Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Fighting 5 Crippling Sources of Stress That Plague the Self-Employed

Before Your Head Explodes, Unearth the Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Fighting 5 Crippling Sources of Stress That Plague the Self-Employed

There’s no doubt about it – being a business owner small or large comes with the feeling of stress. Considering the fact that these people must keep doors open, employees paid, customers happy, electricity on, their business flowing, and more; it doesn’t come as a huge surprise.

With almost 28 million small businesses in the US, and over 22 million of those being solo businesses with no additional employees, small businesses have created over 65% of new jobs since 1995 – and that’s a lot of stress!

Here are 5 stressful concerns it seems almost all business owners have, and the best ways to handle them:

1. Finding and Keeping Good Employees

Because of the time and money invested to train a new employee, along with the workload of your business, losing a good employee can be a critical hit to your operations. A good way to go about dealing with this is to look into employee training strategies, and understand your business culture.

The right fitting employee will always be a good one, but not always vice-versa. When you understand what you are looking for and what will work, it will become significantly easier to find and keep who you are looking for.

2. Following New Government Regulations

New employee regulations, privacy regulations, healthcare costs, and internet sales tax are all consuming business owner’s minds, because many are worried about complying – or accidentally not complying.

Our suggestion is to visit your local SBA office website where you’ll be able to find most of the answers you’re looking for. Along with this, it’s a good idea to write these questions and concerns down when they cross your mind. This allows you to identify the concerns that keep coming back. By finding the answers, you will grant yourself some peace of mind.

3. Bringing in New Customers

This is a concern that never seems to leave the business owner’s mind. As a new start-up business, the stress is connected to trying to gain new customers. In an established business, the stress corresponds with trying to keep existing customers. Considering that the customers are the biggest factor in a company’s success or failure, it’s no wonder there’s a lot of stress attached.

To reach new customers, it may be a good idea to reach out to your current customers. By treating them especially well and finding some new ways to bring them value, or step above the call of duty, you are sure to see benefits (and reduced stress) – from increased sales to those current customers, to word of mouth advertising.

4. Finding a Work/Life Balance

Trying to multitask everything, working extra long hours, and trying to juggle that stress makes for a work/life balance that’s a little -or a lot- off. As opposed to a regular 9-5 job, business owners have to put their heart and soul into their work, so taking the personal connection out can be hard.

This one is tough, but a good place to start is to figure out what is really important to you in your personal life. It may seem silly, but try actually scheduling these things into your calendar. It’s almost a given that you have to and will get work done, but often we push our personal lives out of the way to do this.

Not a lot of people will push work out of the way, however, so by scheduling personally important things, you may see yourself getting more done to meet your schedule. Another efficient and simple way to accomplish this is to pick out a few things that routinely consume your time where it could be better spent. Assign those tasks to someone else.

5. Time Management

As a business owner, task management can be challenging enough. With added time management necessary too, it’s no wonder business owners work such long hours or collect such stress. Time management is a skill that must be learned, but thankfully there are some simple ways to get the ball rolling.

A good thing to do is start paying attention to how you really use your time in a day – it might come as a surprise to notice how many little unimportant tasks can fill the day. Another way to address poor time management skills is to create a daily list of your top priorities, and do these first.

Discover more tips to help you fight the stress that comes along with running a busy company. Contact us today to learn more about how IT can help your business and you manage stress levels.