Beating the Small Business Trap

It's not enough these days to do a good job, offer fair prices, and serve your customers with integrity and honesty. If you spend all your time working in your business you'll be missing out on customers that will never know you're alive. Sure, you may be doing a good job for the customers you have, but competition who may not be half as good as you may wind up putting you out of business. That's the small business trap: spending all your time on your work and none of your time on your business itself. Stop working so hard on the day-to-day details of your business.

Start Working on Your Business

And start working on the business itself. That's right. Step back and see what you can do to make your business grow and thrive. Marketing your business is the first priority because without marketing you risk falling behind your competitors. Don't think you have the budget? Certain you don't have the time?

Fire Yourself

That's another way of saying, learn to delegate. There is very little in your business that actually has to be done by you personally. Train your employees to do the tasks you're doing now. Put in systems that allow your business to be run without your moment to moment input. MacDonald's manages to run an efficient business with high-school kids. You can do the same with your staff.

And Hire Your Customers

Delegating solves your time problem, but doesn't solve the money one. You likely can't afford to hire top marketers to work for you, but that's OK because you have access to the best marketers for your business: your customers. Your customers know how good your business is, but they likely don't have a reason to market it to their friends and family.

Give Them a Reason

Motivate your customers to market your business for you. Tell them how much you value referrals, and then explain how you'll reward them for referring new customers to you. You're only limited by your imagination in setting up a reward program for them - discounts, freebies, and other rewards - but the only thing you have to remember is to make sure that they value what you're offering them. Don't guess. Ask them. They'll tell you exactly what they'd like to receive.

Pure Win-Win

You win by getting more customers, your customers win by the reward program. It doesn't get any better than that. So stop working in your business and start working on it. Your current customers are ready, willing and able to help you grow your small business and see it thrive.

You're going to soon realize that a business is more than a business; it's going to affect your family, as well as your personal life. There are so many things that you have to consider when running your business. Does it cause stress? Of course it does, but it shouldn't stop you from reaching your dreams of being financially free, and not working for the man 9-5.