5 Business Tips for the Small Business Owner

When you set out to start your own business, you will likely spend much of your time researching other entrepreneurs who have achieved success to help guide you through the process. From self-help books to leadership tools, we know there are plenty of resources out there and each entrepreneur’s journey to success can provide a lot of wisdom and insight. So from our own experience, we wanted to put together a list of 5 small business tips for the small business owner. We know that these principles can help grow your business into a BIG success.

1. A Small Business Owner Should Know the “Why” Behind What They Do

The first of the successful small business tips is to understand why you want to run your business, which will help you stick with it in the long run. Oftentimes when asked why we start a business we default to surface-level answers such as making more money, being your own boss, or making a difference. By taking a deeper look into your why, you can find motivation when things get tough. We love the exercise, “7 Levels Deep” by Dean Graziosi. This is great process to discover the meaning behind what you do as a small business owner. You’re encouraged to ask yourself the question of why you really do what you do and keep digging to find the ultimate core of your purpose.

Recommended read: Millionaire Success Habits by Dean Graziosi.

2. Don’t Be a Lone Wolf – Invest in People Capital

As a new small business owner, you can find yourself wearing a lot of hats. You may feel the pressure to excel in all areas of business. As you grow over time, it can be hard to let go, even when you no longer have the time or energy to focus on all aspects of your business. One of the small business tips is to focus on investing in people capital for your business. Hire or outsource the areas that don’t fall into your zone of genius. To identify areas that are in your zone of genius, find the parts of business that would be significantly impacted if you weren’t the one doing them. An example could be the business strategy or project innovation elements of your business. Hiring your first employee may take some time but outsourcing to companies or freelancers can be an option when you are just starting out as a small business owner.

3. A Successful Small Business Owner Sets Daily Goals

A small business owner can easily become distracted by the many things on the to-do list. While goal setting should already form part of your business planning process, if you do not have a plan to achieve these, you’re going to fall short. The Big 3 Strategy by Michael Hyatt suggests that you set three non-negotiable tasks to be completed each day. These goals should align with your annual business strategy. For some people, they take 30 minutes at the end of each day to plan these three actionable goals to be completed the next day.

Recommended Read: Free to Focus by Michael Hyatt

Recommended Read: Atomic Habits by James Clear

4. Follow the Pareto Principle to be a Successful Small Business Owner

The Pareto Principle, although discovered almost 100 years ago, still has a lot of significance today which is why we are including it as one of our small business tips. This principle theorizes that 80% of results will come from just 20% of the action. This concept can be extremely useful for determining where to focus to resources in order to achieve optimum efficiency as a small business owner. This will allow you to prioritize your tasks so that you can focus on the 20% that will produce 80% of the results.

5. A Successful Small Business Owner Analyzes What Works

If you don’t know how you got where you are, it’s hard to know where you need to go. By investing time to regularly go through your analytics, you can get a better idea of where you need to invest your efforts in the future. There are many Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) you can track within your business, allowing you to evaluate other elements beyond the sales numbers. For example, you can run analytics on people metrics and marketing efforts. By knowing what is working or not, you can tweak and evolve your business strategy to drive better results.

6. (BONUS) You Must Be Persistent to be a Successful Small Business Owner

Most small business owners are successful not because of their knowledge, product ideas, or luck, but rather, most successful entrepreneurs are successful because they have been persistent. We are bombarded by ideas of get-rich-quick schemes and when they don’t pan out, we end up discouraged. The big names right now are entrepreneurs who played the long game their success came from their investment over time. If you’re just starting your entrepreneurial journey, be encouraged that this is a marathon race and don’t let discouragement set in if you don’t see immediate results. Only a few make it over the finish line, so keep going!

 

If you’ve invested both your time and finances into your business, a good business insurance policy is crucial to your success. At BIG, our commercial brokers understand the importance of risk management for your business and are here to answer any questions you may have about the coverage you need. Contact us today so we can help you discover what you need to protect your business.