Small business owners have always struggled to make ends meet, but the past couple of years have been some of the most economically difficult in our history. We began 2020 with a global health crisis, and just when we thought we were out of the weeds we started getting more bad news. How do we expect to keep our doors open in the face of such adversity in the marketplace?
As a small business owner, you’re already quite familiar with the idea of doing more with less. Operating on a lean budget is the key to survival, and you can’t afford to overspend even after your business is successful. Unfortunately, wasted productivity is the silent killer in a small office. An inefficient process might only take a few extra minutes, but those minutes add up. If you want to improve your bottom line, you need to figure out how to convert those minutes into time spent taking care of your customers and growing your business.
In 1939, Capital Typewriter Company opened on Main Street in downtown Little Rock. In the subsequent decades a lot has happened in the world, and the equipment Capital sells to businesses in Little Rock has definitely come a long way. But our commitment to Arkansas businesses is just as strong as it was the day we opened our doors.
The management by walking around (MBWA) leadership style was developed in the 1970s in an attempt to improve internal communication problems in companies. Managers were encouraged to spend less time at their desks and more time walking around. It gave them a better sense of how the organization functioned and made them more accessible to the line employees. This revolutionary business practice is now widely popular at both small boutique businesses and large corporations. In the digital age managers now have all the information they need at their fingertips.
We’ve been saying “time is money” in business for decades. Most consumers are not patient people, and if we neglect to take care of their needs in a timely manner we know our competitors will. With the stakes so high, we can’t afford to wait around for a technician to service our office machines. People don’t discuss the features of their copy machines and printers very much during a regular business day, but it’s all they can talk about if one of them isn’t in service.