This year has been about perseverance, ingenuity and overcoming obstacles. Ask any small business owner about the challenges they’ve faced in 2020, and you’re likely to receive a wide variety of answers. 

Most small businesses faced financial challenges, and were forced to make some tough decisions as a result. Other small businesses who enjoyed their best year ever faced a different kind of challenge: scaling to meet demand. 

To learn more, we asked small businesses a simple question: “What challenge have you overcome as a small business, and how did you overcome this challenge?”

Here’s what those 10 small businesses had to say.

Don’t Be Afraid to Hire Professionals

Upon opening my first business, I thought I had to oversee every project myself. But, I’m not good at everything. My time became fractured so things often fell through the cracks and simple tasks had to sit “on hold” much longer than necessary. I’ve learned to hire professionals who know far more than me in their area of expertise. Together, we scale quickly and better serve our clients.

Karen Nowicki, Business Radio X

Embrace Restructure and Adopt to People’s Current Needs

Earlier this year, our business went from $250,000 per month to nearly zero in three days. We had to quickly restructure, which included laying off staff, reducing marketing and operation spends and similar tactics. Then, using data from trends.google.com we found a related business vertical that was surging (virtual team building). Within 24 hours we redirected our entire operational capacity toward virtual events, which meant a new website, new marketing systems, new products and event types, and eventually re-hiring staff. This action-oriented approach paid off, we scraped by that first month with a small profit, and have been growing quickly since. 

Michael Alexis, Teambuilding

Keeping Morale Through Short-Term Goals

As an SEO company for small businesses, we’ve seen a variety of challenges firsthand. The universal challenge we’ve seen is keeping employee morale and mental health intact in a fully remote work environment. There’s just so many things that employees face on the daily within their lives that have the potential to impact their mental health and morale. To combat this challenge, establishing short-term goals is incredibly important. Leaders need to give their employees something to look forward to and work towards. Short-term goals enable employees (and companies) to persevere when things get tough. 

Brett Farmiloe, Markitors

Determining the Right Company Size

As a small business, the leadership team has spent the last two years revamping structure after a change in branding for the organization. Our goals included outlining the specific processes and positions required to elevate the well established programs, including the Arizona SciTech Festival and Chief Science Officers. While the changes have helped our organization thrive in the current situation, over the course of two years we have had a lot of staff turnover and many of those team members would find success in SciTech Institute as it operates today. In a small team, each individual played a role in our growth. 

Kelly Greene, SciTech Institute

Disruptive Innovation

In my business, there are several big name companies out there that the consumer is familiar with, which makes it difficult to compete/differentiate our offering. We have been forced to be innovative in our marketing, our branding and how we go to market. We have been innovative in our outreaches on LinkedIn, podcasts, radio shows, etc. to show the consumer our differences and to portray our value to them, versus the household names that serve the masses.

Austin Peterson, Backbone Financial

Pivot To Address Customer Needs

Small businesses in the tourism and hospitality industry have faced unprecedented challenges in 2020. There’s been a total collapse of the industry, and companies like Cruise America have had to pivot to better serve the changing needs of our customers. Whether that pivot has been towards better serving commercial business or exceeding CDC guidelines, businesses of all sizes have had to adjust and face the challenges this year has presented. 

Randall Smalley, Cruise America

Adopting a Consistent Digital Marketing Strategy

The biggest challenge for small businesses this year was adopting a consistent digital marketing strategy. For a lot of businesses, it’s on the top of their mind, but bottom of their “to-do” list. When storefronts and events closed, many small businesses couldn’t rely on organic traffic anymore, and were forced to learn and activate their digital marketing and eCommerce strategies… if they had one. 

It was a big shift for many! However, you should ultimately be posting everyday, activating email marketing weekly, launching paid advertising campaigns on Facebook and Instagram, producing and editing video, developing new product launch tactics and documenting every ounce of your business and sharing it with customers convincing them to care about your business, as much as you! 

Dianna Stewart, Social Media Marketing Consultant

Your Business Plan Should be a “Live” Document

What is the purpose of your business and do your customers or clients know your value? It truly helps to have to have a clear vision and mission, and in my experience, there are a few actions you can take to help make your goals a reality. First, create a detailed business plan, in the form of a “live” document, that has attainable goals and can be adjusted as needed to reflect results along the way. Include some stretch goals as well so you can continue to elevate your own skills and professional development. 

Marketing also should not be thought of as just another expense, but rather, an investment. Have a strong plan in place for how you will generate leads on a consistent basis, including a way to track and measure what works and what doesn’t. Lastly, take the time to hire and train your staff and include an ongoing development plan so they can continue to support you in whatever ways needed in order to help make your business thrive, not just survive.  

Jennifer Leicht, Marketing and Small Business Consultant

Admit It’s Not Working and Make Plans to Change

We had to pivot three times as we’ve seen customers are not really interested in what we were doing and we struggled to get profitable. The biggest challenge is to make a call. Say that it’s not going to work and that it’s better to make a change as soon as possible. You need strong leadership and a coherent team that can accept such calls.

Jakub Kliszczak, Channels

Keep Track of Your Cash

From online invoice software to better budgeting systems and effective cash flow management, these challenges can be difficult to overcome. However, virtually every small business owner has cash flow problems. One simple tip is to keep a strict record of your money, where it’s coming from, and where it’s going.

Eliza Nimmich, Tutor the People