We Are Mobile First
As we navigate a new year, we’re considering the essential lessons that Business Managers need to learn in 2020 in order to complement the products and services that they currently offer.
Having a good product or service is not enough to have a solid business in 2020. There are, for instance, many cases of companies with original, functional products that have gone under simply because they had bad administration behind them.
Towards the end of last year, Ramiro shared a post on the 10 Essential Qualities Every Manager Needs. In the interests of making 2020 your best business year yet, he’s back again to share some of the most important lessons that he has learned during the last 3.5 years as Business Manager here at We Are Mobile First.
It is impossible for someone to master all subjects and disciplines, as much as you may want to try, so surrounding yourself with professionals trained in different areas will give you peace of mind and balance. Outsourcing could help your business.
Having professional advisers that are responsible for all the accounting, financial, fiscal, legal and labour management gives you more time to focus on your work and what you do best and it has, as such, made a big difference to my role over the years.
Fail to plan, plan to fail. There’s a reason that aphorism exists!
Start the year by putting processes in place in order to help the year run smoothly.
Put important tax dates in the calendar and get clued up on how to use relevant software. Consider your functions and objectives and draft up annual, monthly, weekly and daily action plans.
Managing money is just as important as earning it! As nauseating as it may seem, you’re going to want to set aside a chunk of time to plan the budget and assess the CashFlow before you do anything else.
The economy is malleable so you have to prepare for contingencies should changes need to be made.
It’s much easier to maintain the stability of a company if you’re ready to face reductions in profits or general income.
Make sure you always have a cash reserve in place to cover a minimum of operating expenses, whether that’s for three, six or even twelve months, should challenges arise.
We explored this idea in much more detail in our post on the essential qualities every Business Manager needs but in order to adopt said qualities it’s important to make the mindset shift now!
Value your team members as individuals, not only as a group, and be aware of the capabilities of each member in order to get the most value out of everyone.
Think about the ways you can put practices in place that have a positive impact on everyone that you work with. For example, look at how much time you’re all spending in meetings on a weekly basis and explore whether or not you need to re-address the balance. I believe meetings don’t need to be any longer than 30 minutes at a time.
Look at the way you’re communicating with your team and assess how you could communicate even more effectively with them over the coming year.
Think about the ways in which you could give more weight behind discussions. Your words, instructions and actions become all the more effective when they’re introduced alongside an example. Think about instances in your working life that you could repurpose as teachable moments.
The perfect work-life balance can be an elusive beast but, as we enter a new decade, it’s more important than ever to banish bad habits and learn to be more mindful with your time.
Find out how I strive to achieve this in the following post: Minimalism & The Perfect Work-Life Balance.
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Those are some of the essential lessons Business Managers need to learn as we navigate 2020. Do you have any lessons to add? Tweet us and we’ll be sure to retweet the responses!
We Are Mobile First is a digital product agency based in Barcelona helping to transform businesses in a mobile-first world. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Medium to be notified of our future posts and stay up-to-date with our company news. We share weekly content on everything from the 11 essential qualities every Business Manager needs to the 6 benefits of co-working in the city.