The recent period has been difficult for businesses, with several economic stressors hitting simultaneously. As examples, the energy crisis made daily running costs more expensive for businesses, whilst the cost of living crisis placed additional financial constraints on both businesses themselves and their consumers.
This has led many businesses struggling to remain afloat during these hardships, placing even more pressure on them to succeed this year in order to recoup their losses from 2022.
Considering the UK business environment, Connor Campbell, business finance expert at NerdWallet, has drawn up some ideas for how businesses can succeed in 2023. For this, some leading business luminaries were consulted.
Avoid ‘Superman syndrome’
The first tip for business owners is to realise that you cannot do it all on your own. A lot of entrepreneurs have ‘Superman syndrome’ – the feeling that you have to cover every aspect of your business yourself. But that is the wrong approach.
According to entrepreneur coach Jake Smolarek: “Delegation is the number one skill for entrepreneurs.”
There is another pitfall to Superman syndrome that goes beyond avoiding delegation. “Entrepreneurship can be lonely,” Smolarek says. “When I work with entrepreneurs, very often they don’t have anyone to talk to.”
Hire well
Managers may feel like your time is better spent elsewhere but hiring right will pay dividends. Busy managers can only delegate when you have the right team in place. And to do that, they need to design a hiring strategy that works.
“People hold themselves back when hiring. They might do a half-hour interview and make a decision based on that, and just ask about the task and not the person,” explains Business and executive coach Phil Drinkwater. However, he goes on to explain that this approach will result in just as many unsuccessful hires as successful ones, which is costly for any business.
So how can you avoid this happening? After the more traditional aspects of the process, such as an initial call, an in-depth interview, and a skills-based test, Drinkwater recommends inviting the candidate back to meet the team.
He adds: “You don’t want the person turning up and within two days deciding this was the wrong company for them. Let them talk to the team, let the team ask them questions, get to know each other a little bit. Interviewing is a two-way process – they are interviewing you as well.”
Know your clients
What is important when dealing with other businesses is how a leader interacts with their customers and clients.
“A lot of entrepreneurs and business owners make the massive mistake of thinking everyone is their client,” Smolarek explains. “But if everyone is your client, then no one is your client.”
Don’t hold your business back
Success in 2023 may also involve you as a business owner doing some tough self-reflection. “We might not like this answer, but we are the ones that always hold ourselves back,” says Drinkwater.
According to Drinkwater, business owners often end up working within their weaknesses and not meeting their own needs as people, which leads to negative emotions and negative work outcomes.
“Understanding yourself, and having more awareness, can lead you to better decisions and calmer emotions. If, for example, you’re someone that isn’t very creative or doesn’t like creativity, but your business requires that, you need to start looking for other ways to make that happen,” he explains.
Embrace making mistakes
While understanding yourself and your needs as a business owner may help you make fewer mistakes, just as important is how you deal with any mistakes you do make.
Smolarek encourages business owners to embrace making decisions faster, even if it leads to a mistake: “If you don’t make a decision because you are procrastinating, you are actually making the decision to procrastinate. A wrong decision gives you feedback. It’s the wrong F-word – not failure, but feedback.”
