The Importance of Accountability for Small Business Owners

It’s great, you can set your own hours. You create your targets. No one is shouting at you for missing deadlines. 

These are typical comments from people who have never run their own business! As small business owners, we know that’s nonsense. However, we also know that it can be lonely and we’d benefit from being more accountable for delivering what we said we would!

When it’s just you, it is too easy to procrastinate, to give yourself excuses and generally allow key deliverables to drift. 

And this is why understanding how to be more accountable is so key for small business owners.

Why Accountability Matters for Small Business Owners

You set targets for a reason. They might be hard to achieve, but that doesn’t mean they were the wrong thing to do. Remember why you set a target, or the rationale behind an objective.

Without accountability, it is too easy to forget the ‘why’ and focus on the ‘what’. What I’m doing now is key. What the client needs is more important. Unless someone reminds you, things slip, and when things slip, trust disappears. 

Trust in yourself to deliver. Trust from the client that you’ll do what you say. Trust from those around you that this was the right decision to build and grow the business.

By holding yourself accountable for your actions and delivering on your targets, you are better placed to ensure financial stability and, most importantly, keep faith that the business is viable.

But What Does It Look Like?

You might not even realise you are struggling with accountability, but let’s look at four examples of owners not being accountable, and I suspect we all see at least one in ourselves.

• Not delivering a new product or service when you planned because it's new and no client is specifically waiting for it - leading to never getting those new orders or upsells

• Promising to post three times a week on social media, but not doing it because who is going to notice anyway - then watch engagement drop

• Using a new tool with a free trial and then not assessing it properly, then deciding to either bin it without assessment or let the cost of it start and assess it later. This means you either miss out on a potentially useful tool or it hits your costs

• Promising a client an update, but being consistently late because they generally don’t chase you up. This ultimately leads to client instability and churn

Common Accountability Pitfalls in Small Business

If we know that accountability is so important, why do so many of us fall foul of the problem? Simply put, because running a business is hard! Look at the different reasons why you might fall into the trap.

• Wearing too many hats – as small business owners, we are creating the product, delivering the service, raising the invoices, managing the team/contractors, paying the bills, head of sales, lead marketer… the list goes on. When we are doing this, important tasks and targets can get missed without someone chasing you

• Avoiding responsibility – none of us likes to admit it, but we’ve all probably passed the buck and blamed someone else, maybe the economy, possibly a freelancer we didn’t brief well - when we are fighting alone, it’s easy not to own some mistakes or setbacks

• Lack of systems – if you are working alone or with a small team, then without clear processes for tracking progress, deadlines, or performance, you can fall into the trap of not measuring and thus failing to achieve your goals - we can’t be held accountable if we don’t measure it!

• Ignoring financial accountability – a little more niche, but I’m increasingly seeing small business owners use their own funds to cover shortfalls in sales or overspends, rather than making the business accountable, because they don’t want to face the questions of why they missed a target

• Overpromising and underdelivering – the classic mistake when we are smaller is to overpromise to close a deal or keep a client happy, then when it’s not possible, feel like it’s all unfair on us, rather than take responsibility for it

Practical Ways to Stay Accountable as a Small Business Owner

People and processes are your best friends when it comes to battling accountability issues. Here are five key steps we’d recommend putting in place.

1. Set SMART goals - the first is obvious, but it doesn’t make it any less important. Clearly, you need to set goals if you ever want to be accountable, but more than that, it is vital that those goals are SMART. Details are important (be specific), but most important is making them measurable and time-bound. Without doing that, you’ll never truly have something you can be accountable for

2. Utilise technology - Use online calendars so you schedule time for the different tasks and stick to that, they are not just for external meetings. Adopt a project management app and track all the jobs, making sure they have dates against them. Utilise a CRM that will alert you to actions that are needed. Build financial dashboards that clearly state what’s happening. This could be a very long list, but start with one tool and grow

3. Review performance regularly – Don’t rely solely on long-term goals, alerts or technology. Schedule a weekly review of what’s required. It might just be you, and this might seem silly to book a meeting with yourself, but I promise you, it's the best meeting you will have that week. You have to make yourself review what is due and then explain/document why you’ve missed deadlines, so you avoid it happening again

4. Keep promises – it’s obvious that you need to keep promises to clients, but it’s the promises to your team, to partners and most importantly to yourself, that matter

5. Document systems – If you don’t document it, you cannot measure it - I know I’m playing with a classic there, but the point stands, things need to be visible, so you can hold yourself accountable

   
   

   

   
   

The Power of External Accountability

I said we had five tips for helping with accountability, but really, it was six; it’s just that the last one was so powerful, it required its own section! I’m a massive believer in accountability buddies, those people who act as that angel on your shoulder, reminding you why it was important to do something and when it’s due by.

For the last 6 years, I’ve had my own accountability buddy in James, but not everyone has a business partner; in fact, most don’t. That’s when we all need to find someone who can fulfil that role for us. 

Find yourself a mentor. There are so many great platforms out there that can provide you with one; you’ve no excuse. Here are just a few I’ve worked with personally - Be The Business, The Growth Company, Small Business Britain, and Digital Boost.

Get a business coach. Someone you pay to help with the strategy of your business. Look at places like your local Growth Hub, where they will often assign you a free business coach. 

Look at peer groups or a mastermind. These are both excellent ways to share your goals, and then have them keep you focused and accountable because you know you’ll need to update the group in a future session.

Whilst it’s not applicable for everyone, I know some small business owners who have family and friends who take a keen interest in their business story and will become a good person to hold them to account. 

Maybe it’s a regular Thursday night drink that always starts with your friend asking you if you’ve achieved the two key things you talked about last time. If you know this is going to be discussed, it helps with motivation and keeping you on track.

Many businesses will have a board and advisors who hold the owner or boss accountable. This isn’t possible for a small business, but you can find yourself mini-boards where you find someone who acts like a director, but without the expense. They are perfect at holding you to account.

Not only will these examples help with accountability, but an outside perspective can help with blind spots that you might have on the tasks you are struggling to follow through on.

Embrace the Idea and Celebrate the Wins

The key to making sure accountability is happening and working for a small business is to stop seeing it as something that has to happen, and rather as something you can enjoy and ultimately leads to success. 

If we are celebrating things more, we have a better chance of appreciating the process that made it happen. Celebrate those small things and remember why they happen. If you release that new product, take a second to congratulate yourself, treat yourself and remember that if you didn’t hold yourself accountable, then it probably wouldn’t have happened.

Finally, try and remember that it isn’t some huge scary change. Being more accountable can happen in small and easy-to-manage steps. Find someone to check in with, pick one simple goal that you're fully accountable for, set up one process that you are not allowed to drop - as always, start small, keep it simple, and success will come over time.