The pace of change in the world of business has accelerated rapidly over the past 20 years. With technological advances and new startups popping up left and right, the simpler world we knew two decades ago has undergone a rapid transformation. While all great tech revolutions change the very nature of the world we live in, the rapid-fire pace of recent changes is unprecedented.
Each new startup that gains traction and creates a buzz and strong market presence exerts an almost gravitational change upon human behaviour and society’s way of being. The big brand names have more power and influence than we ever thought possible.
For small businesses, it’s harder than ever to stand out and make an impact in a crowded marketplace that’s always changing. We’re going to elaborate on this topic a little more as we run through some of the ways that doing business has changed in the past 20 years.
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Business Owners Have to be More Stringent with their Personal Finances
If you are thinking of starting your own entrepreneurial venture this year, you’ll quickly find out that you need to have capital there to support you in the early days. Years ago, you could rely on a yellow page ad or posting articles in local newspapers to build your presence. Now you’ll need to pony up for Facebook ads or social media campaigns. As an entrepreneur, you are going to need a steady flow of cash to fund your startup and get your business launched.
One of the best ways to free up the money you’ll need is to focus on lowering your monthly expenses. Refinancing your existing student loans gives you the opportunity to consolidate your existing loans into one note. You’ll pay less each month and save thousands in interest over time. That’s a great way to save money over a long period of time. Other ideas include finding a cheaper utility supplier and shopping smarter for groceries and essential items. To optimize your budgeting strategies, consider using a financial model to make things as streamlined and easy as possible.
It’s Hard to Get Discovered When There is So Much Noise Out There
Twenty years ago, it was possible to put up a good website, open your posts for comments, and be inundated with messages. Now that has all changed. If we gazed back into our crystal ball, we’d see that twenty years ago there were around million total sites.
Today the number has soared to billions and counting. In a way, it’s like finding a needle in a haystack. Your presence is lost in the tremendous swell of too much information and too much demand for attention on the Internet. Far more effort has to be put in now to boost a page rank, appear in Google map packs, and come up with sophisticated marketing campaigns just to get much needed eyeballs to your site.
Everything Flows Through Social Media Now
Social media has mastered the art of gaining attention year after year, and now it has a universal presence in our tech-mediated world. Seventeen years ago, only 7 percent of adults used at least one social media site. Some ten years later, that had grown to 65 percent. Leveraging patterns of human behaviour, fear of missing out, and our inherent need to be entertained and shocked, social media has become hard-wired into our brains and into society. However, there are ways to make money on social media platforms.
Now, to reach your potential customers, the new financial model is that you have to pay to talk to the very followers you attracted on social media. In the early days, you could get followers and then talk to them and broadcast your message for free.
Now your outreach campaigns reach a few people in your audience and you have to pay for the privilege of talking to them by placing ads in a scrolling information or news feed. All in all, this has reduced the ability of businesses to build direct relationships with potential and existing customers. To connect in today’s day and age, you have to conduct communications through a third-party intermediary.
