It’s a whole new world for the small business owner – don’t get left behind.

So 2016 is finally over, and I think we can all agree that it was… an interesting year. For the small business owner, it may have been a period of marked volatility, but all told things seem to be looking up for Main Street USA. So we can only hope for more of the “looking up” and less of the “marked volatility” going into 2017, right? (Please?)

The good news is, we can give you an unequivocal answer to that question, and that unequivocal answer is “probably.” The fact is, things should continue to improve for small business owners as the year advances. A new president means new policies, but savvy business owners (that would be you) know that the real changes to look out for come from the ground up.

The real themes of this year will be a continuation of business-friendly trends we saw in 2016 as they mature. Trends like:

More Than One Road to the Capital

Those of you who have been running a small business long enough will remember the dark times when securing financing meant one thing: heading to the bank. (It’s worth noting that these dark times were just a few years ago, so don’t feel too old if you remember them).

While financial institutions and major credit lenders have started to loosen the purse strings somewhat when it comes to small business, more and more entrepreneurs are seeing alternative online financing as the way forward. Conversely, what began as a way for young entrepreneurs to fund projects or inventions has transformed into a cottage industry geared toward providing small businesses with new funding streams.

Sites like Indiegogo and RocketHub may have pioneered the movement with their focus on film and the arts, but newer entries like Peerbackers, SoMoLand and Endurance Lending Network  have not only brought crowdfunding to small business, they’ve also created new connections with brick and mortar banks.

The end result – you don’t always have to go crawling to the bank. Play your cards right and it might come crawling to you

DIY CIA: Be Your Own Intelligence Agency

You might think you’re not big enough to really crunch numbers on what your customers are doing online and how you can best capture their interest. You might think that business intelligence – mining an entire world worth of data for nuggets of intelligence you can use to make a more informed decision – is a big business’ game.

And a few years ago, you’d have been right.

More and more, however, small businesses are discovering the upside of getting a 30,000-foot view of their business and their customers. A Dresner study, in fact, showed that over the last 3-5 years, 30 percent of small businesses have tried some form of business intelligence software.

Not only are the firms creating this software increasingly reaching out to small business, small business are waking up to the possibilities of BI.

Most of the DIY solutions out there will still require you to supply and aggregate the data yourself, but really that’s just a matter of you knowing what exactly you want to know. Once it’s gathered, that data can be combed through for patterns and trends that can give you shortcuts to huge gains.

The era of big data has been upon us for years – it’s high time your business got on board.

Your Employees Don’t Necessarily Need To Be Your Employees

One of the biggest trends that will continue in 2017 is the mobilization of the freelance workforce. Once the providence of creative jobs, the workforce of the future will see an increasing number of freelance and contract employees filling a number of roles.

The “gig economy” as it’s called can be great news for small businesses –fewer employees on the books means less paperwork, especially where healthcare is involved. Not only are their services a la carte, giving you greater flexibility, it also takes your payroll from a massive fixed cost to a more fluid variable. The downside of it is, freelance employees can be a gigantic hassle to track.

Fortunately, an industry has sprung up around servicing these freelancers, making it simple for you to pay contract, temporary or freelance employees with a swipe of the credit card.

Government Regulations Will Continue to Be Hazy

OK, so this is a bit of a cheat – we said up front that real change comes from the ground up. That said, a changing of the guard always means small businesses need to be ready to move.

Small businesses have already had to undergo several changes over the past year to accommodate new regulations. Provisions of the Affordable Care Act kept some companies from hiring, or necessitated a change in status from full-time to contract employee (see above), in order to stay below the 50-employee threshold.

Then there is the Fair Labor Standards Act, which caused some small business owners to issue raises to get employees above the new minimum threshold of $47,476 per year to qualify for overtime pay. Even before the change of administration, this law was in limbo due to a temporary injunction from a federal district court.

Now, with the incoming Trump administration, the waters get muddier. Trump ran on a platform of repealing and replacing the ACA, but the specifics of that replacement have yet to be revealed. In addition, Trump has indicated in the past that small businesses should be exempt from the FLSA, but appointee for Labor Secretary Andrew Puzder has been very public about his disdain for the rule.

The long and short of it – if you made changes to your staff because of the ACA, don’t expect to shift back anytime soon. But plan on the FLSA going away fairly quickly.

There is obviously a whole world full of trends and changes coming our way that will influence how your business grows and operates in the coming year. The important thing is to keep one eye on the horizon and be ready to adapt to whatever lies ahead, including the ever-changing digital world.

Times-Union Media can keep you informed about online customer behavior and work with your business to refine your marketing strategy to ensure your business is growing.

To find out more about reaching your customers the right way, give us a call at (904) 638-7555, or fill out our contact form and we’ll be in touch soon.

Like what you read? Looking for additional tips and tricks to help your small or medium-sized business succeed? Check out more of our blog posts here.

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