Are you a small business owner hoping to alter the direction of your company to achieve more positive results? Are you willing to experiment with new strategies in the hope of reaching your goals in the 2018?
It’s easy to get set in your ways as a small business owner, especially if the strategies you have been using up to this point have generated above-average results. For example, if you have a business that relies heavily on the dropshipper model and you have a vendor you already work well with, you may not see the point in searching for a new partner. However, as you begin to compare options, you could find there are better deals out there.
Keeping an open mind can be the difference between success and failure as a business owner. Here are five stats that have the potential to alter the direction of your small business:
1. There are approximately 28 million small businesses in the United States. (U.S. Small Business Administration)
In a perfect world, you would never have any competition and would be the only company with your product or service. In the real world, regardless of your industry, you realize this is never going to happen. There will always be other companies fighting to win the same business you are targeting.
Knowing how much competition is out there, make sure you are doing market research and spending some time analyzing the strategies employed by your competitors; this will help you to stay on the cutting edge of your industry and keep you one step ahead of the competition.
2. Approximately 60 percent of buyers are interested in discussing pricing on the first phone call. (HubSpot)
It doesn’t matter if you are selling vaping products, such as those offered by JUUL, or something more mainstream and expensive, if a prospect asks about price, you don’t want to stumble around. You need to know exactly what you want to say to make your product or service look worth the investment, as well as how to negotiate the best possible deal.
It’s never easy to talk turkey, as they say, but you need to be ready to tackle the tough questions if you’re going to be successful in the long run. What’s more, you need to have real knowledge about why your price point sits where it sits, not only so you can reflect the value to the customer but also so that you don’t shortchange yourself during a negotiation.
3. Roughly half of small and medium sized businesses only have a basic understanding of search engine optimization. (Higher Visibility)
It’s not easy to become an “SEO master,” but you aren’t wasting your time if you devote yourself to this task. By learning more about SEO, including a focus on the advanced techniques, you’ll find yourself better equipped to surpass your competition in the coveted top spot on major search engines like Google.
As your SEO knowledge grows, so will your confidence in pushing your website to the top of the search engine results page for your target keywords. No one expects you to know everything about some of these more complicated marketing processes right out of the gate, but you should be investing time, effort, and resources into learning them now that you’re working your business.
4. 18 percent of local searches carried out on a mobile device result in a sale within a day. (Smart Insights)
As a local business owner, this should change your approach to marketing. Not only do you want to focus on ways to get in front of your local audience, but you must make sure your website is mobile friendly and easy to use.
Mobile technology will continue to grow in popularity in the months and years to come, so you can’t afford to ignore it any longer; if your website isn’t already optimized to perform on smartphones and tablets, you need to make those changes effective immediately. You’re simply risking too much business to hesitate.
5. 75 percent of people who find local information in search results are more likely to visit a store in person. (Google)
This goes along with point above, which is that you need to do more than just create a website for your company; you need to create a website that provides helpful information, makes its way to the top of the search engine results, and drives people to your physical location (if applicable).
If things are going well, it’s easy to sit around the house watching People You May Know and hoping everything continues on the same trajectory, but business is always changing and you can’t settle for what’s been working in the past. You should always be searching for ways to grow your business. These statistics are sure to influence the way you approach your business in the future.
Which of these business statistics do you think will most impact your strategy for 2018? Share your thoughts in the comments.
