There are approximately 2.5 million small businesses in Australia and New Zealand. Over 800,000 of these businesses have employees and two thirds of the 2.5 million businesses are non-employing, in laymen’s terms a ‘one man show’.
Approximately 81% of these businesses will hit a brick wall within 5 years of operation.
Most of these will either stay stagnant or close down completely. These statistics raise pertinent questions: How can this happen? Why doesn’t it work? Why the glum stats?
Logically, the above questions can be explained. To register a business and gain an ABN it takes roughly 20 minutes. The governing bodies are not bothered at this stage of registration whether you have enough backing, cash flow to support your great idea, if you are skilled enough in your chosen field or if you have what it takes to own and run a small business.
Why are we not solving this problem? To begin with, small business is notorious for being difficult, mainly because of the liquidity of the business. The will of the owner to tackle their business problems and invest even more can sometimes be lacking, especially if the business is already suffering. One great way to overcome this is with mentoring and leadership development coaching. That can help paint a bigger picture than many business owners dream alone.
Larger companies intend to call in the big boys: KPMG, Deloitte and the like. They speak the same language and wear the same suits. Although the above is true, most businesses, regardless of their size are struggling with the same issues:
A. CASH FLOW
B. PRODUCTIVITY
C. SALES & MARKETING
To make it even worse the business world is changing, and changing FAST! Gen Y is now better educated on your product than you are, they know who your opposition is, how much everyone is charging, and even get business reviews within 5 minutes. All this is done with a quick swipe of the finger, using one of their smart devices.
In Australia 65% of people own a mobile phone, on average they spend 2 hours per day on social media. 78% of these people will use their smart phone to search an item or service and 41% will complete the purchase through their phones! How effective is your business at dealing with that?
There are many skills that business owners can obtain to ensure that their businesses move on with the changes and the challenges that the market puts in front of them.
