Solving One Of The Major Liabilities Of Small Business Ownership - Stress

Stress is a silent killer, something that harms much of our population on any given day. Stress can cause cortisol levels to rise, obfuscate clear thinking, lie to you about your progress and leave you making little of it. Additionally, stress can leave you thinking that you’re not good enough, despite your willingness to try your best. 

As a small business owner, you will be stressed. It’s hard to stay afloat, even through a relatively sustainable registration as a freelancer. Solving one of the major liabilities of small business ownership, defined in this way, could have dramatic financial and potential consequences on your businesses’ best asset - you. For that reason, it’s important to know how to cope with this emotion and feeling, and how to transpose it into better, more functional energy. As far as that is concerned, please consider the following advice:

Finding Functionality

Stress can sometimes be a dramatic response to not being fully formed as an enterprise. We may think that in our industry, even in our local environment, we have to compete with fully formed teams all working around the clock to encourage someone to use their services, and by proxy, not yours. If your home office or small business lacks important functions, then this can worry you. It might be worth using outsourced support agents, virtual services for a home address,  or to use a consultant to verify the legal compliance of your work from time to time. Relying on outside help, well serviced, can be a real help.

Never Overpromise

Try not to overpromise. As per our first example, it is very easy for small business owners or sole traders to think that in order to compete with others in their space, they have to offer the world. Of course, underpromising and overdelivering is always better than its alternative, and so it’s important to stay realistic about your output. If you have clients booked until early next year, it’s important to tell those who contact you this information, and it’s also important to stay forthright and honest about your capacity. Hurriedly scrambling to use exterior services to fulfil a job that you may have had zero business accepting can tank the reputation of this business. There’s no shame in being small, but you have to own that.

Resolving Disputes

The most stressful issue you may ever experience to begin with is hat you will encounter a dispute. The truth is that disputes will happen, sooner or later. It might be that a client felt you did not provide them with the best service, and going through a trading standards resolution centre is important. Sometimes, you will never convince a client and gain very little feedback, and have to write something off as a loss. Occasionally, a job may not pay dividends, leading you to have to go to court to gain the money that is rightfully yours. Resolving disputes can be tough, but you will have to undergo them at some point. Keep records, keep adequate services to hand, practice your communication strategy, and you will do everything you can to mitigate a bad situation, and manage your stress appropriately.

With this advice, you’re sure to solve one of the major liabilities of small business ownership - stress.