Business

5 ‘Boring’ Processes That Can Transform Your Small Business

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Big tech companies and small businesses face the same basic problems. They both need to understand their customers, manage costs and watch competitors. However, tech companies tackle these challenges with processes that most small businesses never implement.

I’ve spent years understanding both worlds, and I promise you: These five tech practices are worth stealing. They don’t require fancy software or a huge team. Just consistency.

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Understanding your customer persona and “jobs-to-be-done”

Tech companies and successful large corporations strive to understand their customers well. It’s much more nuanced than “we serve young professionals” or “the people in this neighborhood.”

Let’s take Starbucks as an example. They don’t just sell coffee to “coffee drinkers.” They have distinct customer personas: the rushed morning commuter who values speed above all, the remote worker camping out for hours (who probably should be paying rent, honestly) and the social meetup crowd treating the café as a gathering spot. Each persona drives different decisions on how their stores are set up and operated.

The key is understanding what job your customers are “hiring” you to do. Nobody buys a quarter-inch drill because they want a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole. Maybe they are first-time home-owners who are hanging shelves. Maybe they are woodworking hobbyists building a birdhouse. These are both different jobs to be done, an industry standard framework by Clayton M. Christensen.

It’s why Apple doesn’t sell “smartphones with good cameras.” They sell the ability to capture your child’s first steps in stunning clarity. The job to be done isn’t “own technology.” It’s “preserve memories.”

What job is your customer hiring you to do? Figure that out, and you’ll see opportunities your competitors miss entirely.

You’re leaking customers and don’t even know it

Product managers and tech companies obsess over retention. If your customers don’t come back, they probably don’t find your product valuable, and the company does not have product-market fit. Even if you acquire a lot of customers now, you will eventually lose them and churn through the market to oblivion.

You don’t need fancy systems for this. Just make a spreadsheet and start tracking. How many customers from last year still buy from you today? If that number makes you wince, you have a churn problem.

Your spreadsheet can track the purchase history of all customers. When do customers typically vanish? Three months in? After five purchases? Now, try to understand the reason behind it. Did they stop liking the product or service, find a cheaper alternative or just forget? If you email or call a couple of people to ask, you will have the answer.

Your existing customers believed in you enough to give you a shot. Understand their problems and make them loyal fans.

Know your costs

Unit economics is the magic math that lets corporations grow large and become profitable. What does it cost the business for each thing sold? Small businesses often track overall expenses but forget to attribute them to individual products and services.

Let’s think about your neighborhood sandwich shop. If the supplying bakery raised its prices by 10%, what does it mean for each sandwich’s margins on the menu? Are they still profitable, and by how much?

Tracking costs in detail can be hard and tedious. It’s not just materials but also the labor costs, transaction fees, packaging and so on. However, not knowing detailed costs is a missed opportunity at best and dangerous at worst. You could be losing money on some items while others subsidize them. Or worse, your apparent “best seller” might be bleeding you dry while a humble side offering quietly delivers all your actual profits.

Create a spreadsheet today. List every product and service. Assign all costs and make sure to include everything. Update it when your costs change. I guarantee you’ll find surprises that will change what you sell or how much you sell it for.

Learn from your competition

Go down the street and try your competition. In a new city? Go to the store in the same business as you. Yes, actually pay for something. What works? What’s frustrating? How’s the service? How does it compare?

This introduces you to brand-new approaches to doing things. You can learn from what others are doing well and avoid their mistakes.

Maintain a shared document where your team can add insights regularly. Make this part of your culture, not an occasional panic response if sales dip.

Your personal board of directors

Silicon Valley startups assemble advisory boards featuring industry veterans, subject-matter experts and been-there-done-that entrepreneurs. Small business owners often try to figure out everything themselves, occasionally consulting with an accountant who’s juggling 200 other clients.

Your advisors shouldn’t just be friends who validate your ideas. You need people who will challenge your thinking, identify blind spots and connect you to opportunities. You need expertise you don’t have.

You don’t need to offer equity like tech companies. A lot of professionals will advise you for reasonable fees. Sometimes, retired or later-in-career veterans in the business will guide you just for the intellectual challenge of a new problem. Remember to formalize the relationship and talk to them regularly.

These practices all share one quality: They complement gut feelings with systematic processes. Your instincts still matter because you know your business intimately — but these systems catch what instincts miss.

As a small business owner, you’re already more nimble than large corporations. Add their systematic processes to your operation, and you’ll become truly dangerous.

Intellectual Insider

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Business

How to Take Control of Your Brand’s Story With This DIY Strategy

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

I’ve always believed that every business, big or small, should have the ability to shape how it is perceived online. Building a brand today means being seen, trusted and found online. Still, many entrepreneurs and professionals I meet are stuck in a waiting game. They might be waiting for a journalist to respond, for some buzz to materialise or simply for permission to become visible.

DIY PR — public relations in a do-it-yourself style — empowers us to start taking action instead.

It’s not about cutting corners or doing it on the cheap. It’s about building your media presence from day one and reclaiming control across paid, earned, shared and owned channels, which is more important now than ever.

When one Google search can shape your credibility, your message shouldn’t be left to chance. Nowadays, almost all employers (98%) use search engines and social media to vet potential candidates, and 82% of Americans believe companies are more influential when their founder or executives have a strong personal brand.

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Content marketing as a DIY PR strategy

I can’t count how many experts, founders or consultants I’ve spoken to who feel stuck because they are great at what they do, but hardly anyone knows it. They are buried in word-of-mouth, overwhelmed by social media noise or simply unsure where to start.

Content marketing is the answer I keep coming back to. Not because it’s trendy but because it works. The options are wide: blog posts, podcasts, videos and thought leadership posts on LinkedIn, newsletters, press releases on reputable media outlets and contributor articles on magazines. Publishing useful, experience-based content gives people a reason to notice you, trust you and remember you.

When you write about what you know, you position yourself as someone who gets it. Do that consistently, and you go from “one of many” to “the one they think of.” You don’t need to be loud — just present in the right places, saying the right things, one piece of content at a time.

Benefits of sponsored and branded content

Traditional PR can be slow and uncertain. You pitch, wait and hope for a response that may never come. Meanwhile, you’ve got a launch coming, a shift in your business or a key message that needs to be heard now.

Publishing articles on trusted media platforms allows you to reach new audiences and grow brand awareness faster, while the benefits go deeper. In practical terms: the Pressboard Branded Content Benchmarks Report 2023 found that readers spend an average of 42 seconds engaging with written branded content, which is significantly higher than the 2.5-second attention-memory threshold they spend with a banner ad.

When your name appears in a trusted media outlet, people start to take notice. You show up stronger in search, and the story people find is the one you wrote.

You decide what to say and when to say it. Especially during time-sensitive moments, I’ve found that publishing directly cuts through the noise. Instead of waiting weeks for a pitch to land, I can get something live and working for me by the end of the day.

Branded content allows you to take control of your story and achieve measurable outcomes: reach the right audience at the right time, increased website traffic, improved rankings and a level of product and brand exposure that is hard to build any other way.

Real-life examples of DIY PR success

In our own experience, investing in a sponsored article on Reuters played a key role in amplifying visibility during the launch of a new platform. At that critical moment, we needed to reach a wider audience quickly and position our strategic move in a credible and high-authority outlet. The article served that purpose effectively, proving how a well-placed paid piece can outperform the slower path of building new media relationships, especially when timing and public exposure are essential.

Another case is Dalmo Cirne, an emerging author we have been working with. He leveraged content marketing to strategically build his personal brand, going beyond traditional publishing methods to market his books. This approach led to increased website traffic and social media engagement. Additionally, he gained greater visibility within the literary community through media features, ultimately resulting in improved book sales and more opportunities for speaking engagements.

We also worked with Smaily, an email marketing platform based in Estonia, that was exploring ways to expand into new markets like Latvia and Lithuania. By running a consistent PR campaign focused on localized paid media placements, Smaily significantly boosted brand awareness in both countries. As the campaign expanded from one to several publications per country, article views increased from 800 to around 5,000 per month, and both regions quickly became top sources of new customer accounts.

These stories show how DIY PR through content marketing can deliver results when backed by a clear strategy.

Steps to implement a DIY PR strategy

The first thing to ask is, “What do you want to be known for?”

If you are unsure, you cannot create content that sticks. So that is the place to start: getting clear on the message you want people to remember when they come across your name or brand.

Once you’ve defined that, the next step is to start creating content, but don’t aim for perfection or a sales pitch. Done is better than perfect, and perfectionism can kill momentum. Aim for useful. Share stories, insights and lessons learned.

Now, consider where your audience already hangs out. Maybe it’s LinkedIn, an industry blog, a trusted trade website — or all of the above. Go where they are already paying attention and start showing up there with something real to say.

Finally, make sure it gets seen. This is where content marketing platforms can help. These platforms let you distribute your articles to trusted media outlets without the delays and gatekeeping of traditional PR. Publishing through the right outlets and channels can open doors to better visibility and credibility.

It’s not about going viral. It’s about being seen by the right people again and again.

Taking the first steps in DIY PR

DIY PR through content marketing isn’t a shortcut — it’s a long-term strategy. It’s how you stay visible, relevant and credible in a world where attention is limited and trust is gained over time. You won’t build thought leadership in a day, but you will be surprised what one well-placed article can do.

You need a presence, a voice that shows up when people look for you, search your name or research your business. That’s what content marketing can give you. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 73% of B2B marketers say content marketing has helped build brand awareness, while 52% report increased loyalty among existing clients and customers.

So, start right now to create content that makes people notice you. Take the lead. Own your message. Show up where it counts.

Intellectual Insider

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Business

Many Small Business Owners Are Still ‘Optimistic’: Survey

A new survey from website hosting company GoDaddy found that entrepreneurs are still optimistic about the economy, despite new pressures from tariffs.

According to the new report, half of microbusiness owners surveyed said that they predict a “weaker economy in the next six months,” but 66% of respondents still have “positive revenue expectations.”

Only 9% of the 2,100 business owners surveyed forecasted a sales decline.

“Small business owners believe in themselves,” said GoDaddy CEO Aman Bhutani, in a statement. “GoDaddy’s research shows they remain intent on pushing their small businesses forward.”

Microbusinesses are defined in the report as “small businesses that typically employ fewer than 10 employees.”

The report also found that entrepreneurs are changing their long-term goals to adapt to the current climate. About 40% of respondents said they expect to remain “solo entrepreneurs” (up from 36% last year) rather than start hiring and grow a bigger business.

“Entrepreneurs are planning for what is ahead,” Bhutani added. “They are navigating these times by staying focused and determined. At GoDaddy, our job is to make sure they have the tools they need to succeed.”

For the full report, click here.

A new survey from website hosting company GoDaddy found that entrepreneurs are still optimistic about the economy, despite new pressures from tariffs.

Only 9% of the 2,100 business owners surveyed forecasted a sales decline.

The rest of this article is locked.

Join Entrepreneur+ today for access.

Intellectual Insider

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Business

4 Reminders Every Mompreneur Needs This Mother’s Day

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Dear Mompreneur,

How are you? We’re almost halfway through the year, summer is knocking on the door and I don’t know about y’all’s kids, but mine seem to be fighting a different bug every week — so I wanted to check in on my mompreneurs this Mother’s Day.

Have you ever Googled the definition of entrepreneurship? I did it recently, and according to Google, it is “the activity of setting up a business or businesses, taking on financial risks in the hope of profit.”

At least they put the word ‘hope’ in there!

Entrepreneurship can be hard. So, I want to know… how are you, really?

If you’re like me, you’re always thinking about your business, your goals, next week, payroll, content, your family, dinner plans and the list, truly, goes on and on.

Do you also have 37 tabs open right now at 5:56 PM on a Friday? Are you thinking about what needs to be done/ordered/created/etc. even while trying to sign off and “shut off” your business brain for a bit?

Do you also feel like today was great and balanced, but somewhere in the back of your mind, you’re wondering if a storm lurks on the horizon? Do you feel like you’re not doing enough, but then (almost simultaneously) also worry you’re not spending enough time with your kids, family and friends?

Do you worry that business will dry up? That you won’t bring in new business? Do you worry that you’re really not good enough to be doing what you’re doing, and people will eventually figure it out?

I have talked with hundreds of entrepreneurs over the years (and have been an entrepreneur myself since 2007), and I can tell you that the majority of us feel this way.

But the crazy thing is that most of us keep going. Despite the feelings, thoughts, stress and anxiety that entrepreneurship can bring.

So, I just wanted to send a quick note to remind you (and maybe me, ha!) of a few things:

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1. What you are doing is important

You wouldn’t have felt the urge to do what you do if it weren’t important.

You are providing a service or product that people need. Just because you might not be where you want to be or have the sales you desire, doesn’t mean it isn’t great. It likely means they just don’t know about it yet!

Whether you put sparkles in someone’s hair to help them feel beautiful or you share your mama’s recipe in a restaurant to make people feel loved, you are providing something special.

Please don’t stop.

2. What you’re doing is hard

Remember those paychecks every 2 weeks? Paid vacation time? A tax refund? I won’t even bring up insurance…

Please know that you’re stronger than most, and don’t ever forget it. Many people dream of being their own boss, but many, if not most, will not pursue this dream.

Because it’s freaking hard.

“A comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there,” John Assaraf said. Humans love to feel safe and comfortable, and diving into entrepreneurship is the exact opposite, so it can feel really hard and uncomfortable.

With discomfort comes impostor syndrome (it’s real, y’all) and not feeling super confident sometimes. Please know that we all encounter this and re-read #1.

3. What you’re doing is changing the world

Even if it doesn’t seem like it.

You should be really, really proud of yourself. You started a business to help people, and that is one of the greatest things someone can do. Yes, we need to make money, but the root of starting a business is to help solve a problem for people.

And, please don’t forget about the positive impact you have on your employees and their families. You are literally helping people put food on their tables. Send their kids to school. Save for retirement. That is amazing, friend!

4. What you’re doing is setting an example

For your kids, your family, your friends and people you don’t even know.

I can promise you that you are inspiring people daily, even if they don’t tell you. When you show up every day, you have a ripple effect on so many and in many different ways.

Adversity, resilience and grit are part of entrepreneurship and if we can lead by example, we are showing those around us that they can do hard things, too. Joy, happiness and celebration are also part of the journey.

Let’s continue to show people that we can endure and enjoy the peaks and valleys so others know that it’s possible.

So, friend, how do you feel now? Do you remember your greatness? Do you know how appreciated you are? Do you realize how special you really are?

I hope so. You inspire me every day.

Sincerely,

Your Fellow Mompreneur Friend

P.S. Happy Mother’s Day! Close those tabs and just enjoy today, you deserve it!