For most pet store franchises, the beginning of the year is the time when you create your plans for the year. This is just as true for established pet store franchises as it is for startups. As you create your new plan and goals for the new year, one of the aspects you need to consider is what you can do to make the business easier for you and your staff. Here are 4 things to consider:

Use Employee Evaluations to Your Advantage

Employee evaluations are an excellent tool. Most businesses use this as a way to understand how well an employee is performing their job. However, you can also use the evaluation to see where your employee’s strengths are (if you are not already aware). From there, use this information to delegate tasks to the best-suited employee, rather than the person who has always done it. For instance, if you know that one employee has amazing communication skills and customers enjoy talking with them, then this is the ideal candidate for your social media ambassador.

Create a Plan Without Overdoing it

Planning business activities is the lifeblood of pet store franchises. It helps you stay on top of all the tasks that are needed. Make sure you have this planned out ahead of time so you are not missing deadlines. This could be anything from marketing campaigns you will run in 2015 to day to day activities. Seeing when things need to be accomplished will help to keep everyone on task.

However, when it comes to your personal to-do list, make sure you don’t overcomplicate it. Try to prioritize the top 3 tasks you want to get done and go from there. Adding endless tasks to your to-do list will only overwhelm you in the long run. Besides, if you are a person who likes to use math to feel productive, shorter lists make your statistics for productivity more impressive. For instance. if you have 4 items on your to-do list and accomplish 2, you’re already halfway done!

Avoid Excessive Meetings in Pet Store Franchises

There is nothing wrong with meetings, especially if they are productive. Many businesses, including some pet store franchises, are moving to the idea of daily meetings or have one day a week where they have meetings in every department. Excessive meetings may seem like they improve productivity and communication, but the opposite is actually true. When everyone is meeting and discussing what needs to be done and how they feel about various projects, you are getting much less done than if you had one meeting a week and then just went out and worked on the tasks.

Automate Where Possible

There are so many new apps and tools out there to make your business easier. While it may seem hard to relinquish control of certain tasks to an automated procedure, it will definitely make you and your staff more productive in the long run. This can be a helpful way to manage your social media, accounting, and other aspects of the business. The best part is that most of these programs can be managed with your computer or another device so you can handle the management in a way that is most convenient for you.