This blog is focused on providing tips an general information to people that run their own small businesses. Running a small business can be the American dream or it can be an absolute nightmare. all depending on how you approach it and your attitude towards business. When set up the right way a business should run effectively and efficiently with as little  or as much input from you the owner as you wish to give – that’s what I consider a Nimble business and if you have manged to achieve this you are on of The Nimble Few. One definition of a business that I have always liked comes from ActionCoach and is “a commercial, profitable enterprise that works without you“. You see, if you set up your business so that it runs without you then you have the choice of how much time and effort you wish to put into that business. You control the business and the business does not control you. There is a common misconception I hear from many business owners who believe that their business is totally unique and therefore none of the many tactics and strategies will work. What they fail to realize is that the bulk of what they need all applies to how to run and business and not to their particular market their business or geographic area. This probably fails into the good old 80 / 20 rule and at least 80% of a successful business is about running the business. I don’t care if you are running a Maid Service in Minneapolis, a wedding catering Columbus Ohio or a company that does house cleaning in New Jersey. Understanding and executing on good tactics and strategies for running a business will definitely help your business. So what are the areas that need to be focused on? Well it is my experience that systems is what most small businesses lack. Systems are important as they will enable you to do the repetitive tasks in an efficient and predictable way and pass these on to new members of your team when required. Systems apply to every aspect of your business from sales and marketing, accounting, production, delivery and even to the way your recruit, hire and fire your team. So lets consider some systems. If you are running a handyman columbus business having a simple form to make sure that you get all the information you need from every prospect would be a great system. Too many times this is just left to be done in an ad hoc fashion. I have seen so many companies do something like hire a new receptionist and because that person is experienced they feel they don’t need to train them. Well guess what, they may know how to be a receptionist but they don’t know how to be a receptionist in your business. Having a simple form for them to complete for new prospects means that nothing will be forgotten, you get the information in the same way every time making your or the salesperson’s job a lot easier and allowing everything to run a lot smoother. Hiring people and the way that you do it is really important. I don’t care if you are running a maid service worcester ma or are a hernia surgeon columbus ohio.