It’s only natural for a small business owner to forget a few things when starting their company. After all, you may have never done anything like this before. The majority of small business owners are first-timers, meaning you learn on the job. Knowledge comes with experience, so don’t kick yourself for forgetting a few key things in the beginning. Thankfully, you can always right the wrongs before things get really bad.

With that in mind, let’s look at three things small business owners tend to forget in the initial startup phase:

Cybersecurity

I’ve seen this so many times across lots of different industries. As a small business, you don’t perceive any threats to your cyber network. Who will be interested in hacking a small company? Well, loads of people! Cybercrimes are on the rise, and small businesses are more at risk than others – usually because you have a lack of security in place.

What tends to happen is you enforce stricter measures as your company gets bigger. Unfortunately, there are instances where a small business doesn’t get bigger because it was the victim of a cyber attack. These days, with companies like Contextual Security, there’s not really an excuse. Before, small businesses could claim that hiring a security team was too expensive. Now, you can outsource the job to a company and save money. This is definitely something you can’t afford to forget as you must protect your business – as well as your customer’s data!

Social Media

It’s getting better in recent times, but too many small business owners neglect social media. This is the most powerful tool you can use to market your business and grow an online presence. Social media can drive traffic to your website and increase sales exponentially. Not to mention how effective it is at growing your brand and making you well-known.

The funny thing with social media is that you can start a campaign for free. There’s no need to spend any money in the initial phase of a social media marketing strategy. Of course, you could employ a marketing agency to handle it for you, but it’s good to go at it alone initially. Too many small businesses focus all their efforts on SEO and your website. Granted, these are crucial things, but you can’t forget about the power of social media.

Pivoting

Last but not least, small business owners forget to pivot. Effectively, this refers to your ability to adapt business offerings when things maybe aren’t going well. It’s poignant in 2020 as loads of companies are unable to operate as expected. You’ll notice the small businesses that still succeed are ones that pivot and adjust their offerings.

As such, you need to be open to change as a small business owner. Don’t be set in your ways and avoid making alterations to your business plan. If something isn’t working, learn to pivot so your company survives.

Listen, you might be guilty of forgetting all three of these things, or you may only neglect one. Regardless, it’s good to lay it all on the table so you’re aware of what you should focus on.