This is the final piece of our series which we’ve published to share the common challenges that most of us will face at some point in our business journey. We’re so thankful to have been able to speak to some of the great women in business who we met at the Women’s Inspire Conference last month in Galway.

The challenges we were reminded of at the conference are so real – no person is alone when they feel the struggle of starting up a business. Recognising common issues and addressing them as early on as possible is important to ensure our business runs smoothly, and displays a sense of leadership.

Lucy Hall spoke to us about managing Cash Flow and developing processes within a business at the very beginning which, if we’re not used to doing, can be really difficult to tackle. We advised keeping your accounting very clear and up-to-date, and using a cash flow management tool such as Pulse or Float. As for developing processes at the beginning, delegating work at first can become difficult so learning how to let others take control of some of your work is important. Use a popular collaboration and teamwork tool such as Trello or Slack so you can assign tasks to others and monitor the work being done. Read the full piece.

In our second piece, we spoke to Noreen Taylor Doyle who mentioned finding distribution and stepping online as some of her biggest challenges. When we first start a business, we absolutely must assert ourselves in order to meet new people who can help us and potentially work with us. Noreen resolved her distributor issue by pitching at a food fair as they were then approached. Mixing with others is key. For stepping online, there is always going to be a worry of whether or not it will work out, so it is important to do the research and know exactly who you’re aiming at online. Try and catch their attention. Read the full piece.

CEO of MediStori, Olive O’Connor, gave us great insight into how she started her business and the difficulties she faced including her own mental blocks and presenting her business idea accurately. Tackling your own mind can be the hardest but we need to remember that trying and failing is better than not trying at all. When it comes to marketing our business idea, presenting it appropriately and relevantly is important. Getting honest feedback from different people is necessary, however try to choose people who aren’t friends or family. Read the full piece.

Philipa Jane Farley is a privacy law specialist and she has mentioned the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as a challenge that many of us will face now that we must shift our marketing to comply with it. This will come into effect on the 25th of May, 2018. We must fully understand it and that can be difficult given the amount of information. However, there is a website here which can help explain everything. Learning how to conduct a privacy audit is key. Knowing that you comply with the regulation will give you peace of mind. Read the full piece.

You can find each piece in full on this blog too, and be sure to sign up to hear about new articles on all things SME. We have some exciting new content coming this way.