By Rigor C. Arellano
When the upcoming presidential elections gets 1 in 4 small business owners concerned more than competition, then, America, we’ve got a brooding problem.
Business owners wary of incoming changes, like tax law reform, may affect getting new (and even retaining their current) employees, later on hurting job creation and domestic hiring.
What with controversial presidential platforms, uncertain economic growth, and rising healthcare costs at risk, even consumers are faced with valid reasons for worry.
While worrying can sometimes help push us through hard situations, more often than not it will just make us feel tired, stressed, and age faster. Not to mention, stray us away from what we must focus on: The actions we can take now.
So here are a few tips that small business owners can spend time thinking about to help shape their company’s future, and in part, the national economy’s as well.
Election year is a “dead policy year”
Worried about change? As far as policies are concerned, not much is going to. Election years are dead policy years, says an article on Forbes.com.
To help ensure that a political party’s candidate will win, everyone is trying to keep things as they are. That means, you most probably won’t hear any news about tax reform soon or until the Inauguration January 20, 2017.
Now is a good time to borrow
You might want to take advantage of borrowing money now for that additional capital you’ve been eyeing.
We don’t know yet if the government will raise interest rates, but if they do, access to funds will tighten and borrowing will cost more. So while the rates are low, plan, go and borrow.
The economy will continue to grow
The economy will continue to grow at a moderate pace this year at between 2-3 percent, according to Fujioka and Marks of Forbes.
Reportedly, there is no expected legislation coming out of Washington soon that can significantly affect the economy. Talks about repaying the country’s debt, Washington’s biggest issue to date, have also been set back until March 2017.
The rise of good technology and its falling cost
Market demographics, customer concerns and satisfaction, and other useful business data are no longer limited to companies using a room full of servers dedicated to data and analytics.
Due to the fall of technology costs, small businesses have now the power to own automation platforms that were once only available to big enterprises.
And let’s not discount the influence and impact of social media. Properly used, small business owners can imprint both their services, credibility and branding right down to their consumers’ subconscious by establishing their presence on social networking sites. And, it’s free.
Look up the cloud
In the pursuit of new digital heights, humanity’s youth have eventually reached and exploited the cloud.
Now, new generation of business people rising through the ranks have persuaded most companies to move to cloud technologies.
Access to Web-based services like storage, collaboration and organization tools, accounting software online, has opened up global opportunities for small businesses throughout the years. And the integration of different programs that can be useful from day-to-day operations to income tax computation are becoming more ubiquitous, and fast.
“The more small businesses use technology to streamline their operations, the more productive they become,” advised Fujioka and Mark.
After we cast our votes come election day, we’ll be waiting in anticipation how the incoming president can effect our businesses, our lives. But worrying about what worse things could happen next to the point of immobility won’t help solve anything. It never will. But concrete plans of action can.
Now, what’s your move?
