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Many entrepreneurs start new businesses while also balancing full-time jobs. When there’s limited time to work on developing a new company, you need to pick and choose what tasks to focus on first. Here, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members each share one task that should take priority over all others when you have limited time to work on your startup. When you’re only able to work on your business or side hustle part-time, what’s one task that should take priority when you have limited time? 1. Building an online presence One of the best areas to focus your efforts on when you have little time to spend on your side hustle is producing content and building an online presence. Blogs, videos, and social media posts are a great way to show people what you’re all about, even if you don’t have anything for them to buy yet. It lets you connect with people and reveal what drives you—your vision. Building a loyal audience will get your business off to a strong start. —Blair Thomas, eMerchantBroker 2. Prioritizing content creation Since you have limited time, use it to create content. Content is king. It helps you climb the search engine rankings over time and gain traction on the respective queries that represent your niche or target audience. Content helps your business grow, and helps you gain the trust of your audience and build brand authority. —Jared Atchison, WPForms 3. Increasing audience engagement One task you should focus on every day is improving audience engagement. You could spend hours building a website and convincing users to join your email list, but none of your work will amount to new sales if you don’t consistently engage with subscribers and build rapport. When I was pressed for time in the early days, I’d spend a little time each day working on an email series or blog post. —Chris Christoff, MonsterInsights 4. Prioritizing new sales Don’t get inundated with administrative duties. Instead, work to aggressively increase your revenues so that you have more budget and cash flow to start hiring staff. This can help you scale, especially if you aren’t able to transition into a full-time role with your own business. —Firas Kittaneh, Amerisleep Mattress 5. Focusing on tasks that will have the biggest impact There are a lot of important tasks that you need to do when running a side business, but some tasks are more important than others. If you only have limited time, then you should prioritize tasks that will have the biggest impact. Some of these include marketing, doing research, and developing new products or services. By focusing on these tasks, you can help ensure that the business is successful. —Kristin Kimberly Marquet, Marquet Media, LLC 6. Providing great customer support When you run a business, remember that keeping your customers happy should be your top priority. So if you have limited time to work on the overall business each day, you need to focus on improving your customer support. Focus on making your customers’ experience with your business a solid one. —Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster 7. Improving the quality of your products The quality of your products and services can make or break your business. If people love them, they will definitely come back to you, so work on improving them. —Josh Kohlba Kohlbach, Wholesale Suite 8. Building strong partnerships Building partnerships is one of the most important tasks you can focus on when you can only work on your business part-time. Strong relationships with other businesses and influencers in your industry can help you reach a wider audience, access new resources, and generally make your business more successful. Plus, it’s helpful to have a supportive network to rely on when things get tough. —Sujay Pawar, CartFlows 9. Developing a schedule One task that should take priority when you’re working on your business part-time is creating and maintaining a schedule. This schedule should detail what you will work on each day and how much time you will spend on it. A schedule will help you make the most of your limited time and help you progress on your business goals. It also can help to keep you accountable to work on your business. —Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner

On June 12, the Fed announced that interest rates would remain between 5.25 and 5.5%, forcing small businesses to try to access capital in the highest interest rate environment in decades, ultimately making it harder and more expensive. Of course, just because capital is harder to obtain, doesn’t mean you don’t need it to run your business, expand, and address cash flow issues. So how can you navigate this environment? How to raise capital through a business loanFirst and foremost, as we learned during Covid, you must get your business’s financial house in order to apply for any type of loan or look for an equity investment. Most lenders will demand two years of tax returns, profit and loss statements, and cash flow statements, so start there. That means investing in solid bookkeeping, an experienced accountant or accounting software, and legal advice when needed. There is free assistance for financial management from local chambers of commerce, SCORE chapters that offer free mentoring, Small Business Development Centers (ASBDC), and Women’s Business Centers (AWBCs). As always, I recommend starting with a strong banking relationship. When you open a business checking account, try to establish a personal relationship with one of the small business managers at your bank. It is their job to ensure you get the best service and tools you need. Often, local and regional banks have more hands-on customer service, but the national banks also do a good job. Try to meet face-to-face with the manager over coffee or lunch to build a connection. Unfortunately, even if you have your finances set and a good relationship with your bank, it is possible a line of credit or fixed-term loan could be hard to come by, especially if you are a relatively new business. You may not have a two-year track record of revenue or collateral—equipment you can use to secure a loan—or, perhaps, you’re coming off a bad year or two. Banks look askance at downward trends when interest rates are higher. Jimmy Olevson, president and CEO of National Capital Bank, a regional lender in Washington, DC, acknowledges that the Fed decision will make borrowing more difficult for the foreseeable future. “The Fed decision to keep rates unchanged will continue to make it challenging for small businesses to borrow money,” he says. “Given how quickly the Fed raised rates, and the lag time it takes for those increases to truly affect the economy, I think we are still in the early stages of the ramifications for their decision.” Non-bank lending options for raising capitalSBAFortunately, there are additional options to raise capital if you are having issues with a bank or need to raise more money than they approve. The first place to start looking is the Small Business Administration (SBA).For starters, on June 7, 2024, the SBA announced a new 7(a) Working Capital Program (WCP) that will allow 7(a) lenders, with the backing of the SBA, to offer newly structured lines of credit designed to give more flexibility than an ordinary term loan. This pilot program is an extension of existing loan programs that will allow businesses to fund individual projects or orders and access capital earlier in the sales cycle. In addition, small businesses can collateralize assets to access this capital and reduce the costs of the loan through shorter maturities and to pay an upfront guaranty fee on an annual basis. While this new program is exciting, existing SBA loans remain some of the cheapest forms of capital in the market. The 7(a) loan program itself is usable for real estate, working capital, refinancing business debt, and purchasing machinery, equipment, and furniture, among other things. The maximum amount of a 7(a) loan is $5 million, more than enough for most small businesses. For longer-term fixed rate financing, the SBA also offers 504 loans. These loans go up to $5.5 million and are available through Certified Development Companies (CDCs), SBA’s community-based partners who regulate nonprofits and promote economic development. 504 loans can be used to purchase or construct buildings or new facilities, buy machinery and equipment, or improve property and existing facilities.Government grantsWhile the days of free money through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) are in the rearview mirror, the federal government still offers a multitude of grant options in addition to SBA loans. The following are a few examples: U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development offers loans, grants, guarantees, and technical support to rural-based small businesses.In addition to these federal grants, states and local governments, as well as corporations, offer grants and free technical assistance. CrowdfundingThe latest innovation in small business lending is crowdfunding on fintech platforms. Crowdfunding is the modern version of the age-old plan of accessing capital from friends and family in the forms of loans or equity in your business. While seeking investment from friends and family is still popular, technology allows you to seek investors outside of your own zip code. Jacob Haar, co-founder and managing partner of Community Investment Management (CIM), which provides debt capital to underserved small businesses by financing responsible fintech lenders, says, “Small businesses should expect higher costs of capital, but there are lots of great non-bank options, including responsible fintechs and other community-based lenders. There are multiple groups out there addressing gaps in the market,” Haar added. Some fintechs that offer crowdfunding include SMBX, Honeycomb Credit, Wefunder, Kiva, and SeedInvest (recently acquired by StartEngine). All these platforms connect small businesses with investors who can make small loans that the platform aggregates on behalf of the business. The business then pays the investors back, typically with principal and interest through the platform, which charges a fee for the service.As with any loan product, you should always read the fine print with fintech offers. In some cases, the interest rates are higher and there are fees. While paying more is the cost of doing business in this high interest rate environment, you should still be fully aware of what you are paying and seek out the lowest interest rates possible.