Managing your business-1500 words

Part 1: Think about your team, take two of the issues listed below and describe the activity
undertaken by your team. Compare and contrast the experience your team has with the
published theory. Plan the steps your team should take to improve its performance on the
selected two issues.

While starting and running a small business, the two major issues faced by the team are
marketing and financial planning. When I started the new business, I observed effective
teamwork and team formation as the team was motivated to achieve business goals by working
together. But making the financial plans, such as what money is required to perform certain tasks
and how to market the business plan, was hard for the team to manage (Banihani, 2020). As the
business was newly set up and used to functioning on a smaller scale, the team stated that
choosing an appropriate marketing plan for a small business was a challenge for them. More than
that, the team showed their best efforts towards generating ideas, making strategies, making
decisions, and evaluating risk once they were clear about the financial details and marketing
programs. Here below, the issues of marketing and financial planning faced by the team will
be reviewed in detail, given the activities undertaken. Following that, the team's experience will
be compared to the problems they encountered, and steps will be suggested to improve the team's
performance in dealing with these problems. 

The first issue faced by the team is marketing. It is important to build an audience and attract
target customers, which are mainly possible through effective marketing campaigns (Oliveira &
Dendasck, 2020). Also, it has been said by marketers in 2021 that the main purpose of marketing
campaigns is to build brand awareness (Cox, 2022). The marketing issue appeared to be focusing
on a single marketing channel to engage the audience, but rather than engaging the audience, it
was more like fatiguing the audience. Instead of engaging audiences on multiple platforms, the
team preferred to build a strong marketing hold on a single platform, which fatigued the
audience. It is explained by the marketing experts in “The Paperless Agent” that in order to
engage the audience and grab their attention, it is necessary to constantly remind contacts and
connections of the business, but there is a need to get it done in a way that doesn’t fatigue the
audience (Relkin, 2021). Our team relied on only two methods for marketing purposes, which
were email and Facebook. The usage of these two methods fatigued the audience, and they

1
started ignoring the emails and Facebook notifications, which consist of similar text. Instead, the
team should ensure a multichannel approach to staying in contact with customers, such as SMS,
Facebook, email, and the company newsletter with different catchy lines. But don’t overdo it on
any single channel.

The team members in our business had marketing and business degrees and 2 years of
experience in the professional world, which helped the business promote its activities on two
different platforms, such as Facebook and email. However, oversharing marketing content
caused more problems than it solved, as people began to regard it as less important over time. It
has been said that good marketers are the ones who use multiple communication channels to stay
connected with the audience (Relkin, 2021). Thus, this was the issue faced by our team in terms
of marketing, which relied upon only two basic channels. To improve the performance that helps
solve the marketing problems, there are certain steps to be considered: 

1. Don’t overdo a marketing campaign on a single channel.

2. Partnership with another brand helps to inherit some of their images and promote the
brand outside the limited boundary.
3. Hire professional copywriters that help to access outside perspective on the business, help
shape the value proposition so that the business stand out from competitors, and create
refined copy that’s certain to sell. 
4. Focus on what’s important and don’t neglect results.
5. Coordinate marketing and sales departments.

The second issue is the financial plan, which is about how much money is required
(Grozdanovska, et al., 2017). Managing resources, lack of capital, and cash flow are among the
major challenges for small businesses (Maharaj & Garbharran, 2014). A strong cash flow keeps
the business running and is regarded as an important factor when it comes to hitting the top of
finances, particularly with business revenue, to ensure that you're running a successful business
(Maharaj & Garbharran, 2014). During the financial plan, cash flow appeared as a problem in
our business, where there was an observed lack of efficiency towards the accounts and we didn’t
get enough revenue from the customers because it is a small business struggling to set up. The
cash flow issue affects current obligations such as paying employees and purchasing raw

2
materials (Luther, 2020). But, fortunately, it didn’t lead to shutting down the business due to less
revenue.

Our small business also approved a loan from the bank; thus, financial planning with limited
resources was a complex problem. Our team had experience managing accounts and finances,
but it cannot be ignored that a small business that is struggling to have a proper start-up has to
manage business functions effectively while managing the resources. Every business is different
from the others; therefore, the team should consider using business credit sensibly, cutting costs
where possible to earn revenue and manage cash flow by considering the bookkeeping and
invoices.

The team consists of experienced people from an accounting and finance background, but to
manage the financial planning of a small business, it is important to have expert accountants and
financial advisors that help to analyze the financial situation and help make good decisions (Cox,
2022). Financial experts will help create budgets, generate online invoices, calculate VAT, and
possibly help strategize (G, 2017). The following points must be followed in order to manage
this financial planning issue:

1. Even if a small business is receiving enough money from the customers, it is needed to
go down on the revenue graph if there’s no money management. 
2. Perform a professional cash flow analysis that will help the team to know how much
money is flowing in and out of the business. This will allow planning finances
accordingly. 
3. Cash flow analysis on regular basis will help gain a historical view and enable one to
determine the amount one should set aside as reserves during unpredictable cash flow
shortages. 
4. Be flexible and adaptable to the changes due to rapid advancements and different
situations.
5. Prefer adopting a hybrid approach to work flawlessly across different departments and
work environments. A hybrid approach will help reduce costs while still adapting to
changes (Nejatian, et al., 2018). 

3
Part 2: Think about yourself; take one different issue other than the above two. Reflect on
this issue and your performance;discuss a specific personal experience from the pop up
event, following an established reflective model (Gibbs or Kolb). It is important that your
reflections include your actions for improving your personal future performance.

Analyzing the above two issues for a team, it has been observed that I have an issue with
decision-making. I realized this issue when the marketing campaign didn’t benefit the team but
fatigued the audience. At that time, it has been noted that there was ineffective decision-making
that didn’t decide to hire expert copywriters and marketers to define effective marketing
strategies. Our team promoted the sale period, but they targeted the audience through email and
Facebook, which were not sufficient to attract the audience. Marketers should consider
promoting sales on multiple channels that engage the audience, bring back revenue, and build
customer loyalty.

To further analyze this issue, Gibbs’ reflective model is analyzed below. The reflective model of
Gibbs consists of six stages that help analyze the experience: description, feelings, evaluation,
analysis, conclusion, and action plan (Wain, 2017).

Figure 1: Gibb’s Model of Reflection

4
Description: 

This step helps describe the situation of an issue in detail, and the main points are included here
to analyze what happened. For the marketing campaign, I made a team of three members and
decided who to market our sales to through email and Facebook so that people who use email
daily for their work and Facebook for their entertainment both get attracted. And we decided that
there are marketing-experienced team members, so they will do the copywriting task. We
considered promoting the messages on the audience’s screens a month before the sale day. So,
our marketing reach a wide audience but it fatigued the audience by constantly showing the same
message about the sale which might didn’t attract their attention a long time ago reminder.

Feelings: 

When we discussed our marketing plan, there was a feeling of excitement that motivated the
team members to Copywrite the content to promote. I was quite happy that we made a good
decision and took a month to market the messages. But, when we didn’t get the audience
attraction as we assumed then I was disappointed and sad. I was sure that these decisions to
Copywrite content and have a month to promote messages would not burden team members and
help to engage a massive audience, but instead, they fatigued them. 

Evaluation:

The decision-making process for the marketing campaign was somehow helpful but also didn’t
bring positive results. The good thing was that each team member did their best to promote
messages and do copywriting. But the less productive result of the marketing campaign helped
me to hire professional copywriters and use multiple channels to promote messages next time
rather than relying upon just two to not fatigue the audience. 

Analysis:

I think the decision to gather the team and guide them through a marketing campaign was a good
one because it motivated the team. They decided their roles to perform such as some preferred
doing copywriting and some preferred promoting the messages. This process helped me and my
team overcome the issues that caused failure in our marketing campaign. Also, we preferred not

5
to hire professional copywriting due to the cost it required. But, the decisions about marketing
campaigns will be made in the future very carefully. 

Conclusion:

I learned from this situation that there is a difference between fatiguing the audience and
engaging the audience with promotional messages. Also, to set up and make a small business
successful, it would be helpful to hire professionals while managing the budget effectively. 

Action plan:

Next time, I’ll continue choosing this team because they have put a lot of effort into the
marketing tasks but definitely will target audiences through multiple channels a few days earlier
than the main day instead of relying on two platforms and fatiguing audiences a month before.
Also, another change would be hiring professionals for marketing campaigns and associating our
team with them so that team may learn marketing tactics for the future. 

To conclude, the issues faced by the team (marketing and financial planning) and mine are
analyzed in this assignment. 

6
References:
Cox, L. K., 2022. 6 Business Challenges Every Small Business Struggles With (And How to Fix Them).
[Online]
Available at: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/small-business-challenges
[Accessed 12 November 2022].

Relkin, J., 2021. 5 Common Small Business Marketing Mistakes to Avoid. [Online]
Available at: https://articles.bplans.com/small-business-marketing-mistakes/
[Accessed 12 Novermber 2022].

G, M. S., 2017. The 6 Biggest Problems for Small Business Owners [+Infographic]. [Online]
Available at: https://statusbrew.com/insights/small-business-problems/
[Accessed 13 November 2022].

Luther, D., 2020. 9 Financial Planning Tips for Small Business Owners. [Online]
Available at: https://www.netsuite.com/portal/resource/articles/financial-management/small-business-
financial-planning.shtml
[Accessed 13 November 2022].

Banihani, L. Y., 2020. A Study of Financial Planning and Investment of Individual. International Journal of
Science and Research (IJSR) , pp. 1268-1272.

Oliveira, V. C. d. & Dendasck, C. V., 2020. The importance of Marketing for Micro and Small Enterprises.
Revista Científica Multidisciplinar Núcleo do Conhecimento, pp. 28-40.

Grozdanovska, V., Bojkovska, K. & Jankulovski, N., 2017. Financial Management and financial planning in
the organizations. European Journal of Business and Management, pp. 120-125.

Maharaj, A. & Garbharran, H. L., 2014. Cash Management Challenges of Small Businesses in a
Developing Community. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, pp. 11-21.

Nejatian, M., Zarei, M. H., Nejati, M. & Zanjirchi, S., 2018. A Hybrid Approach to Achieve Organizational
Agility: An Empirical Study of A Food Company. Benchmarking An International Journal , pp. 201-234.

Wain, A., 2017. Learning through reflection. British Journal of Midwifery , pp. 662-666.