And you thought it was only one

When you work for somebody else, you usually have one job. You might be a salesman or an IT professional. The company employs other people who do other jobs; together, you run the company. When you own your own small business, you have to do or oversee all of the jobs.

A common theme in this column is advance planning. By knowing what to expect and how it fits into your overall business plan, you can adopt a strategy of handling decisions that works for your company as you encounter problems. Being aware of the full range of duties you can expect to fulfill once you open helps you plan out how you’ll spend your time when you open.

You can also decide who’s going to do these jobs. Some you’ll do yourself. Some you’ll assign to an employee, and others you’ll assign to an outside professional. Even in the case of work farmed out, you’re still responsible for finding someone who can do the job the way you want it done.
You and a partner might split duties; in fact, your list of skills might help you decide who you want for a partner or if you want a partner at all. Your prospective partner, for example, might not bring any skills that you need. Maybe he’s better off as a silent partner, contributing money but not labor.

CIO

You’ll need to establish your Internet marketing policies. You’ll plan, implement and maintain your website. You’ll select, install and maintain the applications that drive your company, including financial and sales records and POS system. You’ll develop and institute security methods for protecting your data. If your store offers a LAN, you need to maintain those machines to minimize downtime and maximize your customer appeal.
Some weeks will go by without thinking of these duties, while emergencies might require you to spend all day.

CFO

You’re ultimately responsible for reporting and paying your taxes. Even if you retain an accountant (everyone nod your head now), the accountant only makes recommendations, and he makes them based on how you describe the nature of your business and your overall goals. You might want to change your operations or even corporate structure based on your accountant’s advice. You’re also responsible for making sure the utilities get paid on time, the rent gets paid, and your employees get their checks accurately and on time. You also have to pay sales tax in most states.

These duties might take half an hour to three hours per week. When tax time comes around, expect to spend 5 to 20 hours in organization, communication, visits to the accountant, etc.

Clerk

You’re your company’s best salesperson. Many of your hours will involve counter duty, at a wide disparity in sales volumes. On some shifts, sales volume means little customer involvement. At other times, several impatient people demand your attention simultaneously. Clerical duties also subsume creating or rearranging displays, performing spot inventories, receiving and shelving orders, completing shift-end paperwork, changing out receipt paper and other duties specific to your store.

How much time you spend helping customers is up to you, but I recommend that even a hands-off manager work the floor at least one day per week to stay in touch with the customers and make sure that policies are being followed. More likely, you’ll work 5-7 days a week in this capacity, often from open to close. You’ll perform many other duties during this job’s down-time.

Buyer

Game store owners typically place orders for new releases first, and then spend a discretionary amount on restocks. New products sell much more quickly than new products; when you have $500 to spend, you’d rather spend it on products that will sell in two weeks than in products that might take six months to sell.

You can place new orders in response to sales solicitation by your distributor’s agent on the phone, or you can more actively research new releases on your distributor’s website. You can even place pre-orders ahead of time, which helps the distributor place his initial orders (and increases your chance of getting an item when supplies are limited) and helps the manufacturer more accurately predict demand.

I used to start my restock order-placing process by taking inventory of everything I needed. Then I’d assign each item to a distributor, often checking availability on their website. I’d place a large enough order to meet a minimum, then assign the rest to the next distributor in the priority list. I’d also take into consideration who has the best prices.

When portioning out lists like this, you have to start with exclusives: if only one distributor carries a product line or a specific item, they get that order. Then go with items that they carry cheaper, or for which they’ll break open a case, or whatever is important to you. Lastly, complete the order with miscellaneous items for which all factors are roughly equal.

In addition to your main weekly order with your primary distributor, you might place another order with a secondary distributor, place an order with a large manufacturer (by which I mean Wizards or Games Workshop), and place a second or third restock order throughout the week. You might also be aggressive enough to search out small manufacturers who don’t use distribution and place orders directly with them. You can find some good deals like that, but it would be easy to spend your whole week tracking them down, and the best of them will be picked up by distributors anyway. Your inventory, prep time and time spent placing orders by phone or Internet form could take 2-10 hours per week or more, scaling with sales volume. Networking and searching for new products can take as much time as you care to spend.

Contractor

Handyman skills can save you thousands of dollars during your initial build-out. Just as importantly, the ability to maintain your plumbing, build custom display cases, lay down tile or carpet and perform other common tasks might mean the difference between break-even and profitable long-term operations. If you don’t have these skills, can acquire them, or do you want to contract out each individual job to a professional or trust one of your eager customers with it?

Maintenance duties vary in their demands on your time, but a good rule of thumb is 1-2 hours each week.

Advertising Specialist

You’ll select your media, choose an advertising strategy, write ad copy, price your options and sign the agreements that set it all into motion. You won’t be doing the sales volume necessary to contract out the entirety of this job; nor should you.

Advertising (as distinct from the broader category of marketing, which is a topic for another column) is important, but the fruits of the work usually remain in effect for a long time—longer than, say, sweeping the floor. You might spend several hours on a project but projects don’t come up every day. Figure on a few minutes to an hour a week as an average.

HR Specialist

You’ll decide your company’s hiring policies, starting from when to hire a first employee to training your replacement at the store level. You’ll need to research federal and state laws to make sure you don’t open yourself up to liability. You should establish paperwork procedures to document everything you should keep and dispose of things you don’t need. Make sure your hiring policies are sound and that your procedures are in line with your policies.

With no employees, you’ll spend little or no time in this capacity. However, I recommend that you delegate some time to preparing for the eventuality of hiring help. Write down job duties and descriptions. Find a job application template that you like (and that meets your lawyer’s approval) or design your own. Write down policies you intend to establish for call-outs, vacation time, and other employment issues. List the benefits you offer; start with payment but don’t forget employee discounts, free LAN time, free convention entry, free t-shirts, or anything else you plan to offer your crew when you hire them.

Before you hire anyone, expect to spend several hours in planning and preparation. After you hire them, you’ll spend anywhere from a few minutes to two hours per week in this capacity, depending on the number of people you employ.

Cleaner-upper

Who cleans the bathrooms, sweeps the sidewalk, wipes down the ceiling fixtures, vacuums the floor, and washes the windows? You do—at least until you hire somebody else to do it for you.

Depending on whether or not you have a game room and the activity level in your game room, this job could take anywhere from an hour a week to an hour a day. Periodic large projects might take several hours at a time.

Game Champion

If you have a game room, you might choose one or several games to promote heavily through events. Your duties might include painting miniatures, creating terrain, judging tournaments, running painting clinics, conducting demos, hosting contests, reporting activities to the manufacturer, and advertising events to your customers. You might also organize events run by volunteers.

The time this duty takes depends on your store’s sales volume and the effort you apply. It could be zero. It could be 50 hours per week. I personally recommend that, for most business models, you have a game room and that you run sponsored events to drive sales directly and leverage those events as a competitive edge against Internet retailers, bookstores and other retail outlets.

Store Manager

This catch-all job’s duties include making daily trips to the bank, completing nightly paperwork, making trips to the warehouse club for supplies, writing a weekly schedule, and performing other minor tasks associated with day-to-day activities in the store.

In total, you might spend 1-6 hours per week engaged in these miscellaneous duties.

Summary

As you can see, it’s easy to work as many hours as there are in a week. Fortunately, the higher-end estimates apply mostly to busier stores, and you can assign some of these tasks to other people. For those just starting out, though, it’s a good guide to how you’ll spend your days for the foreseeable future.