As a business owner you may often struggle with overcoming small business problems, you are not the first and you won't be the last. It's been our experience that most business owners think the "guy down the street" is somehow having an easier time running their business. The truth of the matter is that all business are challenged with trying to overcome small business problems. The difference between those who struggle with these problems and those business owners that don't is that those who struggle often let their small business problems build up and never deal with them.
So, what are the main problems that exist in small business?
- Not enough sales
- Not enough cash
- Trouble managing employees
- Not knowing what to do next or what direction to go in
The list of problems in business can seem endless, but it's not that the list is endless; it's that we too often allow our business problems to stack up and only really acknowledge their existence when they are at crisis point and often we never really deal with them and they therefore keep coming back. So the secret is to prioritise and deal with these challenges as they come along.
Let's take the small business problem of not having enough sales. The problem with not having enough sales is that in our experience it never "just happens overnight". Lack of sales in a business is almost always a gradual development that has not been dealt with over a long period of time and usually the owner has put the decline in sales to seasonal issues or market forces. While both can be true, the owners' conclusion is often not based on any facts it's often based on some gut-feeling.
Similarly, not having enough cash in your business is usually a symptom of not managing your expenses or not having a process in place to manage customers who owe you money, and is usually only stumbled upon when the bank account is empty.
The secret to overcoming small business problems is to start by acknowledging their existence in your business. Not to do so only prolongs the time where they come to crisis point and are usually very difficult to deal with at that time. As a small business owner if you were to do nothing else but face these problems as they arise then you will have made a significant step forward with your business.