Strategies: 6 good-for-you business tasks you hate

• Efficient meetings%2C real deadlines can keep you focused
• Invoices will help keep the cash flowing
• Customer complaints can help you strengthen weaknesses

Small-business owners have duties they hate doing.

These are tedious, annoying tasks that you as a hard-charging entrepreneur would rather avoid. But that doesn't mean you or your business is better off without them.

In fact, some of the least enjoyable chores of running a company actually help your long-term survival and success.

Here are six annoying aspects of business that you might want to ignore, but you had better do anyway.

1. Meetings. Once once you started your own business, you vowed you wouldn't have any boring meetings.

But well-run meetings can be productive, even in a small company. They can help you make faster decisions, communicate with your team and stay motivated.

Make sure your meetings have a definite purpose and a clear agenda. At the end of each meeting, outline the action items, assign each one, and set deadlines. One company starts each meeting with a clearly stated "this meeting will be a success if …" description, so everyone knows what the meeting is supposed to achieve.

2. Deadlines. Nothing focuses your attention like a real deadline.

Have you ever noticed how productive you get before a drop-dead deadline for a customer or right before you leave for a long trip? However, all too often the issues most important for our company's survival have no real deadlines — new product line introductions, new marketing campaigns, updating infrastructure. So you need to create internal deadlines to give you a sense of urgency.

In my company, we decided that 2012 was the year of "the cloud," so we had to transition to cloud-based services during that year. The end of 2013 is our deadline to launch a new website.

3. Invoices. Of course, you love money coming in to your business.

But if you run a company where you bill your clients, you won't get paid if you don't send a statement. Over and over, I see small-business owners, especially consultants, who procrastinate when it comes to sending invoices.

Bill clients immediately after the work is done or the product is delivered. Better yet: Encourage clients to pay with credit cards at the time you interact with them. That way you don't have to send out invoices and wait 30 days or more to get paid.

4. Planning. Planning is something you do before you start your business, then you can forget about it, right?

Wrong! In a fast-changing business world, annual planning is crucial for long-term success. My annual planning process twice helped me save my business — in 2002 and 2009, years of financial crisis.

But even in good times, an off-site, annual business plan session with your team helps you respond to changing conditions, set priorities, get your entire team aligned. Embrace planning as a survival and success tool.

5. Backing up. Your data is one of the most valuable assets your company has, but are you properly protecting it?

If something happens to your business, will you be able to restore key data such as customer records, product information and employee records quickly and easily? Key data should be stored securely in more than one place. And at least one place should be off site.

The easiest way to do this is by using cloud-based services.

6. Customer problems. What? Customer problems are good for you?

Well, they are if you have real problems in your business — with your products, services, employees or pricing — and your customers take the time to tell you about them.

The truth is most unhappy customers just walk away. They might go on social networks to complain or give you a low rating on an opinion site, but few disappointed clients or customers take the time to tell you directly. If they do, look at this as an opportunity to correct your problems and improve your business.

Now I know this column is a little like telling a meat-and-potatoes guy to eat your vegetables. It's good for you, you know you should do it, but you're not necessarily going to relish it.

Yet as a small-business owner, you are focused on the bottom line. And these six tactics are designed to help you do one thing: Make more money.

Rhonda Abrams is president of The Planning Shop and publisher of books for entrepreneurs. Her most recent book isEntrepreneurship: A Real-World Approach. Register for Rhonda's free newsletter at PlanningShop.com. Twitter:@RhondaAbrams. Facebook: facebook.com/RhondaAbramsSmallBusiness.Copyright Rhonda Abrams 2013.