Have you ever been asked, “What keeps you awake at night?” Have you ever just thought about this question and how you would answer?

Hear the sometimes surprising answers to this and other questions, from real life business owners and executives, such as Ken Hilty of Six Disciplines (pictured to the left) and many others, attending the COSE Small Business Conference, put on by COSE, the Council of Smaller Enterprises, a 16,000-member organization serving small businesses in Northeast Ohio in the U.S.

In this episode of The Small Business Trends Radio Show, host Anita Campbell and Executive Producer Steve Rucinski (pictured below) review the responses of small business owners who attended the conference and were asked, “What keeps you up at night?”

Here’s a taste of what’s keeping small business owners up at night:

• Prospecting for new business. Developing the trust inside your client relationships that is necessary for success and quite challenging.

• Transitioning from a corporate environment to small business ownership. The move from a specialist to a generalist can be a difficult one.

• Enthusiasm and excitement. Being overwhelmed with ideas and opportunities is keeping many small business owners awake at night.

• Startup marketing. Developing ways to get your company’s name out there.

• Discovering new ways to bring value to your clients. What’s next when the pipeline is saturated?

• Creating an elevator pitch for your business. Developing the ability to articulate crisply in a small number of words.

Today’s Trend: In addition to the above points, please stay tuned at the end of the program to the Today’s Trend segment. The Today’s Trend for this episode is: Women As Small Business Owners - The New Force To Be Reckoned With. We examine the role of women as small business owners. It is a fact that women now own one half of the businesses in the U.S. So it’s important that B2B vendors communicate with them well.

Recorded: October 31, 2006

Duration: 53.29 minutes

As an added bonus, you can listen to the uncut versions of all the interviews with business owners, executives and others from the COSE Small Business Conference, in our special Voices of Small Business section.

About The COSE Small Business Conference

The 2006 COSE Small Business Conference was a two-day interactive event where participants were able to interact and learn with one another through features such as workshops, learning labs, and keynote speaker presentations to help them build a better small business.

Nearly 1,100 people attended the conference where members networked to build alliances and learn about new products, services and trends affecting small business owners today.

To learn more, visit the COSE website COSE Small Business Conference 2006.

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