WHAT ARE THE MOST COMMON CHALLENGES BUSINESS OWNERS NEEDS TO DEAL WITH?

1. Planning: Planning is so important for you and your business. Whether it is a start up or a business that is operating, planning is an essential tool in making a success of your business. The ideal tool for planning is drafting a Business plan with financial budgets and a cashflow projection. You do not have to be a book keeper or an accountant to do that. You only need to understand how important it is to plan and be willing to learn how to do that for a business. Once you have gone through this planning process and you see the value it holds for you as business owner you will never want to be without the guidance that planning will give you. This is one of the top reasons why so many business fail within 5 years from starting
2. Marketing: Most business owners think of marketing as something you start with once you have a business with a product or service. This is not true! Marketing should start before you start or purchase a business by doing proper market research. The aim is to established how strong the market demand is for the service or product you plan to do. You also need to know who your competition will be an how strong the competition is. Once you know that and are ready to enter the market you need to make sure that your market niche get to know about your business in the most efficient and effective way possible. Not doing this correctly is another top reason for business failures within the first 5 years of existence.  
3. Financing: Starting or running a business is expensive and you need money for that. The old saying "You need money to make money" is absolutely true. But it is not only having access to finance whether it is your own or money borrowed you must plan your finances very carefully. Most small business owners are entrepeneurs with a strong operational drive to get things done and are not strong on the admin and finance planning side of the business. I know there are exceptions but I am referring to the biggest percentage of small business owners. They are interested in making lots of money but do not understand how financial ratios, budgets, break even analysis, cost of sales, cashflow projections etc can influence the profitability of the business. This needs to be explained to small business owners who do not always have the luxury of employing a finance manager. Even if they could then it is still very important that they understand the basic principles themselves. It is possible to set up a dashboard with the most important ratios and indicators for a business owner allowing him or her to monitor these crictical indicators him or herself so that they know what is happening with their business' finances. It is not so difficult or complicated. Someone must just show the business owner how it is done and how to understand the different ratios and figures.
4. Knowledge: Most small business owners are very experienced and good at one or more of the different disciplines that needs to be managed when running a business. Very few business owners are good at all the disciplines. This is a big risk for a business as in most cases the owner does not know what he/she does not know. There are so many examples of failed businesses where this was the main cause of failure. It is important to acknowledge that you as business owner do not know everything and that you should get help with those areas/disciplines in your business where you know your knowledge are lacking. 
5. Time management: Why is time management important? When you have your own business you are absolutely focused on making a success of it and one of the things we tend to do is to spend as much as possible time at the business or being busy with business tasks. Although this is understandable it is important that the business owner understand that the business can absorp him or her to such an extend that their families and loved ones have to live their lifes without them. This is not good and will lead to burn out of the business owner in the long run. You as a business owner will have to be very disciplined with your time management so that you plan for time with your family. You are in the business for the long run and have to pace yourself so that you can keep on going in good times and bad times and that your family knows that you are there for them too. 

If you need help with any of the above Contact Us so that we can start talking on how we can assist you.