No one wants to think about their small business failing. However, small business failure is more likely than you think. According to the Bureau of Labor, 20% of small businesses fail within the first year, and that number continues to increase with each year passed. In addition, half of all small businesses fail within the first three years. 

However, we’re not here to crush your dreams, we’re here to share some tips on common problems we’ve seen first-hand! Let’s look at the top five signs your small business is failing and how you can fix each issue at the source.  

Lack of a Budget

Coming up with a budget before you make any sales is so tricky, we get it! If your small business has no budget, you’re playing with fire from the start. Winging your finances on a month-to-month basis is a surefire way to tank your business. Financial hurdles are among the top small business killers, and without a clear budget, you’re likely to run into hidden costs and unexpected bills. In addition, a business without a budget risks falling behind on its loan payments and going bankrupt.

How To Fix It: When creating a business budget, you want to avoid planning month-to-month and instead focus on the year as a whole. By planning your finances for the long term, you can rest easy knowing what you can and can’t afford each month. In your plan, create an honest and attainable budget. You can always increase funds for certain projects! Planning annually also helps ensure you can give certain strategies enough time to run their course.

No Clear Business Plan

If your business started from an idea, and now you find yourself clinging to that idea with no idea of where your business is headed, you’re on a direct route toward failure. Running a small business requires planning, and a crucial part of planning is a business plan.

You want to sit down and figure out where you see your business in a year, two years, five years, and so on. Identify milestones you want to achieve in your business and some potential hurdles. While owning a small business allows you to adapt and change your business plan over time, you should still have a clear idea of what you want your business to do. 

How To Fix It: Business planning includes capital investment, future employee needs, an awareness of the competition, and a general idea of threats to your business. You also want to make sure you have a clear idea of what you want from your business; are you looking to be buyer-to-buyer, buyer-to-customer, or are you marketing services directly to your clients? Having answers to these questions locked down can help bolster your small business and give you a clear business plan to follow. 

No Content Strategy

The internet can make or break your small business, so having a content strategy is crucial to keeping your business afloat. These days, consumers have new desires and needs that attract them to new brands. And it all starts with trust. To gain their trust prior to a sale, provide them with tons of content to help them get a sense of who you are, how you handle situations, and your knowledge of the product you are selling.

How To Fix It: Consider how your content educates, entertains, or inspires your customers. This planning includes information on your website, newsletters, social media posts, and more. Every piece of content you create for your company should be made with a goal in mind. For example, are you looking to become an authority in your business niche, or are you hoping to share your products with your customers using user-generated content (UGC)? 

Remember, as your business grows, you can adapt and improve your content strategy over time; the most important thing for your small business is to have a content strategy and stick with it. Otherwise, you’re likely wasting time and resources with random content generation, or worse, having no content on your social media.  

No Clear Brand Messaging

If you’re interested in finding out what a lack of brand messaging looks like, look at some of the local small businesses in your area, especially those just starting out or on the decline. While these businesses may have some logo for their company or products, their brand messaging is likely all over the place. 

How To Fix It: A clear brand message for your small business is crucial to building trust in your brand and helps solidify brand awareness in your customer base. Before starting your business, decide what precisely your brand is about. Take the time to determine the tone, aesthetic, customer base, and more you want to reach with your business. Then, put together a brand book of some kind to guide your content in the future. 

While you can always update your brand messaging as your company grows, having a solid foundation is crucial to your business’s success and makes your customers more likely to trust you. 

Micromanagement and Lack of Trust

Our last significant sign of small business failure is overwhelming micromanagement or a lack of trust in your team. While your small business may be your brainchild, and you’re likely involved in every aspect of its creation, trusting your employees is crucial to maintaining your business and allowing growth.

How To Fix It: You should hire employees you trust to do the job; their skills are a significant part of why you hired them in the first place. Your team should be made up of professionals who know their job. While sitting back and trusting your team’s best judgment can be challenging, this is a crucial part of running a small business. Otherwise, you’re likely to spiral into micromanagement, stifling creative solutions from your team and slowing down your business growth to stagnation. 

Check out our other articles to learn more about running a small business. Here at Planted Marketing, we work closely with small- and mid-sized businesses to bolster their online content and marketing strategies, which in turn helps grow your business. So grow your business to new heights by contacting us for a consultation today. 

Planted Marketing is a full-service digital marketing agency created for small to mid-size businesses, start-ups, and personal brands. We customize our plans to fit the business at each stage of growth. Want to learn more? Send us a message at info@plantedmarketing.com. Talk soon!