WHAT IS IMPROVE YOUR BUSINESS?

Improve your business is about running small businesses. It has been written for retailers, wholesalers, manufacturers and operators of services such as repair services, laundries, dry cleaners and restaurants. Although in a small book like this we cannot hope to deal with the special conditions of each different trade, most of what we say can be used in many different trades or branches of industry. We have given examples from trade, manufacturing and service industries.

Improve your business is material for you to work with. It comes in two parts: a Handbook, which you are reading now, and a Workbook. They are best read together but they can each be useful if read separately. We recommend that you start using the Workbook and when needed turn to the Handbook for assistance.

Both the Handbook and the Workbook consist of eight sections, each of which deals with an important part of the management of your business. Each section of the Handbook has a corresponding section in the Workbook. The sections stand on their own and can be read separately.

A IMPROVE YOUR BUSINESS IS FOR:

RETAILERS

WHOLESALERS

MANUFACTURERS

OPERATORS OF SERVICES

GIVES YOU MANAGEMENT IDEAS

THE HANDBOOK

The Handbook talks very simply about some of the important things that you must know and understand if you are to make your business work well over a long time. It is not a textbook, but you can get some interesting and useful ideas from the Handbook. The sections are set out in the same order as the sections in the Workbook, so that you can easily go from Workbook to Handbook or from Handbooks Workbook.

THE WORKBOOK

The Workbook will make you think hard about your business; it will do this by asking you a number of questions about your business and the way you are running it. In each section of the Workbook there is a list of simple questions to which you answer "yes" or "no". The answers you write will tell you how much you know about the strengths and weaknesses of your business.

The Workbook will also give you the possibility of learning more about the financial and practical sides of the business by means of simple exercises in business practice.

If you want to improve your management skills after going through the Workbook, you should then read the management ideas which we put in the Handbook.

TELLS YOU YOUR STRENGHTS AND WEAKNESSES

WHERE TO START

We recommend that you start by going through the section which deals with that part of management which you think is weakest in your business.

If you do not know the strong and weak points in the management of your business, you can find this out by filling in the sheet called " Finding out your strengths and weaknesses" which is placed behind the introductory section, " For you in business ". We advise you to fill in this sheet before you start using Improve your business.

Note: Since this book is intended for use in many different countries, we have used the term " NU " in the examples to represent an imaginary " national unit of currency".