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The first step to healing from an injury is to stop the bleeding. It seems obvious. But it is surprising how often people fail to apply this simple rule to their business health. If you have ever attempted to run a business, you know that there are a thousand tiny paper cuts along the way. Those paper cuts add up until at some point, all of your profits are going to maintain the status quo.
It is a little like bailing water from a leaky boat. You eventually lose all forward momentum because all of your energy is going into bailing water and staying afloat. Eventually, you will run out of energy and start to sink. If you want to have any hope of surviving, you have to apportion your energy wisely. Your first priority is not to sink. The way to achieve that goal is to fix the leak. If you spend all your energy bailing and not enough fixing, you will sink.
It is the same for your business. You have to stop ignoring the paper cuts. They represent leaks in your business. Don’t wait till they become big problems. Fix them while they are still small enough to manage. Here are a few money-losing problems people tend to ignore, and what you can do to fix them:
Minor Property Damage
An office building is like a house in that it is a project that is never completed. There is always something to repair or improve. And that can be very frustrating. But you have to think of it as part of the cost of doing business. If you ignore the little problems, they become big problems.
One such perineal property issue is leaky pipes. It often starts small, just a drop here and there. At that stage, it is easy to ignore because it is not costing you a lot of money, yet. However, left unattended, that leak becomes moisture buildup, then mold, then catastrophe. What you need is pipe leak protection before that drip becomes a drain on your resources.
That old copper pipe running through your building is prone to pinhole leaks. It requires a professional with specialized equipment and know-how to deal with the problem. But it can be repaired. You can stop the leak before it becomes a flood. Stop losing money due to outdated, physical infrastructure. Fix it while the problem is small so that your profits can go toward moving your business forward.
Stop Doing Everything Yourself
It is good to have a “can-do” spirit. But applied to the extreme, that spirit can tank your business. You have to learn to let go of some of the responsibility and delegate. You can do this even if you don’t have a staff. What you have to do is outsource time-consuming responsibilities even if you have a home business.
Everyone knows that time is money. How much time are you losing doing your own accounting and bookkeeping? How much time are you sinking into lead generation? How about keeping your website optimized? All of these things can be outsourced. When you are doing all the little things yourself, your business suffers in ways that are hard to quantify. Imagine how your business would benefit if you had even two more hours a day, every day. That is the minimum you are likely to get back from outsourcing.
Reduce Your Debt Service
Profits are meaningless if it all goes into serving your debt. Start keeping more of your money by refinancing your loans. By refinancing your home loan, you can lower your monthly payments and use the savings to improve your business’s cash flow. You can also get a win by paying more on your business loan every month and taking a big bite out of the interest on that loan.
The leaks that sink your ship are usually the ones you don’t see. It is amazing how much more money you stand to make by not losing it to physical infrastructure in need of repair, losing too much time by doing everything yourself, and spending too much on debt that can be easily reduced.
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