Small and medium-sized business owners feel increasingly lonely in this tough economic climate. Many feel they must shoulder the responsibility and decision-making alone, as well as being ‘always on’ to cope with the demands of running a business.
A new study from independent charity ‘Be the Business’ discovered that the majority of business leaders claim a fresh or outside perspective would help them to make business decisions – such as exposure to subject matter experts, online learning sessions or access to a group of business peers.
This may sound familiar to you as a business leader, but where can you find this help? Be the Business, which inspires leadership teams to create and deliver greater productivity by connecting them to curated expertise, supports SMEs in these difficult times. Business leaders can take up non-executive director-style support from a group of experienced businesspeople from successful firms with specialisms like finance, marketing, operations or HR, at no cost to you.
For more information, or to get your own board, sign up here.
Sanjay Aggarwal, founder and CEO of Spice Kitchen, has benefited from Be the Business programme participation. He says: “I’ve been leading and growing Spice Kitchen for over 10 years now, and of course, growth itself can bring many challenges. I quickly realised that while I know lots about spices, I had no experience of manufacturing – or running a food business – to draw on. There’s so much to learn quickly, and for small businesses generally, this can be really overwhelming.
“Be the Business has been amazing throughout all of this. They reached out to tell me about the different services they could offer, and we have received fully-funded mentoring support in the areas of the business where we lack the expertise. For us, it’s been manufacturing and scaling the operations, but I know their scope goes much beyond this. I’d definitely recommend them to any small business owner who needs support or outside help to overcome their challenges.”
Talking and discussing challenges with advisors and mentors can not only make you feel less lonely while making decisions but also strengthen your decision-making ability. It can also give you the confidence to run your business challenges and opportunities past leaders with experience managing the ups and downs of running a company.