Author: Tristan Martin

One of the biggest barriers to productivity in a small business isn’t a lack of time. It’s the business owner spending their time doing the wrong things.

When you first start a business, doing everything yourself is often unavoidable. You do the sales, answer the phone, send the invoices, update the website, sort out the accounts and probably empty the bins as well. But as the business grows, something has to change.

Unfortunately, for many business owners, it doesn’t. They continue doing tasks simply because they can do them, rather than asking a much more important question: should I be doing this at all?

What Is Your Time Actually Worth?

Let’s take a simple example. Imagine you’re a business owner whose productive time can generate £500 to £600 per day for the business. Every month, you spend two days sorting out invoices, receipts, expenses and bookkeeping. You might look at that and think you’re saving money because you’re doing the bookkeeping yourself. But are you?

Those two days potentially represent £1,000 to £1,200 of your productive capacity. If a professional bookkeeper could complete the work more efficiently and it cost you, say, £200, paying someone else suddenly doesn’t look like an expense. It looks like an investment.

Obviously, the exact figures will be different for every business, but the principle remains the same. If somebody can do a task for considerably less than the value you could generate in the same amount of time, why are you doing it yourself?

Being Capable of Doing Something Doesn’t Mean You Should Do It

This is where many business owners get caught. They’ll tell me, “I can do my own bookkeeping.” I’m sure you can. You can probably clean the office as well. You could learn to build your own website, spend hours creating graphics for social media, answer every telephone call, process every invoice, chase every payment and carry out every administrative task in the business.

The question isn’t whether you can do those things. The question is whether doing them represents the best use of your time.

According to research by Sage, administrative burdens can consume significant amounts of small businesses’ working time, with tasks such as accounting, HR and other administrative requirements taking owners away from activities that directly develop the business. That is time that isn’t being spent finding customers, developing relationships, improving products and services, managing employees or planning the future of the business.

Productivity Isn’t About Working Faster

When we talk about improving productivity, the natural reaction is often to look for ways to work faster. How can I answer emails more quickly? How can I squeeze another meeting into the day? How can I get through my to-do list? But genuine productivity isn’t about cramming more activity into the same number of hours. It’s about producing greater value from those hours.

If you spend an hour doing something worth £20 to the business when you could have spent that hour doing something worth £100, being extremely efficient at the £20 task doesn’t make you productive. You’ve simply become very efficient at doing the wrong thing.

What Should You Be Doing?

There are certain things in your business that you are probably uniquely placed to do. Perhaps you’re the best salesperson. Maybe you have the technical knowledge customers are buying. You may be responsible for developing key relationships, managing the team, winning major contracts or deciding the strategic direction of the company. Those are the areas where your time is potentially most valuable.

Now compare those activities with everything else you do during a typical week: bookkeeping, administration, diary management, social media, IT support, payroll, marketing, website updates, telephone answering, data entry, cleaning. Do you genuinely need to personally do all of them? Probably not.

Outsourcing Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Employing Someone

One reason business owners are reluctant to delegate is because they immediately think about employing another member of staff. That means salary, National Insurance, pensions, holidays and another person to manage. But employment isn’t the only option.

There is a huge range of specialist businesses, freelancers and subcontractors available to SMEs. You could use a bookkeeper for a few hours each month, a virtual assistant for administration, an external marketing company, an IT support business or a specialist to manage your payroll. You don’t necessarily need somebody for 40 hours a week. You might only need them for four.

The advantage is that you’re buying the particular expertise you need when you need it. There is also another productivity benefit: a specialist will often complete a task much faster than you can. Something that takes you most of a day because you only do it occasionally might take an experienced professional two hours because they do it every day. You’re therefore not simply buying their time. You’re buying their experience and efficiency.

But Don’t Outsource Responsibility

There is an important distinction here. Delegating a task doesn’t mean abandoning responsibility for it. If you outsource your bookkeeping, you still need to understand the financial position of your business. If somebody manages your marketing, you still need to know whether that marketing is generating results. If you use a virtual assistant, you still need appropriate processes and controls.

The objective is to remove the doing, not the management. You remain responsible for the business.

Start With Your Own Working Week

Here’s an exercise I regularly recommend. For the next week, keep a record of what you do. Not roughly. Actually write it down. Then put every activity into one of four categories:

1. Only I can do this.
2. Someone else could do this.
3. A specialist could do this better or faster than me.
4. This probably doesn’t need doing at all.

Then look particularly closely at categories two and three. How many hours could you release every month? And, more importantly, what could you do with those hours instead?

If outsourcing £200 worth of work gives you back a day in which you can generate £500, win a new customer or work on improving the business, the important figure isn’t the £200 you’ve spent. It’s the value you’ve created with the time you’ve bought back.

Work on the Business, Not Just in It

One of the biggest changes a business owner has to make as their company grows is moving from being the person who does everything to the person who makes sure everything gets done. That’s a very different job. It requires delegation, systems, processes and, occasionally, accepting that somebody else may actually be better at a particular job than you are.

Your time is one of the most valuable resources your business has. Don’t waste it trying to save £20 an hour when you could be using it to generate £100. Sometimes the quickest way to improve productivity isn’t to work harder or faster. It’s to stop doing the work somebody else should be doing.

How ETC Can Help

If you constantly feel busy but never seem to have enough time to work on growing the business, our free two-hour business review can help. We will look at how the business currently operates, where your time is being spent and identify practical opportunities to improve productivity, delegation and profitability.

The objective isn’t to help you fit more work into your day. It’s to make sure you’re spending your day doing the work that really matters.

Call 01384 355444 or email enquiries@exec-tc.com to arrange your review.

As business owners, we can easily fall into the trap of believing that the more hours we work, the more successful our businesses will become. If there is too much to do, we start earlier. If we are behind, we finish later. If something needs doing, we sacrifice the weekend. But are all those extra hours actually making us more productive? The evidence suggests that they may be doing exactly the opposite.

According to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics, the average actual working week for a full-time worker in the UK is 36.6 hours. Yet for many business owners, a working week of 50, 60 or even more hours can quickly become accepted as simply part of running a business. The problem is that hours worked and productive output are not the same thing.

More Hours Do Not Necessarily Mean More Output

Research by Professor John Pencavel, published in The Economic Journal, examined the relationship between working hours and output. It found that productivity does not continue increasing at the same rate as working hours increase. In other words, there comes a point where putting in another hour doesn’t produce another hour’s worth of useful work.

That is something I have experienced personally. Some years ago, I was involved in turning around a failing business. I was working 18-hour days, six days a week because, at the time, I believed that was what was necessary to get the business back on track. I managed to maintain that pace for around three months, and then one day I fell asleep at my desk. It was quite literally a wake-up call.

I took a couple of days away from the business, rested and returned refreshed. What surprised me was what happened next. I started getting more done in around seven hours a day than I had been achieving during those incredibly long working days. And I got something else back as well: time for friends, family and myself.

Rest Isn’t a Reward. It’s Part of Being Productive

One of the mistakes business owners make is treating rest as something we earn once all the work has been completed. The problem with that approach is that the work is never completed. There will always be another customer to contact, another email to answer, another problem to solve and another idea to work on.

Research into shorter working weeks provides some interesting evidence about what can happen when people are given more time away from work. A major UK four-day working week trial involving 61 organisations and around 2,900 employees reduced working hours by 20% without reducing salaries. Researchers from the University of Cambridge found that 71% of employees reported lower levels of burnout and 39% said they were less stressed than before the trial, while sick days reduced by 65% and the number of employees leaving participating organisations fell by 57% compared with the same period the previous year.

Perhaps most importantly from a business owner’s perspective, revenue did not collapse because people were working fewer hours. Among the 23 organisations that provided revenue data, average revenue actually increased slightly, by 1.4%, during the trial. That doesn’t mean every business should immediately move to a four-day week, but it does demonstrate that reducing working time does not automatically mean reducing business performance. Sometimes the opposite can happen.

Being Busy and Being Productive Are Very Different Things

This is something I regularly discuss with business owners. Ask someone whether they have had a busy day and they will often say yes. Ask them what they actually achieved and the answer can be very different. A day filled with emails, telephone calls, meetings, interruptions and dealing with other people’s problems can feel incredibly busy without moving the business forward. Productivity should not be measured by how many hours you spend at your desk. It should be measured by what those hours produce.

Interestingly, the four-day week research found that businesses didn’t simply remove a day’s work and hope for the best. They changed the way they worked. Common changes included shorter meetings with clearer agendas, periods of uninterrupted focused work, reducing unnecessary email traffic and examining business processes to find more efficient ways of working. That is good business practice regardless of whether you work three days, four days or five.

There Will Always Be Deadlines

Of course, there will be occasions when long hours are unavoidable. A major order needs completing. A customer has an emergency. A deadline has to be met. Something unexpected happens and everyone needs to pull together. That is business. The important thing is recognising these periods for what they are: exceptions. If you work until midnight for three nights to complete an important project, recognise that you need some recovery time afterwards. The danger comes when temporary additional hours gradually become your normal working pattern.

There is also a health consideration. Research from the World Health Organization and International Labour Organization found that working 55 hours or more per week was associated with an estimated 35% higher risk of stroke and a 17% higher risk of dying from ischaemic heart disease compared with working 35 to 40 hours per week. Working excessively long hours isn’t simply a question of work-life balance. Sustained long working hours can have much more serious consequences.

Take Control of Your Time

So how do you start working less without the business suffering? Start by looking at where your time actually goes. For one week, record what you do and how long you spend doing it. Then look at every activity and ask yourself:

• Did this genuinely need doing?
• Did I need to do it personally?
• Could somebody else have done it?
• Could it have been automated or systemised?
• Did it contribute to the objectives of the business?
• What would have happened if I simply hadn’t done it?

You may be surprised by the answers. Business owners often tell me they don’t have enough time. In many cases, the real problem isn’t a shortage of time. It is how that time is being used.

Your Business Should Give You a Life, Not Take It Away

I don’t believe the objective of building a successful business should be to create a job where you work longer hours, carry more responsibility and have less time for yourself than you did when you were employed. A successful business should ultimately give you choices. It should provide financial security, certainly, but it should also give you the opportunity to spend time with your family, enjoy your interests, take holidays and occasionally switch the phone off without worrying that everything will fall apart.

If the business cannot function without you constantly being there, working longer hours probably isn’t the solution. The solution is to build a better business. Working less doesn’t mean caring less about your business. It means becoming more focused on what actually produces results and recognising that your own energy and time are valuable resources that need managing just as carefully as the finances of the business. Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is stop working.

How ETC Can Help

At Executive Training & Consultancy, we work with business owners who are spending too many hours working in their business and not enough time working on it.

If you would like an objective look at where your business is today, take advantage of our free two-hour business review. We will identify the issues that may be holding it back and give you practical actions you can implement immediately.

Call 01384 355444 or email enquiries@exec-tc.com to arrange your review.

Many business owners rely on instinct to guide their decisions. Experience is valuable, but instinct alone can lead to missed opportunities. The businesses that grow consistently are the ones that measure what is happening inside their organisation and use that information to make clear decisions.

There is a simple principle that applies to every organisation: if you cannot measure something, you cannot manage it effectively.

Understanding your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) allows you to see where your business is performing well, where it is under pressure, and where the biggest opportunities lie. When used properly, business data becomes a powerful tool for improving profitability and making better strategic choices.

For many smaller businesses, the idea of analysing data can feel overwhelming. The reality is that you do not need complicated systems or advanced analytics. You simply need to focus on the numbers that matter most to your business.

 

Which KPIs Should You Track?

There is no single set of KPIs that suits every business. The right measures depend on your industry, your size, and your objectives.

However, there are several indicators that most businesses should understand clearly.

Revenue Growth
This measures how your total income is increasing over time. Tracking revenue trends helps you identify whether your sales strategy is working and whether your business is moving in the right direction.

Profit Margin
Revenue alone does not tell the whole story. Profit margin shows how much of that income remains after expenses are paid. Many businesses increase turnover but fail to improve profitability because they do not monitor margins closely.

Cost Per Sale
Understanding the cost of acquiring a new customer has become increasingly important. Marketing channels are more competitive than ever, and businesses need to know whether their marketing spend is generating profitable customers.

Customer Retention Rate
Winning a new customer is expensive. Keeping an existing one is far more profitable. Monitoring retention rates helps you understand how well your service, support, and customer experience are working.

Customer Lifetime Value
This measures how much revenue a customer generates over the course of their relationship with your business. Businesses that understand this number can make smarter decisions about marketing investment and customer service.

Operational Efficiency
For product-based businesses this may include inventory turnover. For service businesses it may include utilisation rates, project delivery time, or billable hours. These metrics help ensure resources are being used effectively.

Top tip
When launching a new service or product, look closely at customer acquisition cost, retention, and lifetime value. A new offer may not generate immediate profit, but strong repeat business can make it highly profitable over time.

 

Tools That Make Tracking Data Easier

Today’s businesses have access to tools that make tracking performance far simpler than it used to be. You do not need complicated systems to gain useful insights.

Accounting Software
Platforms such as Xero or QuickBooks allow you to track income, expenses, and profitability with real-time reports that highlight trends quickly.

Website Analytics
Tools such as Google Analytics help you understand how people find your website, what content they engage with, and where potential customers drop off.

Spreadsheets
Excel or Google Sheets remain powerful tools for monitoring key figures and producing visual dashboards that make performance easy to review.

Customer Relationship Management Systems
A CRM allows you to track leads, follow sales activity, and measure the effectiveness of your marketing and sales processes.

Reporting Dashboards
Tools such as Google Looker Studio allow you to combine multiple data sources into a simple dashboard so you can see the performance of your business at a glance.

The important thing is not the tool itself, but the discipline of reviewing the information regularly.

 

Using Data to Plan for the Future

While data cannot predict the future perfectly, it can reveal patterns that help you make better decisions.

For example:

Sales Forecasting
Looking at past sales trends can help you identify seasonal patterns and prepare for busy or quieter periods.

Marketing Planning
Reviewing the performance of previous campaigns allows you to invest more heavily in channels that produce results and reduce spending on those that do not.

Resource Planning
Monitoring operational data helps you understand when to increase staffing, invest in equipment, or expand capacity.

Businesses that review these patterns regularly are able to act earlier and make more confident decisions.

 

Keeping Data Simple and Useful

One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is tracking too many numbers. When every metric looks important, nothing becomes clear.

Instead, focus on a small group of indicators that directly relate to growth and profitability.

Use simple visual reports so trends are easy to spot. Charts and dashboards can quickly show whether performance is improving or declining.

If analysing data feels difficult, working with an experienced business adviser can help you interpret the numbers and turn them into clear actions.

 

Final Thoughts

Data should not complicate your business. Used properly, it provides clarity.

When you understand your key numbers, you can see what is working, correct what is not, and make decisions with confidence.

The businesses that succeed long term are not the ones that guess the best. They are the ones that measure, review, and adjust their strategy based on what the numbers reveal.

 

How ETC Can Help

At Executive Training & Consultancy we work with business owners to identify the numbers that matter most and turn them into practical actions that improve profitability.

If you would like a fresh perspective on your business performance, take advantage of our free two-hour business review. We will examine your current approach, highlight opportunities for improvement, and provide practical steps you can implement immediately.

Call 01384 355444 or email enquiries@exec-tc.com to arrange your review.

 

Running a small business has never been simple. Between managing customers, keeping cash flowing, responding to market changes and dealing with day-to-day operations, it can often feel like you are juggling multiple priorities at once.

Many business owners have great ideas and strong ambition, but without structure those ideas can struggle to become reality. Projects stall, deadlines drift, and teams lose clarity about what needs to happen next.

That is where effective project management becomes vital.

Project management is not just something used by large organisations. For small and medium-sized businesses, it provides a clear framework for turning plans into completed actions that deliver real results.

When applied properly, it helps businesses stay organised, maintain momentum and ensure that key initiatives actually move forward.

Let us look at some practical ways to bring stronger project management into your business.

Start With a Clear Outcome

Every successful project begins with clarity.

Before launching any initiative, take time to define exactly what you want to achieve. Ask yourself:

• What result are we aiming for?
• Why does this project matter to the business?
• How will we measure whether it has been successful?

Without a clear outcome, teams often end up busy without moving the business forward.

When everyone understands the end goal, decisions become easier and work stays focused on what truly matters.

Break the Project Into Practical Steps

Large projects can quickly feel overwhelming if they are treated as one big task.

Instead, break the work down into smaller stages that can be managed more easily.

For example:

• Identify the main phases of the project
• List the tasks required within each stage
• Decide who is responsible for each task
• Set realistic completion dates

This approach creates momentum. Each step completed moves the project forward and keeps the team engaged.

It also allows potential issues to be identified early, before they develop into larger problems.

Make Responsibility Crystal Clear

One of the most common reasons projects stall is simple: no one is clearly responsible for delivering specific tasks.

Every activity within a project should have a named individual accountable for ensuring it is completed.

That person does not necessarily need to do the work themselves, but they must make sure it happens.

Clear ownership removes confusion and prevents important actions from being overlooked.

Set Deadlines That Drive Progress

Deadlines are what keep projects moving.

Without them, tasks are easily postponed while day-to-day business pressures take priority.

Effective project management involves:

• Setting clear deadlines for each stage
• Ensuring those deadlines are achievable
• Reviewing progress regularly

When milestones are visible and tracked, teams stay focused and projects move forward far more efficiently.

Use Simple Systems to Track Progress

Project management does not require complicated software or complex processes.

Many small businesses successfully manage projects using straightforward tools such as:

• Task boards such as Trello or Asana
• Shared project spreadsheets
• Simple action lists reviewed regularly

The key is not the tool itself but the discipline of updating it and reviewing progress consistently.

When everyone involved can see what is happening, projects stay on track.

Bring in External Expertise When Needed

Small businesses often try to manage everything internally, but this is not always the most effective approach.

For specialist projects, bringing in external expertise can save both time and costly mistakes.

Experienced advisers or consultants can help businesses:

• Launch new initiatives faster
• Avoid common pitfalls
• Provide guidance based on real experience

This allows internal teams to remain focused on their core responsibilities while still ensuring the project progresses successfully.

Review Every Project and Learn From It

Once a project is complete, take time to evaluate the process.

Ask questions such as:

• What worked particularly well?
• Where did we lose time or momentum?
• Were responsibilities clear?
• Were deadlines realistic?

This reflection helps businesses improve their approach and deliver future projects more efficiently.

Each completed project becomes a learning opportunity that strengthens the business going forward.

Final Thoughts

Project management is not about creating layers of administration.

At its simplest, it is about giving your ideas structure so they can be delivered successfully.

It comes down to four straightforward principles:

• Knowing the outcome you want
• Planning the actions required
• Assigning responsibility clearly
• Tracking progress consistently

When these principles are applied across a business, initiatives are completed faster, teams remain focused, and growth becomes far more achievable.

For many small businesses, strong project management is the difference between plans that stay on paper and ideas that deliver measurable results.

How ETC Can Help

At Executive Training & Consultancy, we support business owners who want to improve organisation, leadership and operational performance.

If your business has projects that never quite reach completion, or growth initiatives that struggle to get off the ground, we can help you introduce practical systems that deliver results.

If you are new to ETC, take advantage of our free two-hour business review. We will analyse your business and leave you with practical actions you can implement immediately.