I recently had the opportunity to speak with Connie Certusi, Executive Vice President of Small Business Solutions at Sage about a blog she posted to a women in business site. Connie opened our conversation by saying that, as people are making individual resolutions, the start of the new year is a great time for SMB owners to take stock of their business and look at key focus points for the year.
In the Sage blog, the four key recommendations for SMB owners in 2015 are: Embrace the Cloud, Keep an eye on regulatory issues, Go mobile and Don’t forget your customer. Let’s take a look at each one of these in a bit more detail.
Embrace the Cloud
For the first recommendation, embrace the Cloud, Connie said that she is actually seeing a parallel between the SMB Owner and SMB IT Pro in how companies are moving to new technology. This is to say that, much like you, many SMB Owners are opting for hybrid solutions. They are putting certain aspects of their business into the Cloud, primarily payroll, compliance and collaboration, and keeping the rest in-house. The main benefit of the Cloud is that it enables the SMB owner to find and reach new customers on a wider geographic scale, and allows the SMB owner to assign the overly complicated parts of their business to an outside source, so they can focus on customers. Take a look below at a good example of this.
Keep an Eye on Regulation Issues
Connie explained that, in the Sage research, many SMB owners are concerned with cash flow and compliance. The compliance point is especially big for SMBs, as they have to contend with rapidly-changing policies with a limited budget and staff. Prime examples include the Affordable Care Act, as it relates to business, and HIPAA.
“Many of the SMBs we spoke to said: ‘This is too complicated for me. I want to worry about getting and keeping my customers,’” said Connie in our interview.
She then let me know that SMB owners are looking more to service providers (i.e.: you) to help them in the compliance area. In fact, most SMBs find that there is more value in paying an external service provider to watch these compliance aspects, than there is to worry and spend too much time of their own on them.
Go Mobile
The third recommendation for SMBs is to Go Mobile. In speaking with Connie, I really liked how she mentioned that this really is tied into the Cloud conversation, but that she and her team have been seeing so much growth in this area that it deserves its own section. According to Connie, SMB owners are really poised to win with Mobility. Not only is the world becoming more attached to mobile devices as a whole, which is a new way to reach customers, business owners also have the opportunity to take their CRM and payment portals with them, to bring up client history and offer payment on-site.
Don’t Forget your Customers
The final recommendation is to keep your customers at the heart of what you do. Although this may seem like a simple tip, it can be the spark that keeps a business going. Connie made an excellent point in that the emergence of more Cloud technology brings organizations and customers together on a more global scale, and this creates a very competitive environment. One of the main keys is to put emphasis on excellent customer service. Connie mentioned that her dentist, an SMB owner, frequently uses technology to reach clients, send out cards, accept payment and confirm appointments. It’s this attitude that keeps customers loyal.
So there it is. I would like to take a moment to thank Connie for her time!
