Small- and medium-sized businesses are the backbone of the country’s economy. But that doesn’t mean that small business owners have it easy. You could be struggling right now, especially if you have to do all the major tasks yourself. That is not how it should be.
In this case, you should consider outsourcing some of your business tasks. For example, it would be better for you to contact temporary CFO firms to handle your books when you need them than to struggle to keep up with everything yourself.
To know more about handling a small business, here are a few studies that you should ponder on:
1. 29% of small businesses fail because they run out of cash
Startups fail for many reasons, one of which is that they should not have started in the first place since there is no demand for their products or services. Another primary reason small businesses fail is that there is no money.
One report shows that 29% of startups fail because they run out of cash. The report from CB Insights goes on to show than an additional 23% of businesses fail because they don’t have the right team in place to run the business. In some ways, these two issues are related.
If you have poor cash flow, you would not be in a good position to hire the best talent to run your business. And having the wrong people running your business can cause it to lose customers due to poor customer care experience. Dishonest employees, for instance, can also steal from you or lose your business money through inferior bookkeeping methods.
2. 60% of small businesses that lose their data will close down
Statistics show that 60% of small businesses that lose data will close down within half a year. Your data is essential. It gives you information about your business transactions, assets, liabilities, etc. You need to know what is going on about your business at any given point in time. Losing that kind of data can be terrible for your business.
You need to ensure that you have multiple up-to-date records of your business, and you should back up that data regularly. But how can you do that when you can barely keep your financial records in order?
First, get organized and sort out your accounting paperwork. If you are struggling to do that, it would be wise to let an outsourced company do it for you. Then you need to have digital records that align with your physical documents. Ensure you store everything using cloud services to safeguard your data.
3. 70% of small business owners work more than 40 hours a week
The average worker in the U.S. works an average of about 39 hours. But that is not the case for small business owners. Research shows that 70% of them work more than 40 hours each week. And 19% of small business owners work over 60-hour weeks.
Despite working such long hours, many entrepreneurs don’t even make that much money. The majority of them make less than $100,000. Compared to the time and energy small business owners put in, they are vastly underpaid.
If you are in such a situation, you need to rethink your strategy. Are you working harder instead of smarter? Are you concentrating on unimportant tasks while sacrificing your core business operations? Perhaps you could benefit from outsourcing the work that others can do better.
Running a small business needs dedication and hard work. But you would be better off working smarter. One way to be smarter is to outsource tasks that you are not good at to professionals who know what they are doing. For example, by hiring temporary accounting professionals, you can sort out your financial records while concentrating on your core business operations. It would be cheaper in the end, and you would be more productive.
