What is the Mindset of Small Business Owners?

Do not confuse your small business with small thinking. This is just the sort of mindset that can hold you back and prevent your struggling small business from growing and thriving on a larger scale now, or down the road. What is the mindset of small business owners?

How to Run a Small Business While Avoiding a Small Mindset

Even corporations like Apple and Google had to start somewhere, and you hear all the time about how some of the biggest businesses were started out of some parents’ basement. Instead of operating with a limited thinking mindset, you should strike a balance between always thinking you can get to higher ground and the smartest ways to actually get there.

Dreamers have a place in the business world just as much as doers. Those small business owners that manage to be a little bit of both can achieve great things. 

Keep Your Fleet Tightly Managed

Even companies that have a fleet of only a few vehicles need to have a tight grip on them at all times. When even one vehicle goes rogue it can throw off the algorithms of the entire operation. Having less vehicles to keep an eye on is actually a great opportunity to hone and perfect your overall fleet management process. 

Managing a fleet of any size is challenging and time consuming and including GPS fleet tracking in your process can help streamline operations and eliminate waste in many forms. Refer to an online guide in advance of executing a new system like this so that you can learn about the benefits no matter the size of your business.

Doing things when your fleet is small, or just starting out also gives you a great opportunity to fail forward. Even the biggest mistake will not be magnified across several hundreds of vehicles and can be learned from quickly. 

Be Both Team Captain and Team Player

Long gone are the days of small business owners having authoritarian management styles. Employees in today’s world want a boss that they not only have access to, but one who can often be found in the throes of business right along side them.

Getting their hands dirty from time to time as a show to teamwork. When you run a small business, often times the number of employees you have is low, and it can be easy to assume people want autonomy or that they will come to you if they need something but that could not be further from the truth. 

Just the same as children need a healthy balance of guidance and independence from their parents, your employees need that same balance from their leadership. One of the best ways to have a big business mindset is to not limit your employees to only their hired roles. If you motivate employees about process improvement they are more likely to embrace it, and share their perspectives in a collaborative tone as opposed to one of resistance. 

Stop Comparing and Start Collaborating

Instead of looking at your competitors or other small business owners as people you will never be, look to them as resources to help you become who you already are. It takes much longer to completely change yourself to fit someone else’s mold than it does to do the work, identify strengths and weaknesses, and work with your own fundamentals.

Try to find a mentor, or a professional network, that is comprised of people that both share, and oppose some of your principles. This style of diversity is going to give you a chance to develop a sense of collaboration that will benefit not only the success of your business but your ability to successfully manage the people that make it run each and every day. And the ability to give, and accept constructive criticism will fuel your ability to use a wider lens than ever before. 

Mindset of a Small Business Owner

If you think some of the most successful entrepreneurs got where they are all on their own you are limiting yourself. Even the genius mindset of small business owners behind some of the biggest and most successful companies learned early on the value of a professional network. If you are someone who has a bad habit of comparing themselves to others, quit cold turkey. You will never be a carbon copy of anyone else, and why would you want to be?