More than half of the businesses that start each moth are home based businesses, and more than 500,000 new businesses start each month. Unfortunately, more employer businesses shut down each month, and not surprisingly as a small business owner you can understand why. The stress of running a business-regardless of the size- are numerous, and for a business owner, he or she has to deal with the issues and find a solution anytime they come up. Time constraints, cash flow issues, worker related issues have to be dealt in a timely manner, and the business owner finds himself doing the job of several people in a daily basis.
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Common Stresses – and Reliefs – of Small Business Owners
Being a small business owner doesn’t come with a job description, and more often than not it includes unforeseen stresses and challenges that are out of the business owner’s control. As a result, more and more entrepreneurs are finding ways to balance the demands of business in both practical and surprising ways.
Common Stress #1: Lack of Control
While being your own boss may appear to put you in the driver’s seat, working with external business partners, clients, investors and other outside parties puts you in a position where you lack control. Sure, you may have influence… but that’s isn’t the same as identifying all end results. This can cause many small business to gain stress and seek resolution. Unfortunately, guaranteeing the results or even the answers you want to happen are not always possible.
Doing Small Business Better: Is the customer king?
Welcome to ZDNet’s second panel discussion in the Doing Small Business Better video series. This week, our discussion will focus on the concept of being a customer-centric business.
This is a term that is used a lot, but what does it really mean? When it comes to building stronger relationships, it all revolves around managing customer expectations, which sounds simple enough.
Where do businesses go wrong when it comes to customer service? And what are the most important factors to consider to get it right?
The concept of delivering great customer service, and being customer centric, should be a priority for every business, but sometimes it can get a little lost in the day-to-day pressure of doing business. This panel discussion provides some insights on getting it right.
Hosted by Andrew Griffiths, taking part in the panel is Troy Eggins, managing director of Trojan TechGroup; Bob Greenup, managing director of BNI Sydney central and south; Peter “Ziggy” Tsiglopoulos, director and owner of 3P Financial Pty; and Lisa Conway, owner of Zing Business Coaching.
Small-business Contracting on the Rise, Official Says
WASHINGTON, Oct. 14, 2014 – For the first time, the Pentagon has exceeded departmental goals for small-business contracting, a senior Defense Department official said last week.
Small businesses made up 23 percent of the Defense Department’s prime contracts in fiscal year 2014, receiving about $53 billion in work, said Andre Gudger, director of the office of small business programs, in a DoD News interview.
“This year, the Department of Defense not only exceeded its goal, but it also is on course to exceed the federalwide goal. … That’s significant — that’s historical, in fact,” he said.
The department also exceeded its goal of 3 percent for contracts with small businesses owned by service-disabled veterans — about $9 billion in contract value — Gudger said. “There’s no one better than that group of people to know what we need and how fast we need it, and help us to reduce the barriers in acquiring it,” he said.
Prime contracts are contracts in which the department contracts directly with the business, as opposed to subcontracting, where a second company is hired by a defense contractor to accomplish some part of the work.
Critical to battlefield dominance
This is an important accomplishment, Gudger said, because small businesses are critical to dominance on the battlefield.
