Chikeka Chidinma
Running a small business isn’t a piece of cake; it comes with many ups and downs. Sometimes, you feel like quitting because it's not yielding the desired results, and from my observation, one major factor is finances. It's not that you're not making sales, but you can't figure out what's wrong.
Let me tell you the story of how Faith scaled her jewelry business financially.
Faith started her business in February of this year. She was elated because it had always been her dream to own a business.
Her business was making a lot of sales, but month after month, she would bitterly complain about not making financial progress.
By the sixth month, Faith was on the verge of quitting. It had gotten worse, and she was burned out from staying up all night trying to figure out what was going wrong.
But one faithful day, she stumbled upon a two-hour-long video clip, and that was the turning point of her business.
Everyone around her noticed a significant change because the constant complaints stopped, and it was evident that things were going smoothly for her business.
A friend of hers, who was going through the same, decided to ask Faith how she was able to change her financial game.
Faith started off like this: "Trust me, it wasn’t easy, but I knew if I didn’t take the bull by the horns, my business would crumble."
I followed four tips that changed my business game. Let me tell you about them:
Firstly, I invested in my growth. You know when they say, "Investing in your growth will make you unique," they weren't kidding. Starting out, I didn’t realize I had to learn a lot of things for my business's growth. All that was in my head then was to own a business (chuckles), and it made my business stagnant. So, I paid for business classes (started with the affordable ones and upgraded to more expensive ones), I read lots of business, sales, and finance books (this was hard because I was a lazy reader), but it helped me a lot because I implemented it.
Secondly, I got an exercise book since I didn’t have a laptop then. Before, I wasn’t keeping track of my cash flow, and that caused a lot of damage (I didn't know if I was making a profit or loss). So, this is what I did with the book: I drew a table and sectioned it into six parts: Sales, Profits, Savings (this one I didn’t have easy access to; I made sure I didn’t have a debit card), Emergency Fund Savings, Reinvestment (Ads, mentorship, workshops, etc.), and Salary for myself.
Thirdly, I created a weekly budget, and I was very strict about it (to be honest, it was the hardest). I was so used to impulse buying, which was unhealthy for my business's growth. This helped me cut out lots of unnecessary expenses, and I was able to focus more on the things that were bringing progress to my business finances.
Lastly, separating my personal account from my business account was the ball in the net. It made tracking expenses, income, profits, and losses easier, and I could tell if my business was making progress or not.
Her friend's jaw dropped because she was expecting to hear some rigid tips, but this was much easier to grasp, and she said, "Girl, I am definitely implementing these into my business asap!"
Faith gave a loud laugh at her friend's reaction.
I hope you will also implement these tips into your small business!
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