The tasks involved with being a small business owner have shifted radically over time. Small business owners are now often forced to take on many different roles when operating their businesses, and their duties extend far beyond just interacting with customers.
In fact, a Salesforce survey revealed that two-thirds of owners are personally responsible for a minimum of three additional areas of their business, including operations, finance, sales, marketing (digital and traditional) and more.
It’s unreasonable to expect any one person to be an expert in all of these different areas, so it’s important for owners to have a way to streamline these processes. The good news is, as responsibilities have increased, technology has advanced, and it’s paving the way for business owners to get back to business and continue doing what they love.
More and more technologies are readily available that help small businesses at every phase of their journey, whether it’s marketing, payroll, HR, customer service or something else.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Millennial business owners — who’ve been at the forefront of the technology shift with the popularization of social media and the Internet — are generally more eager to implement such technologies into their businesses than other generations. Chase’s “Small Business Leaders Outlook 2018” survey showed that 78% of Millennial business owners are always looking for a new technology to help manage their businesses, compared to 63% of all small business leaders.
Despite the fact that these technologies can without a doubt help business owners get back to where they want to be, the Salesforce survey from above revealed that only 17% of small businesses spend over 25% of their annual budget on technology.
This begs the question, why? According to the survey, budget constraints (53%) is the biggest challenge small businesses face in adopting new technology. Others included not enough usage to justify expense (49%), difficulty in customizing new technology to meet our business needs (48%), inflexible technology that doesn’t adapt as the business grows (44%).
At the LSA’s upcoming MarketingBitz Bootcamp on June 3 in Washington, D.C., we will hear from speakers designed to help business owners gain even more hands-on and practical technology knowledge that can apply in the day-to-day operation of their businesses. Learn more here: https://marketingbitz.com/bootcamp/washingtondc-2019/.
