Tips on How to Stay Competitive If You Run a Small Business

According to Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, there are 1.1 million small companies (1-99 employees) in the country. However, 60% of small businesses fail within the first five years, so there's a big concern for entrepreneurs on how to stay competitive. Here are three ways you can stay ahead of your competitors if you run a small business.

1. Be passionate

Usually, small business owners started their business because of passion. Passion drives motivation, which makes small business owners the busiest people in the world. They don't finish their work when it's 5 o clock and rarely think about vacation. This drive and passion are factors that make them successful.

Convert your passion into hard work, and you’ll be one step ahead of the pack.

2. Use CRM

You may think that Excel is the perfect place to store your clients' data. It may be true if you have only 20 of them. Once you reach 50 customers, it will be challenging to track them. You'll need a tool, which will help you generate reports and identify insights.

Try Dynamics 365 for Sales for free to see if it fits your business’ needs. We bet you won't go back to Excel after it!

3. Partner with other small businesses

If you’ve ever wanted to make your business more reputable and competitive, there’s one more thing that can help you with it: collaboration. Working collaboratively with small businesses allows for you to share your experience and knowledge as well as create new products or services that will bring additional value to your customers.

Find a local small business that shares the same values as you do, and come up with a creative project, that you can implement together. Your customers will love it.

Alina Hura, Digital Content Creator, WebSan Solutions Inc., a 2014 Ontario Business Achievement Award Winner for Service Excellence