The small business sector across the United States account for 58.9 million employees, 8 million minority-owned businesses, and 99.7% of all businesses in total. And while we are at the end of Small Business Week, there's still plenty to appreciate them for next week, the week after and beyond. 

The potential to capitalize on all the momentum you’ve enjoyed during Small Business Week is here, which means there are few opportunities like the present to make the most of your small business plans. Whether that means starting up a small business of your own, showing your enterprising colleagues your appreciation, or even launching a new marketing initiative, here are a few ways you can strike while the iron’s hot:

Read the Trends and Position Yourself Accordingly

Use Google Trends, you’ll find that there’s no better time to have yourself positioned for a few select small business searches:

Is it too late to capture that renewed interest? Not necessarily; trends tend to spike in interest without falling back to earth overnight. But even if that’s the case here, you can use next week as a reminder that there will always be cyclical trends from which you can build a more effective content calendar.

Using Small Business Week as a Wake-up Call

If you’ve ever sat in a cubicle, looking out the window, dreaming of a day in which you controlled your own financial destiny, you’re far from alone.

Small Business Week is more than just a way to appreciate small businesses or celebrate your success. For those who’ve considered starting a small business but have yet to take the leap, it can serve as a wake-up call. Why? Consider the following:

• Delaying your business means you aren’t learning entrepreneurship. According to one survey, 51% of people thought starting a company was the single best way to learn about entrepreneurship.
• Failure isn’t final. Even if your first business fails, you’ll learn a lot. There’s some data that suggests a slightly better chance at succeeding on your next go around.

Small Business Week is also a great time to remind yourself that you don’t have to go into a new business venture blind. There have never been more resources designed for aspiring small business owners like yourself, including the Entrepreneur Store and Udemy’s Small Business and Marketing Essentials. 

Treating Small Business Week as Your Spring Cleaning Week

Even if you don’t make a yearly tradition out of actual spring cleaning, there’s no better time to trim the budget, simplify your life, and cut a few recurring items from your calendar. Think of it as your entrepreneurial spring cleaning time.

A great first step: evaluating the way you currently spend your time. Use a service like RescueTime to observe where you’re spending most of your time online. That’s when it comes time to use the KonMari method on your schedule. What activities do you need more of in your life? What sites do you need to restrict? What word habits do you maintain that seem to generate most of your results?

There are many different forms of clutter in our professional lives. From reducing the amount of clutter in our inboxes to eliminating the mental clutter that comes from managing too many projects, spring cleaning should go above and beyond “sweeping out the garage.” Sustaining the momentum from small business week should affect everything else you do at your business—and de-cluttering is a great way to ensure that happens.

Capturing More Business as a Result of Small Business Week

When you do manage to garner more attention, it’s important to make full use of it:

• Include a lead capture form on your site. If your small business is receiving more traffic this week, you don’t have much time to add a lead capture form that will ensure that you make full use of the boost. Software like Growlabs makes this easy to integrate with your web presence.
• Connect your web presence as much as possible. It’s difficult to drive a lot of conversions when a customer has trouble identifying your website from your social media presence. Give them the proper links and point them to the right landing pages every time you reach out. Now’s the time to make sure that your calls to action are above the fold, as welEngage Your Audience on

Social Media

There’s no time like the present to rethink the way you approach your social media. If your social media presence has been lagging behind as you concentrate on other areas of the business, you might want to consider the following:

• Engage new influencers. Some 49% of influencers now use influencers to make purchase decisions, and don’t be surprised to see that number grow to a majority in a hurry.
• Research new content. If you don’t have a content calendar, Small Business Week is a great time to look around and see what other small businesses are doing to promote themselves. Try following a few small businesses that strike you as particularly engaging. What content do they create, and what do you notice is garnering the most interest from your shared audience?

Try a New Avenue for Advertising

If you find your marketing has grown stale over the past year, branching out can be a great way to mix things up. 

In some cases, it may feel like you’re only spinning your wheels here. Why bother with mobile marketing, for example, if you’re just a local business? Keep in mind that statistics suggest that 78% of local mobile searches result in offline purchases. By combining your traditional advertising with something you haven’t tried before, you might stumble on a similar connection for your customers that you haven’t previously imagined.

Maximize Your Momentum

Small Business Week comes and goes rather quickly. The true question is what you did with your time and the subsequent boost that lingers for a few days. Have you committed yourself to another year of successful growth, or are you simply spinning the proverbial wheels until the next important calendar milestone? Take the steps you read here to ensure that you maximize your momentum after Small Business Week is in the rearview mirror.