Almost every entrepreneur has one or two stories to tell when it comes to cash flow and burn rate. Sometimes, your business is making a lot of money but manages to spend even more.
The first thing to assess is yourself. Are you taking too much from the honey jar? If the answer is ‘no,’ then you have to look into your business. A glance at your financial records might not reveal what is keeping your business broke.
In black and white, every expense looks legitimate, even necessary. You might not be responsible for what’s keeping your business broke. Surprisingly, fixing your cash flow problem may require you to assess your team and their actions.
In many cases, it’s your team.
Before we list the four ways your team is keeping you broke, we must clarify a crucial point. The fact that a team member could be the cause of your declining revenue is both surprising and repairable. And this doesn’t make them a bad employee. We all have our shortcomings, sometimes a bit of guidance and correction is all that is needed.
Laziness and Nonchalance
To put this in perspective, you have to see your employee’s service as something with financial value. As an entrepreneur, your success comes when the value you get from your staff is more than the amount you pay for their services. When an employee provides mediocre or reduced services, you are bound to lose money.
This can present itself as calling in sick too often, not meeting up with deadlines, poor attitude towards customers, etc. All these actions can hurt your business and keep you broke.
Chaos and Distractions
Some employees can be termed agents of chaos. Perhaps that phrase might be too harsh. However, some employees cause many distractions that make it hard for other team members to function.
This could lead to your entire team acting below capacity and costing you money instead of making money. That employee who likes to sing out loud with his headphones on is doing more damage than you think.
Distractions make people cranky. Cranky employees can’t think straight and tend to lash out at customers and other employees. In most cases, employees responsible for constituting a nuisance might be oblivious to the havoc they are wrecking. It is your job to find the problem in your team and straighten him or her out.
Financial Ambiguity
Financial ambiguity comes in many forms. Generally, it means when a member of the team isn’t very straightforward with money. It ranges from ordering the most expensive wine when on an official lunch to not reimbursing funds that were not used during a trip or mission.
This is very hard to catch as it doesn’t show up on the record books and is often not technically seen as stealing. However, it is important to note that a little here a little there makes a lot. Beware of your team’s wasteful habits and make efforts to stop these habits from ruining your business.
Bad Management
As a micropreneur, this finger is most likely pointing to you. The financial situation of you and your business largely depends on your decisions. One major problem most entrepreneurs face is differentiating business finances from personal finances.
This can leave you and your business spending more than you earn. As a micropreneur, you are a member of your team. And like every other member of your team, you should earn a predetermined salary. Tough months might have you taking a salary cut, but you should highly avoid taking bonuses unnecessarily.
Taking a bonus every now and then is a slippery slope to brokenness. Businesses have cycles. When things are looking up, it isn’t time to get a new car. No, its time to reinvest or save up for the rainy days.
Measuring your business’s current stage and the right compensation for you and every member of your team is crucial to keep your business afloat come rain come shine.
Conclusion
As a micropreneur, keeping your business alive is a full-time job, especially in the beginning. Irrespective of how profitable your business currently is, a bad employee can put you in a bad financial position. Out rightly stealing from the company is easy to detect with a keen eye.
However, some things that cost your business have to be sensed not seen. Sometimes discovering the leak in your cash flow might require a critical look at your team members.