how small businesses define and achieve success

How Small Businesses Define and Achieve Success

How do you define success? If you are a candidate, it’s the number of votes. If you are a student, it’s a passing grade. But for a small business owner, well, that’s never clearly been defined.

To a small business owner, success could mean a double digit growth rate, opening a second location, taking a vacation or simply just making payroll. There is no one single answer. Or is there?

Infusionsoft, a sales and marketing automation software company committed to driving small business success, and Emergent Research, a global research and consulting firm focusing on small businesses, teamed up to find out.

2

Methodology 3

How small business owners define success 5

Challenges to small business success 9

Overcoming challenges through technology 14

Overcoming challenges through coaching 18

Conclusions and recommendationfor small business owners 22

METHODOLOGY

Stages of Small Business

Emergent Research built

on prior Infusionsoft

survey data designed to

identify five common

stages of business

growth. The study uses

the stages segmentation

model shown in the chart

to the right throughout.

4

HOW SMALL BUSINESS

OWNERS DEFINE SUCCESS

Money Doesn’t Define Success…ButSmall business owners don’t define

success by just financial rewards.

They put greater emphasis on non-financial

measures of success, such as:

• Ability to do work they enjoy

• Being the boss

• Work flexibility

• Freedom and control

• Having a positive impact on their

employees, customers and

community

6

Money Doesn’t Define Success…But

BUT, small business

owners still

understand achieving

non-financial goals

usually requires

financial success.

94% 65%

94% surveyed have

specific financial goals

65% are confident they’ll

achieve them

7

More Than Growth for Growth’s Sake

Most small business owners are neither

inspired, nor driven, to build large empires.

• Time and effort required to build a big business

would conflict with their personal definitions of

success.

All surveyed report planning to growth their

business, yet only 12% of those surveyed

expressed desire to build a large business

with more than 50 employees.

Most small

business

owners are

neither inspired,

nor driven, to

build large

empires.

8

CHALLENGES TO SMALL

BUSINESS SUCCESS

Challenges to Small Business SuccessSmall businesses, regardless of industry and size, share similar challenges. The top three are:

Time to get

everything

done

Finding and

retaining qualified

employees

Generating leads

and turning them

into customers

10

A Deeper Look

For small businesses in the first two stages of growth, hiring the first employee is challenging and intimidating. This presents a challenge because they are now being responsible for managing an employee and meeting payroll.

Stage 1 to 2

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A Deeper Look

For small businesses in the third and fourth stages of growth and with 10 or more employees, owners typically need to hire and train a supervisor, manage

multiple teams and delegate authority. They also require more sophisticated processes and tech, forcing them to adjust their business model.

Stage 3 to 4

12

Two ways of overcoming business

challenges and achieving success

stood out: through technology

and coaching.

OVERCOMING CHALLENGES

THROUGH TECHNOLOGY

Overcoming challenges through technology

Technology saves time

for small businesses and

their employees.

15

Technology enables business

owners to have a dispersed

workforce through the cloud.

• Only 37% of small businesses in

the U.S. use cloud technology, but

that’s changing. By 2020, 78% of

small business will have

transitioned to the cloud.


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Technology enables automation and opens

the door for rich analytics.

• Almost all surveyed reported automaton allows

them to “do more with less”, hire fewer

employees and save time. They also felt it led to

a significant competitive advantage relative to

their less automated competition.

• Almost all surveyed had key performance metrics

and used analytical software to monitor and

manage against these metrics.


17

OVERCOMING CHALLENGES

THROUGH COACHING

Small business owners heavily rely

on paid coaches, consultants and

training programs for overcoming

challenges.

• Almost all surveyed reported

using one or more of these

knowledge-building resources.

• Stage 3 businesses are most

likely to use these resources –

likely due to high hurdles moving

from Stage 3 to 4.

Overcoming challenges through coaching

19

Several factors driving use of coaches:


Increasing business

complexity and rapid pace

of change

Lack of time to “learn

while doing” or the

margin of error to “learn

by making mistakes”

Growing use and

importance of technology

is hard for business

owners who lack the skills

20

Most owners interviewed also used

coaches and unpaid mentors to improve

management and leadership skills and

work through difficult business problems

and decisions.

• They also mentioned often turning to

unpaid mentors and coaches for

emotional support, especially when faced

with difficult decisions.

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CONCLUSIONS AND

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR

SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS

Small business success isn’t

easy, and if anything, it is getting

harder due to increasing

complexity and pace of change.

Here are four things you can do.

Small Business Recommendations

Define success in your own terms and in ways supporting your broader life goals.1

24


Understand that as your business moves

through stages of growth, your challenges

will change. Also recognize these new

challenges will require changes in how you

manage your business. 225


Don’t be afraid to get help. Successful

small business owners see help as a

way to improve themselves and their

competitiveness.326


Technology is playing an increasingly

important role. Successful small

businesses are using technology to

gain competitive advantage, and you

don’t want to be left behind! 427

how small businesses define and achieve success

Small Business & Entrepreneurship