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It is widely known that many companies fail in the first five years. The most common reasons for these failures are a lack of cash flow, ineffectively managing finances, poor strategy, lack of leadership, and unsuccessful marketing.
You can avoid many of these problems with the proper Business Management training. The challenge is finding training you can trust, and a program that fits into your plans as an entrepreneur.
There is no shortage of options for learning the basics of business management, including everything from online videos and independent trainers and coaches to master’s degree level programs. Most aspiring entrepreneurs are not trying to immediately become executives at a Fortune 500 company and therefore don’t need a master’s degree. What they truly require is having the right information they can use to act even if they don’t have years of experience or extensive schooling.
This is where an associate degree program in business management from a technical college becomes advantageous. The program is robust enough to train you in the nuts and bolts of running a small business without going deep into complexities only massive organizations face.
While you’re exploring your options, consider what’s in a Business Management program. A quality associate degree program should touch on the following topics.
Business Goal Setting
Every budding entrepreneur desires a thriving and successful business. To get there, however, you must understand how to set appropriate goals. Each of these goals must be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time bound.
These goals must go beyond simply how much money you want the company to make but consider various aspects of your operation. A quality program will teach you how to set goals so that they serve your growth.
Budget Planning
It’s easy to manage a budget when you know your exact income and expenses. While the same underlying principles may hold true between business and personal finance, businesses have a lot more variability than most households.
You must learn how to plan for seasonality, prepare for natural changes in the business, and any capital investments you need to make. Plus, you have to constantly make sure you have all of your normal operating expenses covered. Formal business budget planning sets the strategy for managing your company’s finances to keep you solvent while building profitability.
Team Management
You will eventually develop a team to continue expanding and scaling your business. How you manage the team will have a direct impact on your bottom line, with a satisfied team being more productive and profitable.
Learn what’s involved with modern team management and the different management styles that your team may need to perform to their highest potential. You’ll also learn aspects of understanding your team’s capabilities, and how to effectively leverage both skills, talents, and personality types to continue scaling your company.
Understanding Legal Issues
Most small businesses don’t spend enough energy on legal matters. The initial legal concern for every company is product or service liability, and how to protect the organization from legal claims. You should also consider liability for your business, including copyright and patent issues, and trademark compliance.
To earn an Associate of Science Degree in Business, you’ll learn the major legal obstacles most small businesses face, and how to protect your company against them. You will also learn the basics of contractual law, and your responsibility when entering into a contract with either a client or a supplier. Finally, you will explore the options available for resolving conflicts within your business, both inside and outside the courtroom.
Customer Service Relations
How you serve your customers is as important as the product or services you offer. No business is going to satisfy every customer with every interaction, and understanding how to navigate errors and mishaps can be the key to success.
An Associate of Science in Business Management will explore how to approach building strong relationships and how to position a business to exceed what your clients expect. More importantly, you’ll learn strategies for handling customer conflict that protects your business while seeking reasonable solutions for your customers.
Fundamentals of Owning and Running a Small Business
When you own a small business, you must become a jack of all trades, at least initially while you get established. You’ll need to understand business fundamentals, such as computer applications and systems that will help you stay organized and grow. It’s also important to learn how to approach solving business problems with quantitative reasoning, effective and adaptable communication styles, and organizational behaviors that are the foundation of growing a cohesive team.
Marketing Strategies
We all know that marketing is the art of persuading someone to do business with your company. The key to marketing effectively is having the right message in the right place at the right time.
In today’s world, that goes beyond legacy marketing outlets like print, billboards, radio, or television. Rather, it includes the vast array of marketing opportunities delivered directly to people’s hands through their phones. You’ll learn the concepts of making your business present. There’s a psychology to crafting a message that resonates with your target market. Then you’ll need to employ different approaches to getting that message in front of them.
Accounting and Financial Reports
Unless your business is accounting or financial services, most entrepreneurs don’t get excited about keeping track of the books. However, reviewing where and how money is flowing into and out of your business helps you make strategic decisions that will continue growing your business.
You’ll learn the basics of record keeping that is needed to satisfy the IRS and your tax professional. Strong accounting and financial reporting are also critical to securing investors, selling your business, or obtaining financing or a business loan.
Personnel Management and Employee Development
Your business will only be as strong as the team you develop. While team management usually deals with on-the-job aspects of running your business, your team also has a life that happens outside of their job. You should explore setting standards for how people represent or talk about your business on social media, how you’ll handle time off, when employees are sick, and other life situations that intersect with your business.
Your team will also continue growing and learning to keep up with the rapid changes in every industry. Discover how to encourage employee development and set the standards for continued development within your company.
Day-to-Day Operations of a Small Business
Many budding entrepreneurs yearn to get into the business of providing their particular product or service. However, making the company flourish encompasses so much more than what your customer receives.
You’ll learn about developing supplier relationships, negotiating contracts, and dealing with compliance and licensing regulations. During your program, you should seek information about the hidden parts of owning a business that often causes frustrations when entrepreneurs aren’t fully informed.
Get the knowledge, experience, and resources to succeed in Business Management. Interactive College of Technology offers one of the only Associate of Science Degree programs in Business Management in the U.S. We’re committed to supporting your journey the first day you step on campus to the day you graduate.
So, let’s take the first step together! Contact us now to learn more.