Dear Small Business Owner... A Memo

Why did you start your business? Desire, need, or something else? Whatever it may be, be proud of yourself. Congratulations – you used your talents, and you did it. 

Maybe you own and run a small bakery, which you founded because of your character, passion, and skill. You love to make people happy, and you know that treats and sweets make people happy. Baking is your hobby, and you can do it effortlessly. 

Often, your small business resembles who you are. The challenges it will face will often resemble the challenges you face at a personal level, and likewise, the successes it attains will be akin to your successes. In knowing this, remember that each morning, you rise to face another day and strive to be a better person than you were the day before, and your business can do the same. You are your business; your business is you. 

Just like you, your business has needs and wants. Some of these are an abundance of questions, for which you can never seem to find the perfect answer. How long do I persevere before giving up? How do I properly budget? What kind of targets do I set? On top of that, the business owner in you wants the answers to arrive at the same time and be in perfect sync with one another. Remember, you are your business, and your business is you, and therefore just like in your own life, patience is key. What is meant to be shall be and your answers will come when the time is right. 

Prepare yourself for losses and develop the right strategies to grow from them. Today you may call a setback a loss – and rightly so. Tomorrow, you will call it a lesson. The facts don’t change, but your outlook can. Personal pain and trauma can lay the foundations of resilience if processed the right way, and the same applies to a business. A loss made today, immediately followed by a re-assessment of the risks you took in the lead-up to that loss, will result in a more resilient business in the future.

Balance. Do you want to maintain cash flow and working capital, but invest in and grow your business at the same time? At a personal level, you may be wondering how it's possible to work hard, obtain sufficient sleep and exercise while maintaining a social life. The answer to both questions is simple – balance. Balance is important to both yourself and your business. 

Be open-minded. Often, businesses design products and services with a specific market in mind and cater only to that market. However, sometimes there is an ‘unseen’ market with your business’ specific product in mind. What people do with their lives is not within your locus of control. The same applies to marketing – you cannot specifically define who your customers will be. Therefore, avoid excessive segmentation. Your offering may have more uses than you have even thought of yourself. Don’t choose your customers, let them choose you.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. It's an almost zero risk and high reward investment. Since we are not perfect beings, those who never ask for help may, unfortunately, be “doubly cursed” (as referred to in our previous article). By this, we mean that they not only have a knowledge gap in some areas, but they are unable to recognize that they do. We make an appointment with a doctor when we are unwell and don’t know how to become healthy again, and the same should apply to your business, ask for help when you need it, and even ask for it when you don’t think you do. This goes back to being open-minded. There is far too much knowledge in this world for us to think we know it all – personally or commercially.

Kind Regards,

Balancing Rocks

"You don't build a business, you build people, then people build the business" - Zig Ziglar