Introducing Business Reimagined - stories by your peers and lessons they’ve learned along the way

Welcome back to Big Trends in Small Biz, a weekly newsletter bringing you the news, tips and trends to help you with your business. Click subscribe above to be notified of future editions.

Long-time readers have likely noticed a shift over the past few months in the types of stories that are being featured in this newsletter. At the start of this year, I launched Business Reimagined, a series where entrepreneurs share their biggest challenges and how they overcame them. 

Business owners from across the country have written about starting a business in a pandemic and converting a local business into an e-commerce success.

Regardless of your industry, there are some helpful nuggets in each of the articles written so far:

• We may have missed one another but private experiences are here to stay and that includes in the fitness industry.
• You don’t need to, nor should you be, an expert in every facet of your business. Focus on your product and hire experts to help you with the rest. 
• Pivoting isn’t a one-time thing. This transportation mogul adapted his business model multiple times before the pandemic hit. It turned out to be good training for this moment.
• Be open to new ideas and an outside perspective — they could dramatically alter the path you’re on.
• Don’t underestimate the power of a local community. With more tools available to go international and reach new markets, your neighbors are easy to overlook but they could be your future.
• Consumer tastes change. Rather than try to go against the grain, change your offerings with them.

Be sure to check out the June 1 edition to read how celebrity chef Marcela Valladolid made her Zoom cooking classes the most lucrative deal of her career and how others can do the same.

What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced as an entrepreneur? How did you overcome them? If you have a Business Reimagined story, be sure to send me an InMail. 

You’ll notice the ‘resources’ section is missing from this edition. Given that the world is quickly careening back toward normality, that section no longer makes sense. But if you have other content you’d like to see take its place, do reach out!

Latest Developments

• It’s not just small businesses that spent the past year pivoting. Workers who were laid off from them used the time reinventing. 
• Older business owners are largely responsible for a boom in small business mergers and acquisitions. 
• Long working hours aren’t just a drag on morale. They lead to a shorter lifespan, according to a new report from the World Health Organization. 
• Cities and towns are betting that an influx in tourism will keep their local companies afloat.
• But a lack of demand is no longer the problem for many, a shortage of workers and supplies are proving to be the biggest roadblocker to normality.
• Entrepreneurs are getting creative to combat the lack of workers by reskilling their current employees.

Conversations For You

• What would you tell your 18-year-old self if you could go back in time? Members on LinkedIn are giving their advice to recent graduates entering the workforce.
• How realistic are hybrid workplaces post-pandemic? Business leaders debate what this looks like in practice.

Something Good

• New research is out about why cats love boxes so much. And it turns out that big cats love them just as much.