While it may seem amazing to be your own boss, the responsibilities that come with owning a small business can quickly become overwhelming. To keep your business on track, it’s important to be prepared for the common roadblocks most new business owners experience.
Give your business its best chance of success by anticipating these small business problems and solutions.
Insufficient Funds
Starting a new business comes with a lot of financial responsibility, from tracking expenses to paying off loans. As such, insufficient funding or unrealistic sales expectations can quickly bring your business to a screeching halt.Solution: Avoid being too optimistic when predicting your businesses cash flow - especially in the beginning. As a rule, you should start your business with enough money to keep it running for at least two years. It’s also a good idea to set up a contingency reserve to give your budget a safety cushion in case of unexpected changes.
Not Hiring the Right People
You can’t run an entire business all on your own. However, you don’t want to waste money by paying an unqualified team. This will only lead to frustration and lost profit.Solution: When you have a small team, every new hire has a large impact on the success of your business. Know exactly what you’re looking for before interviewing a new candidate; don’t just hire the first person that walks through the door. Try to find someone with a diverse skill set who embodies the company culture you want to develop.
Poor Time Management Skills
Owning a business comes with an intimidating workload. To avoid getting behind on important tasks, you’ll need to develop stellar time management skills.Solution: Using workflow visualization tools like a Kanban board or a spreadsheet will help keep your schedule organized. Use these tools to create goal lists, prioritize the most important tasks, and delegate work. Having a visual representation of your schedule will keep you from overloading your calendar.
Not Developing a Professional Website
Don’t underestimate the power of a quality website. Your website should help build brand identity and bring in customers. However, having a professional website that is slow loading, hard to navigate, or poorly organized can reflect badly on your business.Solution: Invest in advice from marketing professionals with SEO skills to help ensure that your website will get noticed amongst the sea of other small businesses. These professionals can also help you sort out bugs in your website, increase its loading speed, and format it to look good on all platforms.
We hope this list of small business problems and solutions helps contribute to your business’s success.
