With our dedication to growing businesses, American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) is thrilled to support Small Business Saturday on November 26. To celebrate, Amex GBT senior leaders are sharing a few quick lessons from their own small business beginnings that can help your company no matter its size.

Choose the right partners

You can’t do everything yourself. Chances are, you’ll need to bring in key partners that can deliver value and help you as you scale your business. You can benefit from delegating work, especially administrative work to contractors, services, or vendors. As a business owner, don’t expend time doing things that somebody else can do. Instead, pick the right partners and develop a core strategy so that you can focus on the customer.

Manage your cash flow

Keep an eye on your overall cash position. After all, money doesn’t just flow into your company; it also flows out. As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure. Take the initiative to know your financial flexibility and proactively manage your money. If the events over the last few years taught us anything, it was about preparedness. For many of us, this came down to our cash position and making difficult decisions to preserve funds so we could access them later when needed. Down the line, most businesses will likely have a greater sense of the importance of liquidity. Although it has always loomed as a key cause of business failures, hopefully, a new sense of “cash is king” will be better respected by everyone – regardless of the size of their company.

Build a network of expertise

Build a network of experts to support you. Your business can benefit from the experience and understanding of knowledgeable associates. This can be especially valuable since as your business grows, you may not be able to have a full-time chief marketing officer, chief product officer, chief finance officer, or chief technology officer on board. It can be difficult to thrive in all those focus areas on your own. Building yourself an extensive network of individuals aligned with these backgrounds and having access to the right expertise can certainly help. In some situations, it can be the difference between success and failure.

Our support for growing businesses runs deep

At Amex GBT, we pride ourselves on meeting our clients’ needs with flexible solutions. Whether you’re looking for customizable booking options, ways to help increase traveler safety, or insights into future savings, we can help by providing you with scalable, all-in-one solutions.

A great example of this is our free-to-subscribe and user-friendly online solution Neo1™, a spend management platform. Instead of using multiple platforms to manage spend, Neo1 brings them all together under one master view – from cash flow to reconciliation. This is just one of the many solutions we have available to help meet the needs of evolving small businesses.

To hear more insights from our team, look out for our blog series for learnings based on their many years of working for small businesses. You’ll also gain an understanding of other helpful topics like how to find efficiencies with the right solutions and putting people first within your organization.

Finally, we invite you to reference our global business consulting services page to learn more ways to tailor your travel program so it aligns with your specific business goals.

Be sure to encourage your customers to share the love and #shopsmall^®.