1. Attracting and Retaining Talent
Finding and keeping skilled employees remains a top gripe, with labor shortages and high turnover rates plaguing small businesses. In 2025, competition for talent is fierce, especially in sectors like tech and services, where remote work expectations and demands for better benefits add complexity. Owners often express frustration over the time and cost involved in recruitment, only to lose staff to larger firms offering more perks.
Solution: Focus on building a strong company culture and competitive packages tailored to your size. Use platforms like Indeed or LinkedIn for targeted hiring, and emphasize non-monetary benefits such as flexible hours, professional development opportunities, or equity shares. Conduct regular employee feedback surveys to address pain points early, and invest in training programs to upskill your team—reducing the need for constant rehiring. Leader’s Edge Consulting can help you design retention strategies, like performance-based incentives, that align with your budget and boost loyalty.
2. Not enough Cash.
Often small business leaders launch their business with very little cash. That can be great in the beginning, but then the temptation to reinvest in the company or pay out too much, can reduce cash flow and create a limitation on future growth. Remember, cash is king. Having cash associated with you business gives you flexibility to handle crisis and even capitalize on it. Cash also gives you the ability to expand and contract as business trends work.
Luckily there are many options out there to help if you find yourself in this situation. Small business loans, while difficult to get approved for, are great options. ROB loans use your 401k and Roth IRA money to generate cash that you pay back to yourself. Watching the cash flow closely can often find opportunities to save or defer costs to allow for more cash on hand.
3. Not understanding your real value and purpose.
The real issue is understanding your value in the market and how that shapes your purpose as a company. Business owners and entrepreneurs are doers who know how to get things done. In this case it takes time to sit back and really think about your purpose and value in order to grow. If you sell a product, then the value you provide is tied to the feeling people who buy your product receive. When you consider the 3rd and 4th order affects of what you do, you can more easily see your value. If you provide a service, often you are giving people more time. Time is irreplaceable and therefore extremely valuable. The more someone gets paid for their time, the more they are willing to pay others to give them their time back.
When you tie your value to your purpose it creates an unstoppable force. Employees work harder because they know the impact they have on the community. People are more likely to do business with you because you understand your value and present it in a way that makes them want to be a part of your purpose.
4. Letting the business own you.
This is where things get a little sticky, especially as a consultant. Business owners are very tied to their companies, and rightfully so. You have build something. This is truly the American dream….not a home….building a legacy. We as Americans should have a national holiday for business owners because you are actually making things happen and building our future. However, at some point that control on every aspect of the business becomes a choke hold. It is critical to build a plan for others to come in and take over some of those functions. This can be called succession planning, but that sounds a little terminal to me. I like to think of it as stepping into the TRUE ROI of your labor. Stepping away from control in day to day operations only means stepping up into true leadership. It means setting all the processes in place so that you can ENJOY owning a business instead of the business owning you.
5. Time Management.
Time management for owners is a huge issue. Depending on their skill set and what they enjoy doing related to the business, this will lead to another version of a choke hold. When the owner is also the COO, it is easy to be overwhelmed and start dropping the ball somewhere. Ultimately this will lead people who can’t get answers from the owner to go around or get disenfranchised. Managing time isn’t just a discipline because eventually you will run out of hours in a day. It’s also an issue of priorities. Setting priorities based on SMART goals that drive activity in the direction the company wants to go is a must. Once that is done, accountability is important. Who in the company is going to hold the owner accountable? This is where it can help to have help. A coach, another business owner, a friend who is objective. With those priorities set you can also see where once time gets to a capacity issue, it is time to consider a new hire. You need expansion to grow. You need more time and energy and the only way to get that once you have reached a capacity, is to add people, automate processes, or call on your super power to create a 25th hour of the day.
Don’t feel bad. Tons of companies have come to realize these problems. If you are experiencing some or all of them, know that it is because you are growing. Your idea is working. Consider them growing pains. Think over the past couple years of the companies that have gone under. Toys-R-Us is one that comes to mind. One that has been around for as long as I can remember. So, if you are still in business, then there is still time to turn these obstacles into opportunities.
