We asked small business owners to

share their biggest secret fears in an

anonymous survey. What keeps SMBs

up at night? Here are five

confessions small business owners

shared with us, along with tips on

how to overcome these fears.

While it can be very fulfilling, running a small

business requires incredible commitment of

personal time, attention, and resources. Both

success and failure can take a toll on SMBs

whose identity and self-worth are tied up in their

business. Help alleviate this fear by having

conversations with your partner, family, and

friends to let them know how you feel so they

can support you emotionally as you go through

the peaks and valleys of owning a business.

An empty schedule can be a huge profit loss for

any small business. Alleviate this fear by working

with a trusted marketing partner who can focus

on building your pipeline of leads so that you

continually have new business coming in without

having to divert time away from running your

business. Also, create a back-up plan for how

you’d approach an off-peak day, such as a

process to create and share spontaneous “rainy

day” promotions to help quickly fill up an empty

schedule.

Not getting enough sales is a universal fear for

most small business owners. Getting contacts and

leads in your pipeline will only impact your

bottom line if you’re converting interested

prospects into sales. Alleviate this fear by using

automated lead follow up and lead nurturing

emails to help prospects choose your business.

And, educate your entire staff to be sales-minded

and focus on the customer so that you can close

more business from the leads who contact you.

Small business owners today are inundated with

options for advertising and marketing, and it can

be diffi cult to know what actually boosts the

bottom line. Alleviate the fear of wasted

advertising dollars by using a system that helps

you track everything from incoming calls to the

actual business you get from each advertising

source so you can see the true ROI of every

marketing dollar you spend.

According to the Small Business Administration,

there were about 33,000 small business

bankruptcies last year, so this fear can be a very

real one to SMBs. But to put this into

perspective, there are over 28 million small

businesses currently in business. There are many

factors that influence the success rate of a small

business, so it’s important to focus on the things

that are within your control. Make sure you have

a solid business plan in place, an excellent

business advisor or team, a mindset focused on

success, and the discipline to keep business

momentum moving forward daily. Sometimes,

fear can be a healthy thing, so use the fear of

failure to motivate you to take actions that will

lead you to success.

Have you ever had a fear as a small business

owner? You’re not alone. Every small business

owner faces

fears, just like the rest of us. The good news is,

you

don’t have to let fear hold you back. By sharing

your fears with trusted family and friends,

putting a plan together to help alleviate your

fears, and working with trusted partners to help

you, you can push past your

fears and focus on your success.

www.ReachLocal.com

Sources http://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/FAQ_March_2014_0.pdf