For many small business owners sales and marketing are not the only problems they have to contend for the success of their business. Not long ago, the idea of online marketing, online retail, and having a social media presence for their business was a remote possibility for them. Now, the small business owner has realized the importance of utilizing the web to expand, promote and acquire the sales required for its survival. As a small business owner, what is a big problem within your business? Is it the amount the taxes you have to pay every year, the paperwork, or hiring the right people for your business? Follow the links below to learn what are some of the problems plaguing the small business owner in the United States.
Hiring is simultaneously one of the biggest opportunities and one of the biggest challenges small businesses have. Expanding your staff is necessary for taking your company to the next level of growth, and the right hire can help your sales skyrocket. On the other hand, it can be incredibly difficult to find the perfect candidate, and if that person turns out to be the wrong choice, it can cost a lot of time and money to replace him or her.
Based on recently released studies and reports, here’s what you need to know about the current state of small business hiring and growth, and what challenges business owners are dealing with.
Seventy percent of small businesses experience problems during the hiring process.
Small businesses were responsible for nearly half of all new U.S. jobs in 2015, and yet the vast majority said that the hiring process takes longer and is more difficult than they expect, found an ADP survey. ADP polled more than 1,000 owners and managers of companies that had fewer than 50 employees, finding that the biggest specific challenges were longer hiring cycles (34 percent), a loss of productivity (28 percent) and new employees not meeting expectations (25 percent).
DIY IT: What Your Small Business Needs to Know
Cybersecurity is an issue that’s probably on the mind of every business owner. The growing list of corporate data breaches, coupled with the more-secure EMV credit card chip technology that emerged last year, has made businesses and consumers alike highly aware of the security risks that exist in today’s world.
Despite numerous studies and statistics on hackers targeting small businesses, many owners still have an, “It won’t happen to me” attitude about security. This is a dangerous way of thinking that could ultimately leave your business open to a whole host of potential risks.
“Many small business owners underestimate how vulnerable they are to security threats,” said Sanjay Castelino, vice president of marketing at Spiceworks, a provider of information technology solutions. “Our recent IT security report shows business owners are facing a number of threats from malware to phishing to ransomware, and the attackers range from lone hackers to rogue employees. Once [a business is] successfully attacked, earning back customer trust and fixing the damage is often too costly for small companies.”
What Many Small Businesses Call Their Biggest Challenge
The 2015 Small Business Credit Survey Report on Employer Firms, released March 3 by seven Federal Reserve Banks, contains disturbing news.
Twenty-two percent of small businesses with annual revenues over $10 million identified compliance with government regulations as the biggest challenge they faced over the past 12 months. That’s up from only four percent in a similar but smaller survey last year.
Participants in the 2015 survey ranked government regulations as more problematic than credit availability, cash flow, the cost of running a business, taxes, and other problems.
For an overview of how government regulations continue to climb, see The Heritage Foundation’s “Red Tape Rising: Six Years of Escalating Regulation Under Obama.”
