Small businesses face challenges that may not necessarily be unique to them as businesses overall. In comparison to larger businesses, these challenges can overwhelm, overtake, and destroy a small business. The smartest small business owner will know what these challenges are and how to beat them into submission and make them turn from a challenge to a success. Here are four of the most crucial challenges a small business will face and how to overcome them.
Staffing
Medium businesses and larger corporations have issues with attrition; however, their size absorbs this attrition. Therefore they can afford to make staffing mistakes in the hiring process. However, a small business cannot withstand a lot of staff turnover, depending on how small the business is. The other issue that small businesses face when staffing that larger businesses don’t is that you can’t only focus on the skills of the person you hire; you have to consider how this employee gets along with others on the staff fits into the flow of the business. In a small business, you are often working closely together, and if there is one cog in this well-oiled machine that is not functioning, the entire machine ceases to function properly.
You can overcome this by being selective and engaging questions in the interview process that will give insight into the personality and work with others in the office. Another step you can take is to have more than one person on the staff conduct interviews when narrowing the candidates. These interviews should be independent, thus keeping the opinions separated until the staff comes together to discuss each candidate. Though these approaches don’t guarantee that the person hired will work out, it increases their chances.
Technology
Small businesses aren’t archaic just because they are small. Most small businesses that aren’t up on technology are so simply because they can’t afford the latest and greatest advancements or upgrade existing technology.
There are several ways a small business can face this and obtain all the technology or upgrades they need to be effective in their market. First, you need to get someone who is an expert in business technology (not a salesperson) to evaluate your needs. Once you know exactly what you need, you can seek free and reliable versions of what you need. Another way to overcome it is to approach your investors if you have them and give them a presentation of what you need and the costs. If you don’t have investors, you can do the same with a lender or use some of your equity to invest in new and upgraded technology.
Operations
Operational costs can be overwhelming if the costs are more than your profits. There can be a multitude of reasons this is occurring. These reasons include underpricing your services and products, overpaying for supplies and materials, overstaffing, or even something as insidious as embezzlement or fraud, to name a few. If your operating costs are consistently outdoing your profits, you should hire an impartial business consultant to evaluate. It is suggested that it be an impartial consultant because they will not insert emotions and can get to the core of the matter. They can also give you solutions that aren’t candy-coated but blunt and, again, free of emotion.
Competition
Competition is always going to exist, and in most cases, it is healthy to have or maybe undermotivated to succeed or seek out growth and change. While a little competition can be healthy, there are cases where the competition is trouncing you and killing your business.
If this is the case, you can do a few things to overcome this and come out on top or at least be enough of a contender that your business will thrive. You can research what your competitor is doing that leads to success and find out their weaknesses. Whether a best practice or weakness, you will be armed with what to do and what not to do. You can also find a niche in the market that makes you stand out among your competitors. It could be one original product or service you offer that no one else does. You can also use their weaknesses as your strengths, which will bring customers to your door more often than not.
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