Know Your Onions

Onions can make you cry. You know how it is, you're in the kitchen prepping your spag bol and tears are streaming down your face. So if you know your onions does that stop the tears. Well hopefully it might. Now I'm not suggesting that you chat to the onions as you chop, that could land you in all manner of padded cell, but ‘knowing your onions' is quite important when you are running your small business.

A business owner, particularly a small business owner has so many things to consider. For a start you need to know as much as you can about every aspect of your trade or profession which means keeping up to date with new legislation, technology and practice. But then if you are really passionate about what you do and that’s why you started your business isn’t it? – you do that anyway. But then there’s all the other things to consider. You need to have an efficient ‘back office’ to run the admin and financial function. You need to look at marketing and PR, Health and Safety, HR and so many other things. Interaction with other businesses can give you valuable insights and can be used as a comparison to judge whether what they do would work for you. It makes sound business sense to consider an alternative and consider the pros and cons.

You know the old saying – ‘jack of all trades, master of none’. Certainly be a master of what you do, your business reputation depends on that but when it comes to all of the other jobs it pays to look at the alternatives. Take the accounting function for instance. I have yet to meet anyone who said ‘oooh brilliant, I have a tax return to complete’ so if looking after your finances is not something you are comfortable with it pays to have a look around at the alternatives. Would it be easier to use cloud software linked to relevant apps (with a bit of training maybe?) or could you employ someone to do this for a few hours a week. Perhaps you could just pass the whole thing on to your accountant who will present you with up to date figures each month and an estimate of the tax due. We do that for a number of clients, it means they know their financial position and we can highlight any changes very quickly. Outsourcing leaves you free to concentrate on what you do best, or even just spend some time on your allotment. So you really don’t need to know all of the onions, you just need to know the best way to use the other onions that are out there on the shelves.