Nobody ever said that running a small business will be an easy task. In fact, it’s tough, leaving the option of doing a 9-to-5 job with a good paycheck and becoming an entrepreneur. But as nobody ever said, starting a small business is easy, it’s very rewarding.
There are many challenges every small and large business faces. Whether it’s the funding, creativity, clients, or personal life. And trust on this, when your personal life is hanging by a thread then it’s time for good news, perhaps a promotion.
If you already own a small business or are considering becoming a small business owner, the market may be primed to help you reach success. However, there are still a number of challenges you’ll likely face in order to grow and keep up with productivity. Before you plan other things, there are certain issues that you should be aware of. Here are five of the most common challenges small businesses may encounter to keep up with their quality and productivity.
In case you are already facing these challenges, you can jump straight to the productivity tips section.
Trouble Finding Good Employees
There are 32.5million small businesses in the United States only. Finding well-qualified, faithful employees is tough. More often this can happen, your offering of a small business benefits package won’t be able to compete with what large companies are offering. As a result, there are going to be times when the good candidates will choose those big guys.
Funding
Money management can be tricky when starting a small business. Managing finances is one of the biggest challenges for anyone, and when it comes to small businesses no matter how skilled you are, you have to use all your experience and handle the money flow wisely. Sometimes the issue could be less availability of credit/loans. Banking documents or any other loan approver’s need that you’re not able to fulfill. In these situations, it is recommended to take legal advice from legal experts.
Lead Generation
For small businesses to survive it’s better to not depend on one big whale. Relying on one big client is a choice of disaster. It’s now easier than ever to find new customers, thanks to the many channels available today. It’s just a matter of using the right channels and being efficient with the limited budget that small businesses have to spend on marketing and advertising.
Growth & Quality
Growth and success can hit you like booze – one minute you’re celebrating and another crying over losing a big client. It’s a very true and common story. There’s always going to be a struggle to find and keep up with the new client’s needs. When it comes to small businesses, growth is often challenging. But that never justifies bad quality or support. Service quality and customer growth always go hand-in-hand.
Customer Satisfaction
More profit and more clients sound great, especially for small businesses. When a customer has a positive experience with your company’s customer service, they are more inclined to come to your business again in the future. Train your employees in customer service. Ensure that your customers know that you recognize and apologize for the inconvenience. Find an acceptable solution.
Now keeping these challenges in mind let’s explore some productivity tips to help small business entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurial Productivity Tips for Small Businesses
Every business is different, every business problem will be different. In that challenging mutable environment, it’s hard to keep pace with productivity. To work on that, we have some productivity tips to help small business entrepreneurs succeed.
1. Build A Positive Work Environment
Your employees and partners both contribute to the success of the business in every step. Staff must be aware of how things are going. There should be transparency. Employees should get appreciated for their efforts. When you make your team feel valued, their creativity increases, and they are motivated to complete the tasks on time.
2. Automate Processes Where You Can
Every business has repetitive and mundane manual tasks. While these tasks are critical to the functioning of your business, such as email marketing or scheduling meetings, they’re time-consuming and slow down your and your team’s workflow. Use Picktime to schedule your online meetings with prospects. It will send an auto-generated email and SMS notification reminders for every update, lessening the chances of being late or no show.
3. Give A Personal Touch to Your Offering
Take the personal touch seriously. Giant corporations can’t deal with customers directly, but you can. Smaller businesses can! This is one of the advantages for small business starters. Many customers often decide on small businesses precisely because they’ll have more options at their disposal. Clients and customers only return when you serve them the best services and make them feel valued, and excited as your client. This can be achieved when you add a personal touch. How to do that, let your marketing team do at least something for you!
4. Remove Distractions
Work is hard. Distractions are easy. You should have that zeal to work for your business – to make your small business successful. As the day progresses, one tends to lose their focus, and even something as minuscule as a phone notification can result in 5-7 minutes of wasted time at a stretch.
5. Prioritize Your Tasks
Once you have a working schedule, ensure that you prioritize the most important tasks of the day. As a small business entrepreneur, you’ll have plenty of tasks to keep you occupied the whole day. Rather than this, try to manage the day in such a manner you attend all scheduled meetings on time.
6. Take Breaks
Taking breaks increases our work productivity. They are a chance to refocus. Taking a break does not have to cost any money as long as you are keeping your body energized.
7. Why Not Use The Technology
You have the knowledge, use it. You are updated and aware of the recent technology, use it in making your task simpler. For instance, cloud, having your business data on the cloud makes it easily accessible from anywhere. Use the cloud to save and manage the data. Use collaboration software to streamline communication and payments.
8. Ensure You Have Tools Needed to Succeed
Every task needs tools to get it done efficiently, quickly, and effectively. These may not always be the physical ones but the software. Use an appointment scheduler app like Picktime to manage your bookings or meetings or schedule a session with the clients. Picktime has something for everyone. It’s resourceful and can help in increasing productivity.
9. Hire Intelligently
Hire humble and adaptable staff. Who truly enjoys working and handling various tasks that come up. Your company needs someone who can do the job and who fits in your company. Who’s ready to learn and unlearn as well.
10. Be Available For The Team
Show your teams you’re available for them. Offer them assistance before even asking. Leave lasting impressions like this by small gestures. This also helps in making the team feel they’re working in a healthy environment which keeps them motivated.
Saving time and being productive all the time can be a bit of a task. But it’s worth a try for yourself. Without any further delay let’s get started and use these productivity tips to help small business entrepreneurs succeed and get that business on top.
