How to ensure you have the right space and staffing for your small business

One of the most important aspects to running a small business is to make sure that you choose the right space for your small business. In fact choosing the wrong spot for your small business can actually help your business to fail because your customers will not be able to reach you or they won't visit you because you are too far out of the way.

Difficulty rating: Moderate to difficult

Step one:
The first thing that you need to do is know your business. Some things to consider when looking for a location for your small business are: Will customers visit the location? Do you expect to have walk-in business or will your customers call ahead for appointments? Will you be providing services that require you to visit their home rather than them coming to your place of business? The best way to be sure that you find the right place is to make a list of all of your business needs.

Step two:
Next you should identify who your potential customers are going to be and how you can best meet their needs. By knowing who you are trying to reach for potential customers you can narrow down your locations by finding the location that provides the largest numbers of your potential customers.

Step three:
An important thing to think about when selecting the right premises for your small business is to know about your competitors. When finding out about the competition you are going to want to know how many other similar businesses are within the area and if there are can the market handle another business. You will have to decide if you can handle moving into an area already high with competition or if you would prefer to have fewer or no competitors around.

Step four:
Another factor to take into consideration is the cost of the building, either rent or purchase price. You are going to have to make sure that you are going to be able to afford the building and still run your business, keep in mind that prime locations tend to cost more per month than other less desirable locations.

Another important aspect to running a small business is hiring people to work for your business. This is important because the people you hire to work for your business are going to be sending your customers a silent message about what your business is like and what they can expect from you and your staff. So when it comes to hiring people for your small business you are going to want to ensure that you hire the right people for the job not just anybody off the street.

Step one:
One of the most important things that you are going to need to do to staff your business successfully is to define the job parameters. To do this you are going to need to state exactly what the job duties are, what kinds of skills the employees are going to need, how much experience or education is required for the job, and anything else that is important for the employee to have in order to fill the job position.

Step two:
Now that you know what you are looking for you are going to have to conduct interviews with the potential employees. Most of these potential employees will hand in a resume that looks wonderful and it is up to you to find the right employees from the huge pile of resumes. Here are some tips for successful interviewing.
- To weed out unqualified employees do brief phone interviews before setting up personal interviews
- Stick to questions that are related to the job you are hiring for
- Have a list of questions that you will ask each candidate that will help you to obtain information about their skills, abilities, and past work experiences
- Take notes for later use
- Be upfront about your business, what the job requires, management styles or anything else that will help to determine if the employee will be a good fit for your company
- Listen well and pay attention to everything they have to say, this will give you a better feel of their personality and work attitude
- Always ask them if they have any questions
- Make sure you check their references
- Be professional and respectful