Frightening. Scary. Horrifying. Nightmare. For many business owners, these words relate to much more than the spooky season. This can also describe their reactions to many business-related issues and challenges.
So, if you’re a small business owner or are considering starting one before you forge ahead, you should be aware of the issues that could haunt you down.
In honor of the Halloween season, let’s look at some of the horrors that can befall small business owners at any time of the year and how to overcome them.
Ghoulish cashflow
For smaller and growing businesses, delays in payments can cause some domino-effect problems and have led many companies into cash flow difficulties. To avoid this, send your invoices upfront, charge late fees and create payment plans.
Chilling compliance responsibilities
Small business owners must comply with federal and state business licensing laws. To ensure that you take legislative requirements into account at all times, you might want to outsource to a third party; these companies will be well-versed in compliance and have a good understanding of what your business needs to do to comply. However, most small businesses have limited resources when launching, so you have many hats to wear as the owner.
The fear of data loss
Data is increasingly valuable to businesses—especially data related to customers and payments, and that data is also the target of criminals to use fraudulently. That puts an uncomfortable target on any business that accepts credit and debit card payments. Perhaps the most significant long-term consequence of a data breach is the loss of customer trust. Following best practices for GDPR and cybersecurity will prove to be highly beneficial. Create an action plan so you can protect what you’ve worked so hard to earn.
The fear of failure
Fear of failure is expected. It can even be healthy to motivate you to fine-tune your business model before launching your business. But, as you can imagine, sometimes, this fear of failure prevents many entrepreneurs from following their dreams. You must weigh up your options carefully and get expert advice from fellow business owners and mentors to help you put the fear of failure into perspective, so it doesn’t stop you from your tracks.
Horrifying tax returns
The dreaded tax return and end-of-financial-year responsibilities are a huge burden for business owners but necessary when running a company. Running a small business is hard enough. The last thing you want to do is add more tasks to your already busy plate or get into tax trouble. If you are still doing your business tax returns, it may be time to hand this off to a professional. We can recommend bookkeepers and accountants to you.
Understanding the unique issues faced by small businesses can help you be more successful. There will naturally be some spooks along the way, but handling them will ultimately be the key to your business’ success.
What has been your biggest business-related horror story? And how did you overcome it?