Small Business owners need more guidance than big business, but finding the information they need is more complex than it needs to be I decided to Google ‘Best Advice for Small Business Owners’ and I got lost in the information overload.
“20 Small Business Tips and Tricks to help your Store”
“33 Must Read Small Business Tips”
“11 Game-changing Tips for Small Business Owners”
Google is great a delivering a lot of information on a topic. However, sometimes you must wade through information you don’t need before you get to the good stuff. The answer to your query should be easily understood from the title before clicking on the post. Here is what the results for ‘Best Advice for Small Business Owners’ should look like:
Build long term relationships by joining a Networking Group
Find a Mentor who has been through the stage your business is growing in
Learn how to improve your communication skills so you get more YES’s than NO’s
Growing a small business isn’t easy, but getting advice and help is.
44 years-ago an insurance agent in San Diego realized that he was doing a lot of networking but kept meeting new people and wasn’t building any relationships with them. It was always a hit and run attempt at making a sale, not building a relationship that could turn into more than one business opportunity. At the Chamber of Commerce, he would meet lots of new business owners each month, or at Rotary Club he would see a lot of the same people each month; the issue was that there were 20 other insurance agents introducing themselves to the same people and no way for anyone to stand out above the others.
He didn’t give up on networking, he just changed the game everyone was playing. He formed an exclusive club of business owners where there could only be one from each business category, they would meet weekly to start building relationships and trust and they would require themselves to bring business opportunities for each other on a regular basis.
This was the start of a world-wide phenomenon of category exclusive business networking clubs. The benefits were realized by members across San Diego and eventually he took the idea nationwide and others copied it to take it worldwide. Since then, millions of businesses have joined chapters in these category exclusive chapters and learned the three key lessons above about growing a small business:
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- Build long term relationships
- Talk with like-minded business owners who can share their expertise
- Improve your communication skills through weekly practice in an environment of peers.
