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Hi, As everyone mentioned there is a minimum if you go direct with Spotify and it is a great option. If you do feel you need some help and want to also explore other audio options such as Nova, SCA or ARN which have lots of digital content, podcasts etc as well as Spotify or look at a more holistic Audio advertising strategy, I'd be happy to help.

1. cash flow

2. adding and getting the right staff

3. ever increasing overhead costs, such as insurance, super contributions... list goes on

4. time, never enough hours in the day to do the important things such as growing the business

5. margins, more and more products are now just commodities. It's getting harder and harder to differentiate in order to gain higher margins

So, I've been a small business owner almost all my adult life and I can offer a little bit of information on how to market a your small business on a budget. These tips below can help you market your small business on a minimal budget or for free:

• Don't be afraid to ask others to market for you. A lot of smaller companies that you might know are able to get a lot of product moved through the use of affiliate marketers and commission-based salespeople. The hard part, of course, is convincing them that it's worth their time. Good commissions can help.
• Start working on social media. It costs nothing to post on social media, add followers, and chat with people. However, it can pay off in local clout and also make your company more established online. 
• Remember that content modeling is going to be free to make, as long as you work on your own. SEO does not *have* to cost anything, and yet it's one of the best ways to market a small business. SEO will help you rise to the top of Google's search results within six months with avid marketing use. 
• Get the best possible advantage with signs. It's funny to think about, but most of the businesses that I know that have a lot of foot traffic near me get their clients through signage. A simple sign that says "SALE" can drive more customers than you'd expect them to. 
• Attend local small business networking events. This may seem silly or just play awkward, but local business events are a goldmine for both knowledge and business partners. If you are a B2B business, then this also serves as the easiest way to market your work and services. 
• If you want to get more clients on a global scale, consider getting an Upwork or Fiverr account. This tends to work best if you are a service company. You get to apply for gigs and make sure that you get the kind of clients you need to keep your company in business while you establish yourself locally. 

Hi Wendy

I never saw myself as one until someone pointed it out to me!  I always thought they were people like Richard Branson or Bill Gates, successful and genius.  But an entrepreneur is someone that go out into the world and creates their vision.  Sometimes successfully and sometimes not.  Doesn't matter, the fact is they grabbed the bull by the horns to see what would happen.

The other reason I never saw myself as one is quite simply because entrepreneur is a word I have a real problem pronouncing, I can entertain my husband for hours trying to say it correctly, sad but true. 

Great question Todd. Love to hear from members of the SavvySME community on how they are seeing their business growing in 2013 and what challenges and opportunities they are faced with.

Hi Fleur, we've been outsourcing technology work overseas for several years. The experience differs depending on the type of project. I think the most important thing for successful outsourcing is to develop the policies & procedures *in-house* rather than outsourcing to a team and hoping for the best. There are people with success stories of outsourcing to a "company" overseas, but anecdotally I can tell you they're far outweighed by stories of heartbreak and misery.

Basically, if you don't know how to do something (or at least know the basics of how it works), it's going to be very hard for you to consistently get good results when outsourcing. This is the value that a "local expert" can add - either as a consultant or a separate business - when getting your project outsourced.

It's very easy for miscommunication to creep in, and for projects to seem on track when they're completely not on track.

Hiring is hard to get right, but if you put in the yards you can get amazing people who deliver very high quality work consistently.