If you are like me, you want to build a small business to gain financial independence. Doing that, however, is not an easy task. If it were, everyone would do it. If you do have a small business, and you want it to grow, you will find many challenges.
Scaling
It may be easy to provide a service to one or two clients, but growing beyond that will take more time, and possibly more help. To make scaling easier, it is best to have a solid, best practice procedure for running your company.
If you have a product that you create, find the most efficient way to make it with high quality. If it is created by another business on your behalf, make sure to find the best business partner who will have both of your best interests in mind.
I am working on a new project with a factory in China. They are willing to work with me early on to create a small batch of my product, and I trust based on their current level of service that they would be responsive, caring, and helpful
National and International Sales
If you want to grow outside of your community, you need to have a way to communicate with your customers and sell online.
Inside the United States, it is easy. You speak the same language and use the same money. Accepting payment in dollars and communicating in English is not a problem. If you want to sell outside of the United States, for example to customers in Canada or the United Kingdom, you have to be able to accept foreign currency and ship abroad.
If you want to go beyond that, you may need a translator or a method to display your website in a foreign language. In an economy faced with globalization, even small businesses must adapt.
Bringing on More Help
At the end of the day, most businesses need to bring on additional staff to meet the needs of the company. When hiring, it is incredibly important to bring on people you can trust and will work hard for your business.
This is a difficult task for anyone. As a small business owner, letting up on the controls and handing something over to someone else can be stressful and difficult.
I’m looking forward to hearing more about your product and experiences with manufacturing!
I will tell more as it goes. You can count on that!
Nice list… Another challenge is funds. Many times a small business owner will live on nothing in order to use the funds they’re generating to grow the business. This is a huge challenge unless you are fortunate enough to have some cash in the beginning to use.
That is very true. Starting a low cost business helps with this, but if you need a lot of capital to get going, you can get stuck living on a ramen budget.