Being an entrepreneur I love reading books about businesses. How to run them better, benefit from people's experiences and just to see another point of view to reduce the risk of becoming too staid and insular.
One thing that interested me a lot was business systems and procedures. When I started out several years ago, I had been working for large corporations and I was sick to the back teeth of systems, procedures and spreadsheets. I seemed to spend more time doing that than my actual work.
So I rebelled against this sort of thing to begin with and at first this did me know harm. But as my business expanded it became plainly apparent that I needed to vastly improve my systems. For a start, updating my accounts spreadsheet took up a lot of my time.
So I set about looking for helpful software in this regard. There is plenty to choose from but nothing matched the requirements unique to my business. I would have to fiddle the system to work for me. Not an attractive proposition.
Then it occurred to me. I design database applications all the time for ecommerce websites and the like. Surely it would be easy to design my own package. So I set about with this task which took me two working days in all. That is a lot of time to give up for someone who is self employed. However, I calculated that I would save at least five working days' worth of effort per year. So it was a worthwhile investment.
I am so glad I did it. Since I first created my own bespoke accounts package running the accounts side of my business has become a doddle. Well OK then it isn't a doddle but I have cut down the time spent by at least 75%.
Since doing this I have created three or four back-office systems for clients and they have been very well received. The amounts saved generally pay for a new system within a few short months.
So now I have to figure out a way of marketing this to my customers. I am known as a web designer in Nottingham but not as a bespoke applications developer. Also, what would businesses search for in Google? I must find out because this could be lucrative both for me and my customers.
So if you are looking to improve the efficiency of your business today then please contact me and I am sure I can come up with something that will save you lots of money over a long period.