40 small business challenges.

My idea for this blog is to discuss the challenges we face when dealing with small businesses. If you are in a small business, you know it’s not easy. But sometimes – if we can define the problem, it’s half solved.

So, let’s list them!

Here is everything that came to mind, that I have experienced in my 10+ year experience. Some of these are easy to deal with, some seem to be impossible. It’s different for each of us.

With time I’ll elaborate and look for the best ways to deal with all these challenges. So, subscribe!

Dealing with personal issues

1. Fear of failure.
This one is popular. The good old – what will others think of me? It’s irrational.
Sometimes, thou, very rational. If you take risks and lose, you will have to deal with consequences.

2. Fear of success.
Fear of success seems to be more irrational, but very real nevertheless. We all need to be part of the tribe and if our tribe has always been very modest, then just imaganing that one day you will drive a Ferrari and live in a big house, can scare you to death. Will your tribe accept you as a successful business person?
Is this real for you or do you think this is nonesense?

3. Work-life balance.
The issue is – how to be 100% present when we work. So we don’t need to work 24/7 and be present when we are at home. I know, it’s hard to play with legos with your 4-year-old, when you have 100 problems and even longer to-do list. Planning, prioritization, and focus are the way. And even though it’s easier said than done, that is the only way I know about.

4. Ability to rest.
It is so easy to work from everywhere. From the phone, from the toilet, you can answer messages while playing with legos with your 4-year-old. Or, at least, you can think about your business problems all the time, your 4 year old might not notice that you are not all there.
But can you switch off and rest?

5. Ability to take risk.
This has always been a big one for me. Risk is scary. To grow business you quite often need to borrow money. And if you are raised in a modest home, you are afraid of debt. And you realize that if you fail, your whole family will suffer, because the debt won’t go away that easily.

6. Ability to face the challenge without stress.
Stress quite often comes from the expectation that the situation should be different from what it really is. But still, it is what it is. So why stress about it? Let’s just deal with it.
I know it’s easier said than done, but if it wasn’t – it would not be on this list.

7. Ability to be enthusiastic.
In a small business, you often have to be a leader, a marketer, a salesman, and do all the admin work you do. And you know what – without enthusiasm, you are not a good leader, marketer and salesman. So, how to be enthusiastic today and every day for the next 10 years?

8. Ability not to fool oneself, when things are not going great.
Do you count the money? I mean, do you go throught all your expenses and look at the revenue and conclude how much profit have you made?
And do you do this also when you know that you won’t see good results? You know you will see losses, not profits. Probably reluctantly, if you do it at all.
The ability to stare into reality is important!

9. How to pivot when things are not going your way?
This one ties with the previous point. We have to stare into reality and change.

10. How to pivot when everything seems to be fine?
Let me tell you an unpleasant truth – everything is not fine. There is competition, there is technological advancements, there are geopolitical changes, and there is your personal life that is quite fragile, to be totally honest.
Sometimes it’s best to pivot, to change things before the world comes and changes it for you.

11. How to plan your time?
Time management is probably one of the most discussed questions from this list. Somehow we humans, can’t find the right answer; it seems that we humans can’t just find the correct way. Well, I’ll share what works for me.

12. How to do that is planned?
Well, you can have the best plan, but if you get distracted and don’t do what you have planned – what’s the point? Have you ever been in a situation, when you look at the calendar and it says – “do this one activity that will make you a millionaire and forever happy”. And you kind of – noo, I have too much admin work, I have to wash dishes, I have to answer an email.

Understanding the finances

13. Having a sense of finances – the ability to understand what’s going on.
Sometimes there is a lot of things going on, that you don’t even know – are you making money? Have you considered all the expenses, all taxes? How much are you spending on marketing, and what is the cost of a client? Sometimes you just don’t understand what’s going on.

14. How to calculate ROI?
How do you calculate ROI? What is a good time frame? Getting your investment back in one year or 10 years? What makes sense for you – ROI, ROCI, ROAS, or some other abbreviation?

15. Understanding financial instruments?
If you borrow money, what is a fair cost of capital? What is a good deal for you and what are the terms and conditions that you never should agree with?

Marketing

In small buisiness, the boss is quite often the head of marketing. So there is a lot do deal with.

16. Ability to understand and use ad tools.
Meta platfrom or Google ads, TikTok ads or some other platform – they always change, update, come up with new products. How to use them, to create value for your business and don’t burn your money.
Choosing an agency could be a mistake; doing marketing yourself can be very challenging.

17. How to manage social media?
How to be successful in social media, without wasting your whole day in these platforms?

18. Seo, with AI in mind.
We all have heard of keywords, but now it is AI era. Does AI tools can we bribed with the usual SEO strategies and is the good old google search dead? If your business depends on organic traffic, these are critical questions right now.

19. Ability to write copy.
Today you can trust your teksts to AI tool, but can you? Will you lose some of your authenticity? In this blog, for example, I don’t generate a single word. I look at writing as the training for thinking, and learning to write is a very valuable skill.
Besides, formulating sentences is also the way we talk to AI tools, so beeing good with words might still be very good skill in the future.

20. Ability to talk into the camera.
Videos, reels or tiktoks or even youtube videos can be a very valuable asset for your business. Besides – making a video is litterarly cloning yourself. Ok, not litterarly. But, If you are sitting in bubble bath, and somebody is watching your video of you explaining your service or product – you are working, providing value for somebody. So clone yourself, do more videos!

21. Ability to take attractive photos.
We all walk with amazing cameras in our pockets. And if you are in a small business – it’s very possible that you take photos for your business needs.
If you post your photos on social media, your photos might tell a story and stop somebody from scrolling. And also – they might not. Learning some basics can really help you get lots of more attention, with the same camera you already own.

22. Ability to be interesting on social media.
This is about storytelling. Can you tell the story well?

Leadership

23. How to be a leader?
Some of us just want to do our work. And we expect that our employees will just do their work. Well, it doesn’t always (or never) work that way. Learining to be a leader will pay large dividents.

24. How to hire people?
This is probably one of the most popular questions. Very important, very

25. How to fire people?
How do you know, when somebody should go. And how do you say it? Most humans struggle with this tast a lot.

26. How to have a difficult conversation?
Some of us hate confrontation. It difficult to say to somebody that they are doing bad job.
Some of us can’t handle bad news and will pretend that everything is ok.

27. How to create a team.
Creating a team is about caring about your people and helping them to be in the right place. And about creating an environment where people work together towards a common goal.

28. How to handle meetings?
Everyone knows that meetings can be time wasters, but they are also necessary. How to conduct good meetings, how often? How to conduct group meetings and how to prepare for 1-2-1 meetings?

29. Ability to teach.
New people in your company will need to be educated. New emploees expect to be trained, so they can be productive in their role. Have you ever thought about – hmm, am I good at teaching? How do I improve this skill?

Sales

30. Ability to sell.
I guess this should be on the top of the list. Selling is so important. Selling is selling, hiring is selling, saying “no” is selling. So much selling in business world. If you can’t sell – start to learn asap!

Relationships

In business, the most important relationships, probably, are with your employees and clients. But don’t neglect other possibilities to create strong relationships.

31. Networking
Depending on your business, networking can have giant impact on your business. How to netwrok well, you might ask?

32. Creating relationships with your suppliers.
If somebody is selling to you, work on relationships with those people. You are imprtant for them, and they can be very important for you as well. Don’t neglect this point.

33. Creating collaborations.
Collaborations are business oppurtunities and you should definately explore these. We are not alone in this world, and the economies of business – it is all connected.

Processes

34. Creating a process.
Some say that business is a system. Or should be. Well, automation is very trendy now, you should definitely utilize automation. But not all processes are automation.
How you say hello, how to register a warranty, how to present a receit – there are many processes to define in a business.

35. Creating automations.
Some processes should be automated. How to do that?

36. Dealing with the admin work.
This question, very often, is about elimination and delegation. Or, about task batching. Or, nowadays, about using an AI assistant.

37. Dealing with bureaucracies – (licences, contracts e.t.c.)
For me, I see these tasks as cost of doing business. You have to pay taxes and you have to deal with these things. Don’t complain, just deal with it.

You and competition

38. How to be different from competitors?
I feel that this question is existential. Or else, you can try to offer the best price, in which case the business can turn into a nightmare. This is very important question to consider.

39. How to deal with unfair competition?
I only have this point here because I hear it often. But what is unfair competition? If you are small business, and some big corporation is hurting you, I’t just might be your fault that you are in competition with a corporation.

40. How to change when you can’t compete?
Change seems very difficult, but sometimes change can bring you relief. Imagine, when day you could realise – damn, I don’t have to struggle, I can just do something different. The ability to change things around is also existential.

So there. These are the challenges that came to mind for me, from my experience. In my future blog posts,p I’ll dig deeper into these challenges.

Let me know – what are your biggest challenges when dealing with small businesses?