4 Key Steps to Effective Time Management

You’ve done it. You established your business, hired staff, and created a customer base. Now, how do you manage your time and the time of your staff effectively. 

You most likely got into this business because it is your passion in life. You have a distinct love of what you do or you wouldn’t be doing it. You want to concentrate on the operations of your business while at the same time generating customer satisfaction. In some cases, owners have another career as well, so effective time management is even more crucial.

Time management can prove challenging at times but we hope these steps will help you create a more well run and efficient business:

Step 1: Have a plan

As an owner what is your primary responsibility? Are you going to be involved in the day-to-day operations of the business (customer facing) or are you going to hire a Manager to carry out that responsibility? Organize your business by individual responsibilities and determine how much time each staff member is going to require to complete their duties. By separating responsibility, you will also be able to determine how many staff members you are going to need. As you get started, this is an estimate but, of course, the number of staff can be tweaked and adjusted to meet your organizational needs.  

Step 2: Automate your process whenever possible

Use technology to help manage your time. Create a system that allows your clients to take on as much responsibility as you are willing to give them. The more they can do themselves the more time it frees up for you and your staff to focus on the business at hand. Some examples of these are self enrollment, self purchases of plans/passes, and adding their own credit card payment information. Pike13’s Branded App adds another avenue to help empower your clients and have them perform these tasks while on the go.

Step 3: Set aside time for regular tasks 

If not daily, we recommend keeping a close eye on your business at least weekly. Set aside at least one hour a week to review the past week’s transactions and membership activity. Pike13 has made key analytics simple to review with the Insights dashboard. Insights dashboard allows you to view key business and membership analytics such as transactions in the last week, cancellations in the last week, new members added, unpaids and more–all at the touch of a mouse. Keeping on top of your business on a weekly basis will help you save time in the long run. For example, having to track down a large number of unpaid clients. You may also want to have weekly staff meetings to review this information so that everyone is on the same page. 

Step 4: Delegate responsibility

Delegating individual responsibility is important in helping to reduce repetitive tasks. This will save time and create an efficient workflow within your organization.  It is important that each staff member have a clear understanding of their duties so they don’t overlap with those of other co-workers. It will also help reduce any uncertainties as to what your staff should be doing on a daily basis which will, in turn, reduce idle time within your organization.   

We hope that these ideas will help you to save time, create a more efficient work environment, and improve your bottom line!