7 Glorious Advantages of Being a Small Business

Being a small business can be tough – long days, demanding clients, huge responsibilities…it’s easy (while tearing your hair out) to wonder why you ever went into business to start with!

However, there are some great benefits to being petite that provide small businesses with fabulous advantages compared to their bigger brothers. These aren’t always obvious, but they are highly effective tools you can use to give yourself a real competitive edge.

So here, just to remind us all, are seven great advantages of small business ownership.

1. Flexibility

When you are a small business, are way more flexible and able to make the changes necessary to survive than a big outfit. Think speedboat versus the Titanic – while they are still wondering if they can steer around that big block of ice, you’ve nipped past all the obstacles.

Sometimes the big companies seem to have all the advantages when it comes to getting favourable credit and terms, but you can outshine them every time when it comes to thinking on your feet and responding to events.

You don’t have to go to head office to consult—or higher expensive consultants—when you realize you can take advantage of a new trend, or want to explore an interesting project. Small business owners can make their own decisions, rather than filling in forms and waiting weeks for someone to get round to responding. For example, billing your clients can be as simple as whipping up a quick invoice with an invoice generator tool or customizing a free invoice template.

2. Expertise

Because you are a small business, you are likely focused on a pretty compact skill set. This offers two main advantages – people who need your services will know that you are the go-to person for this particular offering (appreciating a job well done) and that you understand your own specialism perfectly.

This level of confidence in your own ability is something that big businesses often cannot equal. A surprising number of big organizations have little idea what expertise they actually have, and often miss out on opportunities because they simply don’t know what their employees can do.

For example, I know one small company who sold a particular tool to a large conglomerate, when part of that conglomerate actually made a competitor product – the head office had absolutely no idea it did!

3. Uniqueness of Small Businesses

You will garner a lot of credibility with today’s customers if you produce something individual and distinctive, like Hiveage. In the current market, it gives you a major advantage.

People crave goods and services that stand out from the mass-produced, samey offerings they are constantly bombarded with. We all hate impersonal hard sells that turn out to offer something very bland and ordinary.

You, on the other hand, have the ability to be extraordinary. While big business has to almost by definition produce something uniform and safe, you can thrive by producing exceptional and distinctive products and services.

You have complete freedom to innovate within your market parameters, and whatever your niche, you can ensure that your product or service is a perfect fit for both you and your customers.

4. Satisfaction

There’s nothing like the buzz of producing something that a customer is really pleased with – and that’s a feeling you’ll only get as a small business. That sort of feedback is vanishingly rare in big companies, where the bosses are almost completely insulated from the people using their products or services.

Yes, you’re also on the sharp end of any complaints, but you are also well placed to understand what’s gone wrong, how to rectify it quickly, and learn from the experience. Because you’ve got such a close focus on your work, you’re also able to delve far more deeply into issues, and tailor best-fit solutions.

There is no feeling quite like making something from start to end, and seeing it succeed. The enormous pride you can take in a job well done is hard to beat – it’s one of the main reasons we all get up in the morning!

5. Personal Service

People crave to be able to connect with a human being, rather than a vast, impersonal blob with a call centre on the far side of the world. You can connect with your customers in a far more meaningful way than they ever can.

Because your service is personal, what you offer will be far more closely aligned with the needs and aspirations of your target customer group than those of big businesses. They are trying to appeal to a huge and diverse range of potential buyers, of whom you may be the least important.

Knowing who your target customers give you an enormous advantage. You understand what they want, and know when their tastes are changing so you can quickly tailor your offering to match. Because you’re closer to your customers, you can forge lasting relationships that create genuine loyalty and keep people coming back.

Customer-Centricity of Small Businesses

With a small business, customer problems are also less likely to get out of hand or fester, because small business owners are able to stay in closer contact with their customers and take immediate corrective action. Large corporations are often burdened with bureaucracies that make quick resolutions difficult: they are more likely to require an extended period of time to react to customer complaints. Without a lengthy chain of command or a complex bureaucratic system filled with policies and procedure that are difficult to navigate—common issues for businesses—small businesses can respond much quicker to their customers’ concerns.

6. Focus

Your focus is likely relatively narrow, and this is a good thing. While big businesses have to search far and wide for opportunities, small businesses tend to know exactly where yours are most likely to be.

And if your sector situation changes, you’ll notice it more quickly than a big business would because you’re concentrating on developments in your own field.

Because you have a keen focus, you are also likely to be a lean business – you have fewer layers, fewer employees, more efficient operations, and you have a much better understanding of how your company works.

7. Small Business Owner: A Great Boss

You have the best boss in the world, right? You! You don’t have vast layers of bureaucracy and management or investors – people who don’t want exciting; just safe.

In a large business, there may be dozens of people who need to be consulted to get a complete picture of what’s going on before any decision can be made. But since you’re the boss of your own small business, you get to decide which opportunities are worthwhile. And as you know your own business and the risks inside out, you are perfectly placed to make the right decisions.

You’re also able to offer employees great opportunities. Because you’re small, you are far more in touch with everyone who works for or with you. You know their ambitions, and you can help them achieve them. In a big business, they would be a name or number, and very little else.

Advantages of Small Business Owners

As we have discussed here, being a small business, you have some excellent, distinctive advantages over larger companies – ones you can use to ensure your business grows and flourishes. If you need more inspiration, here are some quotes from a previous post to fire your enthusiasm. Remember: the key to competing well against the large, established players in your market is to do the things that they can’t do. What we have here is not an exhaustive list: the small in ‘small business’ has many advantages – way more than listed by us here. Use them to outmanoeuvre and out-serve your customers, and win the game against large corporations!

The advantages we have discussed here are:

• Flexibility: You can react quickly to opportunities.
• Expertise: Your customers appreciate your in-depth knowledge.
• Uniqueness: What you make is distinctive and desirable.
• Satisfaction: You get the buzz of knowing you’ve done a great job.
• Personal Service: You have a much closer relationship with customers.
• Focus: You can hone in on what’s really hot in your sector, and you know where your opportunities are likely to be.
• A Great Boss: You don’t have to ask all sorts of layers of management before you make a decision.

What are your thoughts on the best things about being a small business? Let us know in the comments section below!