given the situation with the COVID 19 pandemic and the new governmental restrictions and the quarantine, the level of socialization has fallen even more. This will eventually affect the employee’s interpersonal skills and it will become ever harder to catch up. Therefore, in times like these it imperative to organize activities such as ‘distant’ morning coffees, that keep people engaged socially with each other.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, avoiding small business burnout boils down to prioritizing your work, managing your tasks and taking care of your body and mind. It can be quite a struggle, but you need to put in the necessary efforts if you are to elevate your business to the next level.
Check Out The New Martech Cube Podcast. For more such updates follow us on Google News Martech News
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Christian Kruse, Martech Cube Contributor
Christian Kruse is economic in marketing specialization, Strategic Consulting. With over 20 years’ experience working at the intersection of marketing and technology. A transformational leader, Kruse has held a raft of executive positions throughout his career including Chief Strategy, Data, Strategic Director for Oracle Marketing Cloud, and Responsys in America.