Small business form the backbone of the United States economy. Entrepreneurs are the advancers, risk takers, and believers that give us innovative new products and create the majority of new jobs for workers in our country. There’s a fair amount of competition out there in the small business world, so it’s important that you stay at the top of your game. Small businesses will always be relevant if and only if they’re managed correctly.

 

 

The Backbone

 

That statement may seem optimistic considering all the negativity in the traditional media right now. But, it is something I truly believe.

 

According to the United States Small Business Administration (SBA), 99.7% of U.S. businesses are qualified as “small business” and employed 48% of all U.S. employees as of 2013. That’s 56.8 million people! Of those workers, retail businesses employed 35.7%, manufacturing businesses employed 44.9%, transportation and warehousing businesses employed 37%, wholesale trade employed 58.6%, professional, scientific, and tech services employed 58.8%, and the list goes on.

 

 

small business united states

 

 

Take a moment to congratulate yourself! Your dedication and vision to start your own business is helping someone else buy groceries this week or pay off their car loan.

 

Small businesses are visibly making a difference by creating jobs and decreasing the United States unemployment gap. In 2013 alone, small businesses created 1.1 million net jobs. Additionally, unemployment dropped from 5.6% in 2014 to 5% at the end of 2015.

 

The SBA states that “about 50% of all establishments survive five years or longer, and about 1/3 of establishments survive 10 years or longer”. These are good stats, but why are only 1/3 of businesses succeeding long term?

 

Let’s look at some small business pain points and solutions for them:

 

 

Pain Points and Solutions

 

 

⌈”This is no time for ease and comfort. It is the time to dare and endure.” – Winston Churchill⌉

 

 

Pain Point: Employers are finding it difficult to access qualified employees.

 

I’ve found two major causes for this:

 

First, small businesses are using the wrong methods to find potential employees. Second, small businesses are competing with big businesses who have more resources to offer potential employees. Your business gets to be at the forefront of helping to solve the unemployment dilemma, but you need the right tools to do it.

 

Solution: Newspaper ads aren’t cutting it when it comes to employee recruitment. Strong network referrals and online job search sites are where you need to concentrate your efforts.

 

89% of employers have used Linkedin to fill a position and 81% of users rated Linkedin as a “top search job site”. Although many small businesses may not be able to offer the same extensive benefits packages as big businesses, work with what you can offer potential employees.

 

Small businesses have ample opportunities for growth and change. Today’s modern employees want a position with versatility and a relatable culture and environment; this is where your small business can stand out!

 

 

qualified employees

 

 

Pain Point: A lot of small businesses are sitting on their hands waiting for something to happen. They’re not sure how or where to begin obtaining customers, training employees, and making sales.

 

Many entrepreneurs have strong determination to make their goal a reality, but don’t know how to set up a long term plan for continued business success.

 

Solution: Use the resources available to you! There are tons of free research tools, educational blogs, and training templates that you can access (I’ll list some of the best sites in the “resources” section at the end of this article).

 

No one will hand you anything in small business, you need to make it happen yourself. It’s your livelihood we’re taking about, go out and take the initiative to educate yourself on what you need to do.

 

 

Documents and Dedication

 

Document, document, document! Say it again for the people in the back!

 

I can not stress enough how important it is for a small businesses to create tangible processes and methods for how they conduct their business. Formulating your thoughts into concrete ideas will help you arrange your top priorities and goals for your business. It’ll also help you define what areas are performing well and what areas are struggling.

 

Be willing to make adjustments based on the information you gather that will impact your business plan and create a strategy for implementing your plan. Finally, follow through with the plan.

 

 

document business plan

 

 

I have seen more small businesses than I care to remember set themselves up for failure based on their lack of follow through. They have a great plan, but never implement it and end up dying off or just winging it. In today’s economy this is truly a recipe for disaster.If you are out there making something happen, you have a huge advantage over other businesses that aren’t.

 

As Nike says ‘JUST DO IT’. Whatever it takes, do it! Don’t be afraid to make some mistakes or ask for help. The most successful people are not those who have all the answers, but those who know where to go to get the answers they need.

 

 

In Conclusion

 

Your business is part of the solution. Like I said above, small business is the back bone of the American economy. So, running a well oiled, successful small business only sets you up for greater success as the economy moves forward into more rewarding times.

 

Now, do I think it is going to be easy? Absolutely not! It’s going to take creativity, thought, planning and implementation on a huge level. Your business is going to need to have a rock solid strategy from top to bottom. In today’s business environment, any hole in your business model will quickly lead to a sinking ship.

 

So what can you do as an entrepreneur to ensure success? First, know how and where to go to access the right talent. Second, get a strong business plan together and stick to it. Let’s keep the small business trend on the rise!

 

 

Resources

 

Neil Patel: Patel has a great blog and YouTube channel where he addresses topics you can use everyday

HubSpot: Their specialty is “inbound marketing”. They have free and subscription based resources to help you out

BuzzSumo: Let’s you see what the top trending content is to give you ideas about what to write about

Google Analytics: Analytics give you the ability to track page success, conversion rate, ROI, and more

Cazbah blog: We’re now posting 3x/week with new, educational based content on a variety of popular topics for small businesses

 

 

Want More Info on How to Grow Your Business?

 

Check out our website and get a FREE comprehensive analysis on why your site is not performing and how to fix it!

Check out our blog page for more useful articles on a variety of topics!