As a small business owner, you might find it challenging to travel and leave the operations of your business at the hands of another person. Well, the truth is that you will need some rest at times, or might be forced to travel to handle family or business matters.
While traveling, you need to make sure that the operations of your business are not affected in any way. This is important in ensuring that your customers get everything that they need even when you are not there.
However, this is not easy. How do you keep your small business running smoothly even when you are traveling? Here are a few tips to follow to ensure that your business operations are not affected by your absence.
Leave a Team You Can Trust
If you know that you will be traveling even before you start your business – something that is difficult to avoid – then you need to be careful with the people you hire. Right from the first hiring process, use an ATS to hire and retain the best talent.
Make sure that you are hiring credible people who you can trust. These are people who can handle their tasks with little or no supervision. They should be able to put the company first and address the needs of your customers efficiently.
If you realize that one or more employees are not trustworthy, do not hesitate to get rid of them. You need to look at the future and the things that your employees can do for you even when you are not there.
Work Ahead
If your travel is not an emergency, it means that you have planned well for it early enough. You should have a plan set for your small business early enough before the travel date approaches.
For instance, since you know the tasks that you handle, try as much as you can to get as many tasks taken care of as you can ahead of the travel date. You can even handle some tasks that need your consultation before you travel.
Doing this means that you will have lightened the workload left behind for your employees. They will not have any extra tasks to take care of despite your absence. This way, you will keep your business running smoothly.
Forward Calls to Your Assistant
Being away from your business means that you might not be able to answer your business calls. Even though you might notify your customers that you are not available, you need to talk to them to handle any problems that they might be facing.
Fortunately, you do not need to worry about this because you can easily set up call forwarding to your assistant. Your assistant should be able to deal with any issues coming from your customers and only notify you in case of an emergency.
This way, you will be avoiding missed calls, something that can frustrate your customers and make you lose some of them.
Document Your Workflows
Technology advancement has given birth to many tools that businesses use to document their workflows. You need to choose one of the best tools for this and document how tasks are handled in your business.
In addition, make sure that the tool you choose allows collaboration. This way, all your employees will have access to this tool and can easily see the steps needed to keep your business running.
You can even use these tools to assign tasks to your employees and track their progress even when traveling. With deadlines, comment sections, notes sections, and so on, you will find it easy to follow up on your employees even when you are away.
Create an Emergency Contact
Even if your reason to travel is to unplug or maybe you are on a vacation, you also need to make sure that you are available in case of any emergencies requiring your attention. This might include things that your team might not handle without your input.
Having a good team that you can trust is good, and will make sure that you have no issues with the operations of your business when you are away. However, some emergencies cannot be avoided.
You, therefore, need to create an emergency contact, maybe an email address or a virtual phone number, for your team to reach you in case of an emergency. If you decide to do this, you can disable your business contact details.
Following these tips, you will ensure that the operations of your business are smooth even when you are away.
