Whether it’s getting your beauty sleep, to making sure sure you’re not underinsured, BizCover has collected some advice from small business owners like you you, to help get those bad business habits out of your system.
Setting your password as WELCOME1, a box of receipts going five years back and not getting nearly enough sleep. If any of these business habits sound familiar, you are not alone.
Operating a spa, clinic or mobile salon isn’t easy and once things are up and running it can become only too easy to form some not-so-great habits.
We asked a variety of small business owners what bad habits they need to shred out of their business and for some advice they have for others.
Chaos Conquered, Gabby Williamson.
New to the world of self-employment, Gabby has just started her new project management business, helping other businesses with their marketing and rebranding.
Innovative brand consultant, Gabby says “I am trying to shift a number of bad habits I’ve picked up.” Some of the worst of those habits include “working on the couch hunched over my laptop, working until 1-2am, not leaving my apartment for days whilst I work on a pitch”.
Any beauty boss who works from home could identify with Gabby’s struggle, which is why it’s important to maximise productivity on the clock and ensure you switch off when you put down your products.
Mother Tongue Copy + Content, Sarina Singh
Copywriting guru and creative content expert, Sarina Singh has a bad habit she’d like to kick.
It’s one that many small business owners struggle with…dealing with the S word.
Sarina confesses, “I don’t regularly pay myself super! I know I need to set it up as either a regular payment or a percentage of earnings to take the thinking out of it. And it’s on my to do list. But it’s not an urgent need so something else always takes priority (especially as it takes a bit of homework on my part to make sure I’m doing it right and have picked the right fund).”
Sarina is not the only one who struggles with the “S” word, not only with managing their own arrangements but also making sure their super obligations to employees are met. Luckily getting help managing your responsibilities to your staff has never been easier. Check out the ATO’s free service, the Small Business Superannuation Clearing House(SBSCH), which enables you to pay all your contributions in a single electronic payment, the SBSCH will then distribute it into each employee’s super fund.
It’s important to remember as a beauty business that you are not alone. There are many resources and contacts, like the national Hair & Beauty Industry Association, that are available both online and in person to help you get advice and keep you on track.
Here are a few of our favourites from mental health organisation Reach Out.
7 Steps to Shredding that Habit for Good
- Practise positive reinforcement
- Put your reasons for change in writing
- Ask yourself the hard questions to identify patterns
- Develop a long term plan for how you want incrementally shift a bad practice
- Replace the behaviour with a healthier activity
- Find a support network to keep you accountable
- Don’t punish yourself for slip ups, just keep on keepin’ on and get back on that wagon
One bad habit every beauty business should try to avoid is being underinsured, i.e. not having the right level of cover for your business based on your property holding, location, revenue and assets. It is important to consider replacement costs not just book values.
Underinsurance is a bad habit among Australian businesses, with the Insurance Council of Australia* finding that almost 20% of small businesses aren’t insured for the amount their assets were worth and 13% don’t have any insurance at all.
If you would like to find out more about your business insurance options, get in touch with the BizCover team, Australia’s Small Business Insurance Specialists.
Statistics sourced from the ICA, Non- Insurance in the Small to Medium Sized Sector Report, 2015
BizCover™ Pty Ltd (ABN 68 127 707 975; AFSL 501769). This article is for general information purposes only and should not be relied upon as advice. BizCover does not compare all insurance products on the market only those available via the insurance partners nominated on its website.