Keep an eye on these small business trends and predictions this year.
With 2020 in the books, small businesses are optimistic that 2021 will be a brighter year. While the COVID-19 pandemic is not yet gone for businesses across the U.S., that optimism is buoyed by the distribution of vaccines. Although the pandemic has been front and center since early last year, there are other trends on the horizon for entrepreneurs to watch as well.

Business News Daily connected with experts in finance, marketing, tech, and human resources to find out what small businesses should expect in 2021 and how to take advantage of these trends.

The Advantages of Hiring Freelancers for Your Small Business
Have you ever hired an employee only to have them resign a few weeks or months later? This is a fairly common and frustrating experience among business owners and has been exacerbated as a result of the Great Resignation https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/03/09/majority-of-workers-who-quit-a-job-in-2021-cite-low-pay-no-opportunities-for-advancement-feeling-disrespected/. So what if there was an alternate solution to hiring a full or part-time employee that involves less time, money and resources? Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve encouraged many of my clients to consider hiring independent contractors or freelance workers to fulfill some of their interim or even ongoing needs. This solution provides a cost-effective and flexible approach to hiring that can be beneficial for both parties.

Whether you recognize it or not, your business has a brand personality. The big question is, is it the one that you want?

Brand personality is essentially the attributes one would ascribe to your brand if it were a human being. And just like people, a brand’s personality traits affect how that brand connects with the world around them.

For most small businesses it is difficult, and probably meaningless, to distinguish brand personality from that of the overall company - unlike large corporations who likely have a unique brand personality for each of their product lines or subsidiaries.

Budgeting is one of the most critical financial management activities when it comes to a small business's day-to-day operations. The master budget for a business is an overall financial planning document, and consists of two budgets: The operating budget and the financial budget.

The operating budget for a business is a forecasted, or predicted, financial statement of all the revenue and expenses it expects during a specified time period like a quarter or a year. The operating budget is usually broken down by category of revenue for each product the business sells. It is also broken down by types of expenditures it makes regarding every product. Most firms further break down their operating budgets by fixed and variable costs.

The operating budget uses forecasted numbers in the different budgets, or schedules, that comprise it. These forecasts are based on historical activity, input from the sales force, and other sources. The result of the development of the operating budget is the pro forma, or forecasted, income statement for the firm for the specified time period.

SCORE Small Business Mentors Open Hub to Help Rural Entrepreneurs

The organization that acts as mentors to America’s small businesses and a resource partner of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has launched a centralized resource hub especially for entrepreneurs in rural areas.

SCORE for Rural Entrepreneurs will provide rural small business owners with information, tools, and personalized support to help them start and grow their businesses. The new specialized resource hub is in part a response to a 33% decline in rural businesses over the last decade.

When it comes to small-business ownership, you really do have to spend money to make money—which is why small-business owners often apply for loans from traditional lenders to get their businesses off the ground. But along with a business license, most traditional lenders require proof of revenue before they’ll agree to a loan. So how are new business owners supposed to start making money without qualifying for a business loan?

Well, for better or worse, most first-time business owners have to use their own money to launch their companies. And unless you have thousands of dollars of ready cash, this means you’ll probably need to take out a personal loan or turn to crowdfunding, credit cards, or alternative lenders to acquire enough capital to start your business (and start making money).

But the amount of money you need to start a business isn’t always clear. In fact, when we polled 700 small-business owners, more than 50% said they underestimated how much they’d have to spend during their first year of business to make money. Learn more about how much money you need to start a business—and get more information on budgeting for your first year of business—in our survey data compiled below.

The initial financial challenges of starting a small business are substantial and often unpredictable. In fact, 38% of small-business owners report that they underestimated how much it would cost to start their business.

When hidden costs arise, many turn to outside funding—according to findings from our new survey of over 700 business owners, one in three entrepreneurs report that having access to personal loans and business credit cards is what helped them start their business.

Unfortunately for some businesses, credit can be a serious barrier to meeting the financial challenges of starting a business. A whopping 43% of business owners say their score isn’t high enough to qualify for traditional small-business lending.

Not having access to additional funds when problems arise can be fatal to small business hopes and dreams, especially when you consider that only 32% of business owners have an emergency fund in case their business doesn’t generate revenue.

Small Businesses Are Still Grappling with Supply Chain Disruptions
Small business is bearing the brunt of supply chain challenges caused by worker shortages and delays. Nearly two in three small businesses have had to alter their supply chains in the past six months, according to the Q4 2021 U.S. Chamber and MetLife Small Business Index. https://www.uschamber.com/small-business/small-businesses-are-still-grappling-with-supply-chain-disruptions
There are two significant drivers for current supply chain challenges, U.S. Chamber Vice President of Supply Chain Policy John Drake explained in a recent article . First, U.S. consumer spending is roughly 20% higher than it has ever been. Second, there are thousands of open jobs across the country, especially in the transportation and logistics sectors. There are 80,000 open truck driving jobs, and thousands more open jobs in warehousing, railroads, and ports.

Every business wants to make smart technology decisions. For the small business looking to get their workforce the affordable workstations one option that you have today is utilizing the budget Chromebooks that are available. Today we will discuss what the Chromebook can bring to your business and how it can help you reduce your hardware costs and get your staff the resources they need to be productive.

Chromebooks are laptops that run Google’s Chrome OS, which is a very lightweight operating system that depends heavily on Internet-connectivity to bring value. This is largely because they typically come with a small amount of storage and aren’t really compatible with outside software. Typically, anything that you can do in your Chrome browser (or with Android apps {more on this later}), you can do on a Chromebook. Let’s look at how Chromebooks could be just what you are looking for for your employee workstation needs.

Understanding Business Development
Business Development is a mysterious title for a little discussed function or department in most larger companies. It’s also a great way for an entrepreneur or small business to have fun, create value and make money.

Good business development allows businesses to profit by doing something that is tangential to their core mission. Sometimes the profit is so good, it becomes part of their core mission, other times it supports the brand and sometimes it just makes money. And often it’s a little guy who can be flexible enough to make things happen.