Small Business Growth Challenges & How To Overcome Them

The overriding objective of the Small Business Owner is to grow the business, but to do that small businesses must face growth challenges and overcome them.

In this article, we discuss some common small business growth challenges to anticipate, and how to overcome them.

3 Small Business Growth Challenges To Anticipate

Anticipating these challenges and knowing how to overcome them in advance is the best defence against them.

In this section, we will discuss five (5) common business growth challenges small businesses face:

1. Difficulty Managing Resources

Business growth demands that businesses expand their capabilities. That means an increased capital requirement, hiring more people, managing increased responsibilities, etc.

To effectively manage these resource issues and others that may arise, businesses need a plan. And to take steps to ensure that the resource-driven challenges to their growth do not cripple them.

For instance, if you want to grow your business sales by 10% this year, you need to plan for the capital necessary to increase inventory, marketing budget, and more. You need to ensure that it is readily available before it is needed to avoid a severe impact on your growth goals.

2. Difficulty Meeting Increased Customer Needs

The implication of growing your business is that you will have to serve more customers and offer more value.

The challenge, however, is in effectively servicing more people and maintaining a consistent standard of service that makes the experience worthwhile for your existing and new customers as your business.

Many businesses fail to grow because of the challenge of meeting up with the increase in customer needs and expectations.

To overcome this challenge, you must implement systems that standardize operating processes, making it easier for you to manage every new customer.

3. Inability To Embrace Change In Leadership Role

As your business grows, you realise that you as a business owner will not always be able to put out every fire or attend to all your customers individually or even supervise every task or employee.

The idea of not being everything to your business as it develops is scary, and many owners don’t embrace it.

As a result, they hinder business growth, become frustrated and suffer burnout.

Business owners need to understand from the onset that business growth means a change in what the business requires from them.

As the business grows, you will need to focus more on the long-term, and overall performance of the business instead of short-term and individual crises and issues.

Your daily duties will shift from attending to every issue to creating systems, standardizing processes, and managing vision and resources to create an environment where employees can thrive and run the business adequately without you.

Because, as the business grows, it will need to operate without depending on you to sustain that growth.

4. Political And Government Challenges

The political and economic environment in Nigeria is often unstable, which generally creates uncertainties for businesses. This makes it difficult for businesses to efficiently produce and deliver their products or services to customers.

Small businesses trying to grow and expand often lack the resources to deal with complex government regulations. The bureaucracy of government in Nigeria can be complicated and time-wasting, which can make it difficult for businesses to comply.

5. Difficulty Accessing Resources

Small businesses in Nigeria usually experience difficulties in obtaining various resources like finance and skilled labour.

Accessing finance from banks and related financial institutions can be difficult due to such factors as high-interest rates, scarcity of collaterals for securing credit and the perceived or real risk in lending to small businesses. These issues limit the capacity of small businesses to embark on growth initiatives like expanding operations or acquiring new equipment.

The shortage of skilled labour in Nigeria makes it difficult for small businesses to find the right people to hire. This makes it difficult for them to find the workers they need to grow. This is especially true for businesses in the technology sector, where there is high demand for skilled workers. This can lead to productivity problems for small businesses, like the low quality of products and services, which limit their abilities to compete with bigger and more established businesses.

How To Overcome Obstacles Against Growing Your Small Business

How can a Small Business Owner lay the foundation for a successful business by turning these stumbling blocks into stepping stones?

With imagination, enterprise and resourcefulness, Small Business Owners can overcome these challenges and grow their small businesses into big businesses.

The available options include:

• Business Planning: Developing bankable business plans that outline their goals, financial projections and strategies for growth, including securing financing, attracting investors and making better decisions about their operations.

• Business Growth Strategies: Development of actionable plans to grow their businesses, such as expanding into new markets or launching new products and services.

• Financial Management: Improving money management issues like budgeting, cash flow management, debt financing and tax planning, thereby reducing their risks and generally improving their profitability.

• Marketing and Sales: Creating and implementing marketing and sales strategies to reach their target customers, and helping the businesses to attract new customers and grow their sales.

• Human Resources: Finding, hiring and retaining the right employees, including providing training and development programmes to help employees improve their skills. This helps the businesses to attract and maintain top talent for their long-term growth.

• Networking Opportunities: Connecting with other businesses, government agencies, financial institutions, mentors and investors, enabling the businesses to expand their networks and gain access to resources that can help them grow.

• Training and Workshops: Taking advantage of training and workshops in areas like Business Planning, Marketing, Sales and Financial Management., to help businesses develop the skills and knowledge they need for their growth.

By leveraging any or a combination of the foregoing growth strategies, Small Business Owners can overcome the challenges of growing their businesses and achieving their goal of building big and successful businesses.

This can position them to lift their vision to new heights, raise their performance to higher standards and build their businesses beyond their normal limitations.

If you are looking for solutions to the most pressing problems in the way of growing your small business, contact us today.

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