What do you think the most important trend affecting small business will be? How best can owners position their companies to take advantage of it? We posed these questions to our team of entrepreneurial mentors and distilled their answers into six steps companies can take to position themselves for success in the coming years.
1. Tap into your customers' search for meaning and connection.
Lisa H. Buksbaum, president & founder, Boxtree Communications; CEO & founder, Soaringwords.
The most important trend affecting small business is surely people's search for meaning and connection in their lives.
Many of the motivating reasons entrepreneurs started businesses in the 1990s -- to have more control over their destiny, to make a difference in the world, to spend time with their families, to have multi-dimensional lives beyond their title and paycheck -- are now trends that are being expressed in corporate America. My Fortune 500 clients and 1099 employees are more comfortable enjoying their lives, interests, and families and not feeling ashamed that they have to hide this part of their existence. In fact, the tide has turned so that the workaholic titans who boast of not having a life outside of work are no longer considered role models, by anyone that I know. Companies should position themselves as "getting it" to be a vibrant and energizing place that employees will want to align with and should talk to their customers about the psychographic and emotional things that really matter to them most, instead of treating them like their demographic profiles, i.e., age, zip code, job titles, etc.
2. Adapt to continual change.
Paul and Sarah Edwards, experts and authors on self-employment.
Trends are ever more rapidly coming into existence, and disappearing and sometimes colliding with one another. It took over 80 years for three-quarters of the population to have telephones; it's taking eight years for three-quarters of Americans to have access to the Internet.
Small businesspeople need to regard change as an ongoing process, not something that happens from time to time. Therefore, adapting to continual change must be mastered like a skill. How to do this:
- First, develop the sixth sense to notice the early warning signs of change by keeping in contact with your customers, with people in your own and other industries, reading, attending meetings and conferences, participating in online message boards and seminars.
- Second, anticipate change by not investing too much in organizational structure and instead organizing your work into projects.
- Third, be prepared to team up with others outside your company in project-oriented strategic alliances, focusing your contribution on what you do best.
- Fourth, be prepared to get bigger or smaller quickly.
Charles J. Bodenstab, author and consultant.
As technology advances and new concepts of operations evolve, the threat is that other businesses, both larger and small, will simply usurp the very function of the small business owner (SBO). For example, the emergence of the mega-retail stores or "category busters" appeared to most business owners to virtually "come out of nowhere." These operations, inconceivable not too long ago, have revolutionized retailing in areas that were once the province of small specialized retailers. These small niche players have basically disappeared.
Technology is frequently making obsolete the function and value-add of the SBO. Many SBOs survive, and have prospered, by finding and filling a specific function that had value added to some aspect of business. Technology -- particularly in the new large systems areas such as supply chain management and total enterprise systems -- simply bypasses these functions or incorporates them painlessly into the overall system.
The SBO faced with this challenge must constantly ask himself or herself: What is the value-add of my business and how well is it protected? What are the barriers to entry? What is coming down the road that basically performs our function? And most of all, what can I do to pre-empt these threats? Even further, ask what has happened technologically that I can embrace and actually become the threat to others, rather than the victim?
Pat Cavanaugh, president & CEO, Cavanaugh.
The small business must take advantage of being more nimble and flexible when it comes to addressing changes in the marketplace dictated by new technology. Because of often limited capital resources, the small business must do a better job in foreseeing these changes and planning ahead in order to implement a plan to confront changes without precipitating a serious cash flow problem or a crucial drain on resources needed to fund future growth.
Leaders of small business must be proactive to seek new advancements not just to compete in the marketplace but to allow their employees the opportunity to feel as if they are a part of something dynamic. The key to any company, organization, or team is the ability to make people feel as if they are important, recognized for their efforts, and think what they are doing is unique enough to give 110% each day.
