Business Connect

Promote or Hire?

2010-09-14T08:30:00.005-06:00

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I hope that you are finding these what if human resources scenarios helpful. Here is the next one that is very common today:

You need a new person in management.

The first candidate already works for your company. This person is extremely hard working, has the respect of the other employees and is considered a leader. People already come to him to find out how to do a project and look to him to solve the problems.

The second person is straight out of college and just got a degree. However, this person does not have any real work experience. The only job this person has held is working for his father.

In many big companies today, the second person would actually have a better chance at the job and would be offered a higher rate of pay that the first one. Many companies look to get people fresh out of school so they can be trained the company way.

The problem of course is this second person has no work history. You cannot tell if this person will have a good work ethic. You cannot tell if this person is book smart but has no common since. In addition you will have to spend more money training the person.

The problem with many large companies these days is that they will hire from outside the company and pay that person more than someone being promoted from within. That creates a cycle in many industries such as retail where people will leave company A to move to company B because they will be paid better than getting promoted by company A.

In the long run you have a drain of talent and higher training cost because you are loosing good people that should be promoted and hiring unknowns from the outside world. Of course many people will look at this scenerio and go that makes no sense and it doesn't.

Once again this is where smaller and small businesses have an advantage. You do not have the archaic hr systems that make this illogical situation common place. If you have someone in your business that shows the talent for the position then you should promote that person and give them the pay that encourages that person to stay long term.

There will be times when you have no one qualified for the position, then you look to hire from outside. The most important aspect of this situation is to get the best person for the job. The person that will benefit your company and help take you to the next level.

LinkedIN and your business

2010-09-13T12:38:00.003-06:00

Image by M. Keefe via Flickr
Over at the smallbiztechnology blog they have great starter information for someone looking to build their business by getting involved in social networking and specifically LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is a social networking site that focuses on business relations and is good way for small business owners to get their name out and make contacts that could increase your business.

One thing to keep in mind when it comes to social networking is that there is paradox when it comes to them. If you are looking to help your business you need to study the network and find out the best places to sign up for and get involved.

However, too many people end up spending too much time on the social networking sights and it comes at a cost to both personal and business. Therefore you need to walk a fine line between using the networking sight enough to bring attention to your business but not too much time that you are actually wasting time.

One of the suggestions that the blog makes is to get involved in groups after thoroughly researching them. Groups are a good way to gain information but you must thoroughly research the groups so you are not wasting time on a group that is not going to benefit you. One possibility would be to join some groups and see what you get out of them.

There is a lot to be gained by getting involved in social networking. However, you must make sure the time being spent is paying off for you in the long run and not just wasting time.

Making Your Store More Appealing

2010-09-08T09:49:00.004-06:00

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Having a pleasing appearance to your store is very important to attract new customers and to keep existing ones. I have stated in the past that even a coat of paint on a regular basis will help make your store more appealing.

Here is a article from a New York newspaper that has even more ideas on making your store look more appealing to increase your customer base:

For retail stores, decor can seal the sale

How are you laying off your employees?

2010-08-25T09:13:00.003-06:00

Image by Getty Images via @daylife
Sadly during these economic times, small and big business owners alike must make the difficult decision to lay someone off. The smaller the company, the more difficult the decision can be. How you handle the situation says a lot about you and your company and could affect how people view you in the future.

There is a right way and a wrong way to deal these situations. Too often businesses will try to avoid paying higher unemployment taxes by avoiding the layoff and using other less ethical means to get rid of employees. I am going to give you some sad examples and one good example of how to deal with the situation. The first couple of situations are just acts of poor management. The other examples are worst as the just tend to be down right unethical.

Some of these examples happened to me personally and others are ones that I am aware of.

The first example happened to me shortly after I was out of college. I was working for a company out of Charlotte, North Carolina that was allied with one of the major automobile manufacturers. The economy was in recession so layoffs were necessary. The main manager of the business was the son of the owner and his wife was the human resources manager. No conflicts of interest there but then again it was a smaller business.

However, as I said the son did not have many leadership skills and was in the position because of his father. When the time came to lay off employees he did not have the guts to actually face the employees and tell them. Instead he made one the employees who was not being laid off and not in a real position of management to do the dirty work while he and his wife watch from a corner office. If you need to lay off an employee have the decency to do it yourself and do not make someone else do your dirty work.

The other incident actually made headlines when a major retailer laid off a large number of employees a few years back. However, the company got plenty of bad publicity in the way they handled the situation. Instead of telling the employees directly that they were being laid off the company sent them all email notices that they not longer had jobs and were to leave the building immediately. At the same time police officers came into the building to escort them out. Not a good way to handle a lay off.

While the first two examples is nothing but cowardliness and poor management, the rest of the examples are just outright unethical.

At a Oregon photography store, a person is hired to be a manager when the company opens the new store. However, what this person does not know is that he is only being hired until the owners son's best friend can take over the store and run it. After about a month the person walks into the store to buy some stuff on the persons day off to see the friend in the store. The son's girlfriend sends him to the backroom while the employee is told he no longer has a job. To top it all off they are late getting the last check to them and refuse to return some important contact information.

In another situation two locally owned security companies located in the inland northwest region of Washington & Idaho were merging. The company taking over the other promised to bring on a couple of long time employees of the other company which meant that they had to get rid of one of their employees. To avoid paying higher unemployment taxes the company spent several weeks trying to make this employee leave by making this employee feel as though the employee could not do the job. In the end they called the person and told him he was fired because of a customer complained that he followed company procedures on dealing with an alarm situation. It just happened the employees from the other company started that day.

Finally there was a employee working for a retailer and he was transferred to another state with a written agreement that if this person stayed for one year the company would move him to another location. However, new management was brought in and when the company was about to close down the stores in that region, they fired the employee in an attempt not to pay for his move to another area.

On the other hand I have to give credit to Gateway Computers. When they were suffering from the affects of the Y2K sales slump, they gave the employees the option of either being transferred to another division or getting and severance package. This way the employee had the choice of what they wanted to do.

As I said many of these examples are down right unethical. There is a right way and a wrong way to handle these kinds of situations and the better you handle them, the better your surviving employees will feel about you and your company. The last thing you want your employees that are staying to see is you mistreat the employees you let go.

Are you too Dependent on Assessment Tests?

2010-08-23T07:27:00.004-06:00

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It seems that many company these days are doing assessment test to check the quality of not only candidates applying for jobs in the company but also to see how well a potential employee would be when being promoted. However, it appears that some companies are almost becoming too dependent on them and in some cases taking them as the be all, do all system for evaluating employees. The problem is, like anything assessment tests are not foolproof and if not taken in with other factors could cost the company in the long run.

Let me give you an example I recently dealt with. Two people at a company have applied to be promoted.

Person A is currently a department manager, has a desire to achieve, has good results, is the leader in sales in the store and works with other employees to improve their numbers. This person also has the respect of the staff and this person is one of the first people they come to in the management staff. Not only does this person have the respect of the fellow employees, everyone above this person through the district manager wants to see this person promoted.

Person B on the other hand had to loose their department management position because they could not perform the duties of the job. In addition this person has show no initiative to improve themselves and has no respect among coworkers. In addition this person caused a $1200 loss to the company because of not paying attention to what they were doing. The only reason this person wants to promoted is to make more money. In addition store leadership does not consider this person to be reliable.

Who would you promote in this situation?

Well the assessment test shows that person B should be interviewed by the company for promotion and not person A. Because this is a big corporation that has the habit of running like a dinosaur at times, the company will interview person B but cannot go beyond the assessment tests and promote person A despite the fact they are the better candidate.

Of course the ultimate result will be that there is a good chance that person A will ultimately leave the company by finding a better position with another company possibly a competitor. On the other hand if the company actually promotes person B just because of results from the assessment test, most likely that person will fail at the position and either way, the company loses.

So while assessment tests may give you a look into an employee, you need to have a system sets up that lets you go beyond the results of an assessment test to insure that the right person gets promoted.

Who Needs Venture Capital?

2010-08-19T10:39:00.003-06:00

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The New York Times Small Business Edition has a great article about Elizabeth Charnock who is running a start up company in the Silicon Valley area but is doing it without venture capital.

Bootstrapping a Start-Up in Silicon Valley

There is some great lessons to be learned from this article.

Don't Battle over Price

2010-08-18T18:26:00.003-06:00

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Thanks to the influx of discount store, it seems like everyone has reduced themselves to trying win customers over price. How many times do you see that someone has the lowest prices, guarantees the lowest price or will match any price.

The Small Business Branding Blog points out that if you try to fight on price, then you reduce yourself to a commodity and as a small business you will loose against the big boys.

Lowest Price Guaranteed – All The Way To The Bottom

As the blog points out, instead of battling on price find ways to create value with your customers. Now there is always going to people who only look at price (but these are the same people who complain about a lack of service and the poor quality of products they buy). As a small business owner you want to concentrate on the customers that can see value in doing business with you.

As a small business owner the biggest advantage you have is to provide better service and better services than someone could receive in a big box store. What kind of services you can provide your customers will depend on what type of business you are in.

One way to find out what your customers would like to see is to ask them. They will be glad to tell you what additional services would make you stand apart. Also look at the business news and find out what the big retailers are dropping such as Layaway programs.

Once again it comes down to finding your niche and making sure you are setting yourself apart from the competitors, not on price but on service and services.

Checks and Balances

2010-08-16T10:31:00.004-06:00

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If you are a single person operation, you don't have to worry about checks and balances when it comes to finances and your business, but once you hire employees you need to ensure that you have checks and balances as a firewall to an employee robbing you blind.

A couple of weeks ago I talked about an employee that ended up steeling $10,000 from a company simply because they did not check peoples bags as they walked out the door.

Many small business owners do not want employees to think that they are not trusted so they do not put in necessary checks and balances to protect themselves against theft. You need to create a balance between protecting your employees and creating an environment of trust.

Here are some examples of creating checks and balances in your business.

If your company has credit cards (I recommend debit cards), either assign a card to a specific person. If you only have one card to go around, have employees sign the card in and out and if something shows up on the bill that you have no receipt for, you will know who had the card at that time and talk to that person.

Checks should require two signatures to be valid. Another alternative would be to put things such as utilities on EFT so there taken out of your account directly. This will require you to check the bill and make sure there is funds in the account to cover it, but then you are writing fewer checks and there is less chance that one will fall into the wrong hands.

Bag checks are another easy way to deter theft. If your employees know that their bags will be check when leaving the store, they are less likely to put something in there that does not belong. You will need to check the rules in your jurisdiction to see what rules you will have to abide by to avoid costly litigation.

Another big area that is becoming a concern is computer usage. Do you have employees spending more time surfing the web instead of performing important tasks? While this may not be direct theft the employee is still stealing from your business because you are paying them but they are doing personal things on the computer. Computer monitoring software could be a wise investment to insure your employees are doing what they should.

These are just some basic ideas to protect your business. It is not an all inclusive list but hopefully it will give you some ideas to keep money from walking out the door.

Budgeting

2010-08-11T10:56:00.004-06:00

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Budgeting is one of the biggest challenges facing small businesses. Often times the person that starts a small business is good at whatever type of business they start but when it comes to the financial end of it they fail. This is why lack of capital and bookkeeping are two of the biggest reasons why a business will fail.

The All Business Blog has a great entry on 8 Budgeting tips for Small Business.

Since yesterday we talked about technology, one of the important things to remember is that budgeting should be easier than ever today with the software that is available in the marketplace. While items such as Quickbooks Pro is very popular Intuit the maker of Quickbooks also makes a version of the personal budget software called Quicken Home and Business that many small companies could use.

The great thing about these software programs is that they are easy to learn and use. There is no excuse for not having some basic budgeting software on your computer.

One area I will agree with is number 5 that says don't budget to the last penny. I feel you need to start with zero add in your revenues then subtract out your expenses. Not doing it to the last penny will leave some fidget room that could lead to problems in the long run.

One thing I would add is to be conservative with your numbers. It is much better to be conservative with your budget that too optimistic. If you are conservative and do better that is good thing but if your too optimistic you could end up hurting yourself.

Many transit agencies across the nation are figuring that out after budgeting for sales tax increases because numbers were good for many years running and were caught with their pants down when numbers tanked in the recession.

The success of your business depends on how well you budget. Your success depends on your budget.

What are your technolgy needs?

2010-08-10T18:23:00.004-06:00

Image by William Hook via Flickr

The Small Business Technology Blog has a link to a Wall Street Journal Blog entry about the technology needs of small businesses.

Technology Basics for Business

The article is actually an excerpt from the book by the Wall Street Journal about the technology needs of small businesses.

It wasn't that long ago that small businesses did not have to worry about technology that much. For most a basic desktop computer and printer was pretty much all they needed. Today we live in a world surrounded by technology and to need to be more aware of what is happening in the technology field to stay ahead.

That is not to say you need to run out get an iPhone, iPad, and every other next big thing to come along. What you need to do is stay aware of the technology and find what is going to improve your business and make your more productive.

You also need to be aware of the latest software that is available for your business. As the article points out software services via the web are becoming a viable solution to actually buying "boxed" software which has been done since the first days of the PC.

In the late 90's and early 2000's we saw dramatic changes in personal computers. In the last few years we have seen dramatic changes in about every other area when it comes to technology. Today it is harder than ever to stay ahead of the changes and find the right technology for our businesses.

Losses are Increasing from Theft...

2010-08-09T10:26:00.004-06:00

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Losses from theft has been increasing recently due to the economy and other factors, so in the future I will dedicate some space to talk about what I am currently observing so that you as a business owner or company can be sure to be looking out for these and try to prevent them.

A few entries ago I mentioned how you have to look out for that employee you would not expect theft from. Today I am going to tell you some of the what I am seeing going on in stores today that will cause you theft if you are not careful.

One of the things that you always have to watch for is the decoy or distraction. This is a person that is designed to distract those looking for shoplifters or other thieves. The decoy will carry in the backpack and just walk around the store looking suspicious while someone else is actually going through and shoplifting.

The other is the person designed to distract employees. This person will find an employee and try to distract them from the person doing the shoplifting. While this is been happening for years what is on the rise recently is the number of people using their daughters or sisters to be the distraction.

The girl will dress up in tight jean shorts or something else design to provoke the male employee to be distracted and not pay attention. The sad part of this is some of the girls have been in the 12-15 year old bracket and dressed up very provocatively.

The latest incident I saw the young woman who was in the aforementioned age bracket dressed in the jean shorts and showing lots of cleavage distracted the teenage male employee while the brother stole hundreds of dollars in game console games. They then headed to a waiting car being driven by the father who was running the ring.

Parents are not just using their teenagers to steal for them. Another disturbing trend is parents sending their young children in to steal for them. Since kids are often ignored unless they are destroying something or in a toy department, the kids will be instructed to walk around the store and pick things up.

A recent incident I observed was a 10 year old who went around picked up some clothes, changed in the fitting room then walked out to the car to the waiting parents.

I wish I could say the above incidents where isolated events but I have seen reports and the incidents in many locations for myself.

Of course you always have to be looking out for credit card fraud and stolen cards. Once case is people are going into stores buying lots of gift cards and clothes and trying to use a stolen credit card. When it comes up as needing authorization the people will tell the cashier an authorization number that will work and they go off. This means that people ringing customers up need to be more prepared than ever for these kinds of attempts.

These days you need to be more aware that ever to ensure that your company doesn't take serious hits in theft.

Have Trouble Saying No?

2010-08-06T17:06:00.004-06:00

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Do you have problems with saying no?

As a small business owner or even an employee if you wish to succeed it is often hard to say no. You feel that if you say no to anything you have the possibility of loosing a customer or not being eligible for the next promotion.

However, not saying no may be doing more long term damage than the no would be. First of all you may be taking on too much and not doing the best possible job. Also, you could be carrying so much on your shoulders that some important things may fall by the wayside. You are also putting additional stress on you that could leave to long term health problems.

I know from personal experience how hard it can be to say no.

When I was working for other people I was afraid if I said no they would think I was not good enough to move ahead but I wasn't able to take on every task that came along. As a business owner I am afraid that if I say no it could mean one less important customer.

The Zen Habits blog has some simple ways to say no:

7 Simple Ways To Say “No”

To perform at your best you need to learn how to say no at the right time.

Renting or Buying?

2010-08-04T16:25:00.004-06:00

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The New York Times has a blog done by a business owner that talks about the decision of whether to rent or buy a building.

While buying worked for this particular person, each business owner must look at his own needs and decide what is the best option for you.

Once thing you need to consider is expansion. If you own your own building and your business out grows the location, will you have move to a new location, or will you have the room to expand your business at the place you own.

If you own the complex and need to move, you have the complications of not only moving the business but finding a new place to buy and selling your existing facility. On the other hand you may be able to expand your existing location but at what cost? what disruption your business? and will the current zoning laws allow for it?

On the other hand if your renting you need to know what restrictions you have on using the building, what improvements or changes you can make, if you have a purchase option (often more expensive than buying direct), and what expenses you are responsible. I would also find out what other tenants think of the landlord and how they take care of the property.

You will also want to do a cost benefit analysis of each option and see which one will work out for you in the long run. Like anything when it comes to running a business, it does not come easy and there is some difficult questions to answer before you make any move.

Are you looking for Magic Pills?

2010-08-02T12:57:00.005-06:00

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The Positivity blog has another great entry, this time for those people that seek those magic pills. Either it is a book, tip, or something else that is going to magically turn their life and business around.

Four Healthy Reasons to Stay Away from Magic Pills, and How to Do It

Another example of magic pills is the get rich quick schemes. Everyone thinks they can find a magic pill and presto they will be rich. As anyone who has made will tell you it takes lots of time and smart money management.

2010-07-30T11:33:00.004-06:00

Image by David T Jones via Flickr

The Six Disciples has a great entry on change in 2010.

Seven Steps To Effective Change in 2010

The year is now more than half over and its time to sit down and evaluate the year so far.

What has gone right, what has gone wrong, what did you do that benefited the business, what could you have done better?

The most important thing to do is be honest with yourself. Do not look through rose colored glasses or be extremely negative.

Once you evaluate the first part of the year decide what you want to accomplish in the second half of the year and what you can do to make it happen. Take a look at the Six Disciplines blog and get some ideas to a better second half of 2010.

Employee Theft

2010-07-28T15:23:00.004-06:00

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One of the things we don't like to think about but must is the possibility that one of our trusted employees is stealing from us. However, during tough economic times employees that may not have consider stealing in the pass may do so now.

Recently I dealt with a case were an employee with a company for 17 years was caught stealing magazines, books and dvds. The person had been a good employee for many years but started stealing about 3 years ago.

While a few dvds and magazines here and there don't seem like much they can add up. In fact this person caused annual loses of maybe ten or more thousand dollars.

You need to protect yourself and your company. Now I am not saying you need to paranoid, but extra vigilance should always be taken to protect your company.

The Risk and Business Blog has more on this subject.

Beware of work place theft

Relaxing on Vacation

2010-07-26T12:33:00.003-06:00

Image by Xavier Fargas via Flickr

The Positivity Blog had a great entry a few days ago about relaxing on vacation.

The Short and Simple Guide to a Relaxing Vacation

I know, as a small business owner vacations can seem like a daunting task with so much on your plate. However, you must take a vacation in order to recharge your batteries and have time away from the headaches of day to day operation of your business.

One of the hardest times I have on vacation is relaxing. I normally put so much on the plate I come back as tired if not more tired than when I started out.

However, on my last vacation I did not schedule anything. I did spend a few days in a hotel were I was not pressured to go out and do too many activities. It was nice have a nice relaxing vacation and I did feel revived when I came back.

So got out and take some time off...

Looking for a web designer?

2010-07-19T10:39:00.005-06:00

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Are you looking for a web designer? Then the Small Business Branding blog has some questions that you will ask any web designer that you are looking to design your site.

10 Critical Questions To Ask A Web Designer

While the task of designing a website may be daunting for those that have not experience in it, you need to remember the KISS principle when it comes to web design: Keep It Simple Silly. Some web designers what to put all the coolest stuff onto your website but all it does is drive away traffic.

While your website is under design, make sure to get feedback from your customers on what they think of the proposed design. If a sampling of your customers is negative, you need to go back to your web designer and find out ways to make it better for your customers.

You do not have to become an expert in web design, but become familiar with what constitutes a good website so that you can ask good questions and insure that your designers do not go overboard with what they design.

Inspiration

2010-03-22T15:34:00.003-06:00

Image by James Marvin Phelps (mandj98) via Flickr

One of the more favorite blogs that I just love to read is the Zen Habits blog. The blog always has something on it that can inspire you. One of the more recent blog entries from the blog is about inspiration.

What actions do you take to inspire you? One of the ways I found to stay inspired is have certain items around that inspire me. Above my desk is a picture of the new Ford F150 Raptor. That picture inspires me to try harder so that I can purchase one of those and go to Moab.

Need some help with inspiration? Take a look at the Little Guide to Inspiration on the Zen Habits Blog.

Changing Public Perception

2010-03-04T09:22:00.003-07:00

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If you are going to be successful in the long run in your business you are going to need to change public perception.

Now what public perception am I talking about?

The perception that the small business is inferior to large businesses. People have the misperception that small businesses have high priced, are run down and are an indication that the place you are located is going down hill.

Now in some cases this perception has been earned. There is plenty of examples of small businesses that have let their place run down and not took care of things. But then again I know of a major grocery store chain that sold several of their stores recently most of which are less than 5 years old and the new owners that are local are spending thousands of dollars in repairs for non-existent maintenance.

It is ironic that many people complain every day about the lack of service and poor quality at some of the major chains but continue to purchase the same products for those stores because they are "cheaper".

So how do you change this perception?

First of all this is not a perception that is going to change overnight. It has taken years for the perception to become ingrained in peoples minds so don't expect it to change tomorrow.

Second you need the power of word of mouth. If people experience that your business is clean, has friendly employees, and is taken care your customers will tell their friends about you.

Third, if your area has a locally owned business organization such as Local First Utah that is a group of small businesses working together to promote locally owned business you need to join. If your area does not have this type of organization think about creating one.

Not only will the organization is a way to market your business, but it is also an excellent opportunity to network with other small business owners to learn from their successes and mistakes.

You need to change the perception about small businesses.

The Vendor Balancing Act

2009-12-10T10:58:00.002-07:00

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While most people think that one of their more difficult relations is with customers, in the long run they may find that their most difficult relationships will their vendors. In a perfect world the vendors would treat you like you are truly THEIR customers but in reality many vendors act as though it is the other way around.

Of course some vendors are much better than others and it will take some experience to find out who the better vendors are.

Then there comes the balancing that you will have to perform. If you find that a vendor is taking advantage of you, what do you do? In most cases you would assume that you drop the vendor and find someone that will treat you better. The problem arises when that vendor is the only source of an important product.

Let’s use electronics as an example. Let’s say that you currently stock brand “A” electronics which is one of the more popular brands in the industry. However, “A” products does not allow you to return defective products to them causing you to eat the product. Now you will have to analyze if the amount of sales created by having product “A” in your stores is enough to justify you losing some money on returns.

If the amount of sales justifies you keeping that product then you will want to plan for a certain amount of returns that you will have to mark off. Of course you can probably find a technical school that would love the donations of the defective product in order to let students experiment with them and thus giving you some goodwill.

On the other hand if the amount of sales and the hassles created by them do not justify you taking the losses on their product then dump them and find another vendor. However, I would let the company know why you are going to drop them and see if they will do anything for you.

In addition, vendors used to have reps that would come and visit local stores, building displays and building relationships with the companies that sold their products. However, these days’ vendors have been cut so severely that they may only visit major stores once a month or have cut out some altogether so the chances of them coming to your independent store may be slim and none.

You will defiantly want to cultivate a relationship with any vendor that does take the time to come visit you. They are an excellent source of information and if they take the time to visit you then they are probably a vendor you will want to focus on.

Also, depending on the products you sell; look for smaller vendors that may not have the name but will have the ability to service you better.

Remember, you are the vendor’s customers so find vendors that treat you that way.

Evalutating your Goal Setting

2009-11-23T22:21:00.001-07:00

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How are you doing with setting goals?

Hopefully by now you have started writing your goals on a regular basis. At first your excited to do it but it is also hard to get in the habit of doing them on a daily basis until you get in a rhythm and start seeing some success with them.

After you have been setting goals on a regular basis for a couple of weeks, it is time to review your progress. See how many goals you are setting on a daily basis and evaluate how well you are performing.

If you find that you are accomplishing all your goals in a couple of hours and it feels like no effort at all, then you are not setting goals that are tough enough. After a short period of time you will have no sense of accomplishment because your goals are not set high enough to give you that “I did it” feeling.

On the other hand, if you reach the end of the day and most of your goals have not been checked off, then you may be setting your goals too high or trying to accomplish too much in a period of time.

While you want to set high goals, you also much remember that your goals need to be realistic. Your goals need to be reasonable or else frustration will set in and you will quickly abandon the goal setting process.

What it comes down to is that not only will you have to set your goals and write them down on a daily basis, but you must also evaluate your performance and make changes in order to perfect your system and get the most out of your goal setting.

Yes, goal setting does take effort but over time that effort will pay off.

2009-11-06T10:52:00.002-07:00

Here is another video on how to start a small business which comes from Australia. The video is just under 7 minutes but gives some good information in that time.

Are you Outsourcing?

2009-10-29T20:40:00.003-06:00

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

The word outsourcing will make most people cringe including myself because of what some companies have been outsourcing, but outsourcing should not be a bad word but you have to do it right.

Outsourcing has gotten plenty of publicity lately especially with so many companies outsourcing their customer service functions to places like India. Recently I had issues with my Internet Service Provider and it turned out the company I go through has outsourced everything to India. This is where the problem arises because the guy on the other end of the line only knew what the computer told him to do; by the end of the day I changed ISP’s to a company that does not outsource their customer service functions.

That is where many companies are absolutely failing when it comes to outsourcing. Instead of outsourcing functions that do not directly affect the customer, they are outsourcing their direct link with the customer and putting their customers and their futures in other’s hands.

So what should you outsource?

As a small business owner there is plenty of areas that you can outsource that will not affect the service your customers get but improve your operations and finances.

An example of outsourcing that a small business owner should seek is accounting services. While I have extensive experience with numbers, many small business owners are not numbers people and should try to find someone that could do their paperwork better than they could.

Another popular source of outsourcing for small businesses in the last few years is virtual assistances. Virtual Assistants do a large range of tasks that will free your time to build the business.

In other words outsource tasks that someone else can do better than you can or that will free up your time to be more productive. What you do not want to do is outsource anything that will affect the level of customer service that your customers will receive.

There are other side benefits of outsourcing including giving business to your fellow small business owners, having more people who know about your business and if you treat them right will talk about your business, and finally another source to network with.

So by all means outsource, just make sure you do it right.

Prioritizing your Daily Goals

2009-10-26T11:38:00.002-06:00

Image by pixelposition via Flickr

Now that we have talked about the importance of goals and the different time frames, we will discuss the daily goals in a little more detail.

As mentioned last time you should have long term goals, medium range goals, and your short term goals that should be broken down even farther into monthly, weekly, and yes especially daily goals.

You should get up every morning, or better yet write down your goals for the next day before you go to bed. So that you can see the big picture I suggest that on divide a piece of paper with several columns with sections for the priority, what the goal is and most important how that goal relates to your long range goals. That way you can see how accomplishing that goal will build you toward the place you want to be in five, ten years or more.

You will also want to write down the goals you have for the day that may not directly tie into your long range goals but before long you will see that everything you plan to do that day will start fitting into those long range goals.

The next item on the agenda is to prioritize your daily goals in order of importance. I usually letter them A, B, and C. If something is a lower priority than a C, then it really is not important at all and should not be a goal for the day, correct?

Next take a look at the A category. Is there anything on there that is something you’re not looking forward to doing? Then do that item first so that it is over with and you do not have to think about it for the rest of the day. Do the same thing for the other three categories of priority so the stuff you’re not looking forward to is done and over with first.

At the end of the day go through your goal list and note anything that you did not accomplish that day. Figure out what you did get that goal accomplished:

1. Will it take longer than done day to accomplish, then try dividing the goal up into several sections and completing a section each day.
2. Something that you were trying to avoid, once again get this done first so that you do not have to think about it the rest of the day.
3. Too many goals for the day? We will go over this next time.

As Rick Pitino says in his book “Success is a Choice” you need to go through your goals and not what you accomplished and figure out what you did not accomplish and figure out why and how you can do things differently tomorrow.

If you are seeing to many A or B items not get done then you should evaluate what is keeping you from accomplishing important things. Are you getting distracted? Are you being interrupted by outside influences? Trying to bite off more than you can chew?

After a few weeks you will have a better idea of how a goal setting system will work for you and get you on the road to accomplishing more.

Being a smart shopper for your business

2009-10-13T22:36:00.002-06:00

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Too many small business owners fall into the trap that they have to have the biggest and the best equipment to operate their business.

Whether it is buying the latest and greatest computer, having the new, trendiest office furniture, or going out and leasing the copier that will do everything for you including make coffee; many small business owners fall into the got to have it trap.

I am not saying that you should go out and buy cheap crap that will not last you however; you need to become a smart shopper.

Let’s take a look at office furniture. If your customers will not see your office, then there is no reason for you to spend thousands of dollars on new office furniture. The desk I am currently using was purchase for just over a hundred dollars and has served me for more than 6 years now.

If your business is in an industry where clients or customers will see your office then you will want to find something a little nicer. However that does not mean you need to go out and buy new furniture.

There are plenty of stores around that sell used office furniture that will look nice but not cost you an arm and a leg. Another great source for furniture is on line ads. One of our local television stations provide classified ads and has become a major source of good used items at really good prices.

It comes down to figuring out your true needs for the next couple of years then being a smart shopper and finding the best product for your money. Don’t spend more money than you need to in order to get the furniture and equipment you need.

More on goal setting...

2009-10-12T11:50:00.002-06:00

Image by Darrren Hester via Flickr

Last week I discussed the importance of having goals. Today I will go over the different ranges of goals and how they interrelate to each other.

First you have your long range goals. These are goals that are more than five years away. While it seems like a long time, your other goals are ones that build up to these goals. For example you can have a goal that in ten years you want to be able to sell your business and retire. Another long range goal could be to have a certain amount of money in the bank for your retirement.

On the personal side you could set a goal to have your child’s college education funded by a certain time. Another example would be that you plan to have your dream home in 7 years.

You need to take the time to deice where you want to be in 5, 10, 20 years and so on and what it is going to take to get you there.

Next down the list is your short range goals. These are goals that you want to achieve in 5 years but will not be accomplished in the next year. They are goals that are stepping stones to reaching your long range goals.

For example, if you set a goal to have enough money in the bank to retire in 20 years, in 5 years you need to have a certain amount of money in the bank. Or you can set a goal to be debt free in the next 2 years that will set you on course to hit your big goal of retiring without having to worry about Social Insecurity.

You could set a business goal that in five years you want your business to be making 2 million dollars or you want to move into a new building in 3 years.

Finally you have your short range goals. If the medium range goals build you toward your long range goals then you probably can figure out that short range goals build you toward your medium range goals. These are goals that you plan to accomplish in the next year.

Short range goals are broken down even further to year goals, monthly goals, weekly goals, and daily goals. Once again you look at where you want to be in the next year and plan your goals accordingly.

What do you have to do this month in order to reach your one year goal? Once you know what you have to do this month, you want to break it down and figure out what you will have to do this week.

Of course you know what is coming next, once you figure on what you need to accomplish this week then you want to break it down and figure out what you have to do today to reach that goal this week and so on.

At this point you probably feel overwhelmed. It will take too much time to set all these goals, and you don’t have the time.

You will be amazed what you can accomplish when you are actually setting goals for yourself on a daily basis. You begin to realize what is important and what you just do not need to do.

Other great thing about short range goals is that they get you excited. When you hit that short range goal it energizes you and the next thing you know you are busting out the next you and the one beyond that.

Now there will be days that you are just hit with multiple road blocks and it seems that nothing will go right. You have your goals but you just cannot hit any of them that day. That is when you need to take a look at your long range goals to get some motivation. Also take a look at what goals you have accomplished to see how far you have come.

Starting a small business video

2009-10-09T18:40:00.003-06:00

Are you thinking about starting that small business? Here is a short video I found that may have some helpful information for you.

Can you Change your Niche?

2009-10-07T11:28:00.002-06:00

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You have your niche in the marketplace, but you decide that you want to head a different direction in order to capture a different part of the market. However, if a major corporation such as Wal-Mart and Nordstrom’s failed at changing their niche, is it possible for the small business owner to change their niche? Yes, it is possible but you have to do it very carefully.

First of all let’s take a look at what happened to Wal-Mart and Nordstrom’s.

As anyone who has been alive for the last 20 years knows, Wal-Mart’s niche has been the lowest common denominator, the lowest price shopper. Not the smartest shopper who wants value for the dollar but the customer who only looks at the price and not what is in the package.

The problem with having this niche is that there is not a lot of margin in this market. Realizing that they are quickly hitting market saturation in the United States, they knew that they would have to make more money off of their products in order to continue improving income.

Seeing the success that Target was having, they decided to move that direction. However, in the stores that they tried to upscale, they lost their core market and sales begin to flounder and the experiment was stopped. Wal-Mart is now moving more upscale but doing it much more slowly and not trying to alienate its existing market.

Nordstrom’s has always been known as the customer service retailer. You did not go into Nordstrom’s for low prices or the hippest fashions; you went in there if you wanted good service. Seeing that their core market was aging that they were not brining the younger market Nordstrom’s decided to change their focus by bring in the hip and trendy. Once again it failed as Nordstrom’s core market was alienated and sales went down not up.

The lesson to be learned is that you can change your niche but you cannot alienate your existing market. You can slowly bring in or start building new items, but you also want to keep your existing customers happy with the products they have been buying all along.

Take time if you want to move your niche and don’t alienate the people who have kept you in business.

You Need an Emergency Fund...

2009-10-06T22:36:00.002-06:00

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One of the things I have discussed in the past I am going to do it again, and that is the importance of an emergency fund.

Recently there was a story on the news about how businesses are being affected by road construction. Most of the businesses are hurting loosing a large part of their regular business.

While all of them are hurting, several of them are weathering the storm better than others and they specifically mentioned that they had an emergency fund to deal with situations like this.

You cannot hide your head in the sand. One day the road in front of your business will be torn up. You can scream all you want but the work will and needs to go on.

However, it is not just construction that can affect your business. You need to be prepared for any eventuality.

A good emergency fund of three to preferably six months of expenses will get you through most of these kinds of emergencies. If you road in front of your business is going to be torn up for a year, that means that you could have a 50% drop in business and still survive the work. Or if a natural disaster happens and you are not able to open your business for a few weeks, you will be able to deal with the emergency.

Having an emergency fund may be the difference between you staying in business and putting out the going out of business sign.

While mostly focusing on personal finance, Dave Ramsey is a good source of information on getting your finances in order and showing the importance of having an emergency fund.

A goal, not a resolution

2009-10-05T10:34:00.004-06:00

Image by lululemon athletica via Flickr

To be successful you must have goals. In your business you need to have a business plan which will set out the goals for your business and the numbers behind them. You also need goals in your personal life which will set you apart from most of the population.

When most people think of goals they think of New Years resolutions that they usually break in the first week. But a goal is more; it requires more of you so that you can get more out of it.

Here is the heart of a goal so that you can start putting some together.

First of all a goal must be written down. By writing the goal down you are making a commitment to accomplish it.

Second a goal must have a time period. Someday just does not work when setting a goal. If you want to loose 20 pounds then you must set a realistic timeline to accomplish it. If you want to do it in one week you are not being realistic. If you set a timeline of one year, you are not taking the goal seriously.

Third a goal must be specific. You must have a specific target to hit. If you want to loose 20 pounds you cannot set a goal that says that you would like to loose some weight. Saying that you would like to pay off some debt is not a specific goal, but saying you would like to be debt free in 24 months is a specific goal.

A goal must also be realistic. If I set a goal to be a player in the NBA by next year, the goal will not be realistic. First of all I have only played basketball a few times in my life. Second I am older than players coming into the NBA and third my height would be an issue.

So you have the basics of what needs to make up a goal. Now get some goals written down.

For more on setting goals head over to the expert goal setter himself Zig Ziglar for more ideas.

How clean are your facilities?

2009-07-10T23:37:00.004-06:00

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How well are your are your facilities maintained?

One of the several things that I hear mentioned when it comes to small business is the perception that their facilities and stores are dirtier, older, and not as well maintained as other stores. While you can question the validity of the argument, it is still important that you maintain your facilities to the highest level possible.

It goes without saying that you want to clean your store every day. In addition you want to have a regular schedule of more extensive cleaning of shelves, counters, and anything else that a customer comes in contact with.

Another way to keep your facilities looking fresh and clean is to do regular painting. I know that you are busy people but it will pay off with your store or other facility looking more presentable to the public. The cost of the paint is small compared to how well your store will look with some regular coats of paint.

Also when it comes to paint, stay away from colors that look old or dirty very easily. White is a prefect example of a color that just does not hold up. You will want to insure the colors wit with your clientele. If they tend to be more conservative, stick to colors that are more conservative. If your niche is a younger crowd, then more radical colors would work.

A little effort goes a long way to making your store more presentable. Remember first impressions are everything so make sure your store is providing the right one to your customers.

Wages...

2009-06-29T19:33:00.003-06:00

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Right now it is not a good time to be an employee for many companies. Many companies out there are cutting wages and other benefits right now using the economic times as a way to cut costs on the backs of their employees.

Many companies have freezed wages, lower starting salaries, and cutting any benefits they can. One of the major retail chain went through and fired all their store employees then required them to reapply for them at lower wages and fewer to no benefits.

Compare that to what a grocery store I shop at has done. They went through and gave EVERY single employee in their store a $2.00 an hour wage to help them out during these tough economic times. Many people seeing that will probably think that this was some PR thing that they did. However, the company has not publicized it because they did it to help out their employees.

If you were an employee, which company would you want to be working for?

Your employees are the biggest assets your company has, yet so many companies just look at employees as a wage cost and don't see the value they bring to the business. Is it any wonder that there is so little employee loyalty?

I am not saying that all employees are perfect and you will have some bad employees, but if you treat your employees with respect and treat them like the assets they are, you will have a better group of employees.

If you want the best employees, you need to treat them like they are.

Social Newtorking can be your friend...

2009-06-17T12:42:00.006-06:00

Image by luc legay via Flickr

While many think of social networking sights as a place for friends and meeting people, there is also many opportunities to build your business and take care of problems before they arise. I will go over ideas that you should be looking at to build your business and reflect back on the situation in my previous post on how it could have been taken car of as a win-win situation.

1. You need to have a blog. I know, you are a busy person and don't have time for worthless prattle in a blog. Instead you need to look at a blog as a way to personalize your business. In your blog you can discuss new items in your store, let people know about special offers, explain how to use some items, let people know about recalls, and other information that lets them know more about your business.

2. You can also Twitter. Many people still think of Twitter as something for useless talk, but it is another opportunity to network with others and let people know what is happening with your business. You can include links to postings on your blog or to the websites of companies you do business. One thing to avoid is too many posts directing people to your website and nothing else. If that's all you post and you do it too frequently (there is people out there doing 20/30 posts and hour with this kind of stuff), then you will loose followers and your message will not get out.

3. Get yourself on Facebook and MySpace. I deal with Facebook more than I do with MySpace but make sure you have a presence on them. You can also set up your facebook account so that your twitter messages will show up on your facebook page. Not only should you have a personal page on Facebook, you should also have one for your business so which will allow people to become fans of your business and to get more information about it.

Now lets go back to the situation mentioned in my last posting. The customer who was upset with the business told all his friends on Twitter and Facebook excactly what happened. Even though the business was also on Twitter and a follower of that person, they did not respond in any way shape or form. The customer is a member of a close nit group who is the main niche of this store. While some people may continue doing business with this store do you think that some of the people that followed the customer will stop doing business with said store? Of course they will and the silence made the situation worse.

So what should the store have done? They could have made a blog post and posted links to their other social networking sights telling their side of the story and what they tried to do for the customer. Once you make your statement you do not want to say anything else. The other person will most likely want to get in a shouting match with you but no one will win in that situation. It is easy to get emotional in these situations since the person is putting down in your business but the best thing to do is sit back, let others see your side and make their decision from there.

Use social networking sights to your advantage. It is an opportunity for your customers to know you better, find new customers, give your customers more information about your business to your customers, and deal with your customer service issues.

Returns, Returns, Returns...

2009-06-04T22:38:00.005-06:00

Image by mringlein via Flickr

On several occasions I have mentioned how important it is to have a good return policy. Too many small retailers fear the thought of returns and institute somewhat draconian measures to deal with that fear. While this may result in fewer returns it also results in fewer sales because the competitors have better return policies.

Many times a small retailer will only offer in store credit on returns and some even add a restocking fee on some transactions. This type of policy will only send customers to competitors because the big box stores and many on line retailers will give refunds on purchases.

Now lets take a look at an extreme example. Say a customer purchases $150,000 in product, and the needs to return $20,000 of that product. While this kind of return would seem to be devastating in its amount, it is close to the 10% mark that I suggest you keep out of your sales to compensate for possible returns.

While the return amount may be hard on you to deal with, your customer invested a great deal of money with you and it is important that you take care of them. If you are hard nosed about the return, how do you think that person will react and tell their friends? On the other had if you take care of the customer how will the customer react and what will be the information conveyed to the friends?

Remember, word of mouth advertising is one of your most important marketing tools at your disposal. Word of mouth can make or break a small business so it is important to keep it positive. While it is impossible to please everyone, making your return policies reasonable will go a long way to keep your customers coming back to you instead of going somewhere else.

Is your niche too small?

2009-05-28T19:48:00.004-06:00

In the past I have discussed the importance of having a niche. A niche is the segment of the market that your business focuses on and sets your business apart from the competition. While it is important to have a niche market that separates you from competitors, you also need to avoid the problem of having too small of a niche.

Recently I saw a note from someone I knew that is having problems with cash flow now because their niche in the market is too small to pay the bills. Now they are expanding into other areas in order to put food on the table.

It is very important when you are doing your marketing plan that you conservatively estimate the size of your market. If you estimate too low and your market is much bigger, so much the better. However, if you estimate too high and there isn't enough market to support your niche, you will not be in business for very long.

In other words, do not look through rose colored glasses when you are doing your marketing plan. Be realistic about the potential of your marketing and be conservative. This also points out how important it is to have that business plan and to keep it updated on a regular basis.

Remember you have plenty of resources to figure out what the market is for your niche so be sure to make the most of them.

Adding On...

2009-04-23T00:13:00.001-06:00

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Are you adding on to the services you are providing?

If you are a fan of Jeff Foxworthy you probably think of his number about McDonalds and their attempt to add the Hot Apple pies to people coming through the drive thru. Adding on to products and services can also have a negative cogitation because of the way some companies push extended warranties.

So why would companies push an add on even though it might be considered pushy by the customer?

Let’s take an electronics store for example. It may surprise some people that there is little to no mark up in electronics. A store selling a business laser printer may make anywhere from 2 to 10% of the sale of that machine. It is a big sale but it is not making a lot of money. Now if an extended warranty is added to the transaction that could be anywhere from 50% mark up or more, you can see why some companies can get really pushy about getting those warranties.

However, you as a small business owner is trying to build customer loyalty, so pushing products that the customer may not think is necessary will only alienate them and cause them to shop elsewhere.

So how do you get additional items added to the sale without upsetting the customer?

First of all, you need to use proper salesmanship. I have gone over sales presentations in the past and will refresh that information in the near future. You need to ask your customers questions and listen to their answers and they will tell you what they need.

Let’s use the example of selling a printer. Most printers do not come with USB cables because the manufacturer doesn’t make any more money building the printer than the electronics store makes selling it (the manufacturers make their money selling the ink).

One of the questions you can ask your customer is if they already have a USB cable and is it long enough. Another example is that they may tell you during the conversation that they will be printing brochures so a natural add on would be to ask them if they will need any brochure paper.

So how does this build customer loyalty? You are finding out exactly what the customer needs to insure that they do not have to turn around and come back to your store or more likely go to another store to get needed supplies. I cannot tell you how many times people came into my store and said they bought a printer and the salesperson never mentioned that they would need a USB cable so the had to come to our store to purchase one. Do you think they were happy with the salesperson at the other store?

There is other ways to get additional sales.

Service businesses can also benefit from this and since I have several friends who are professional photographers, I will use them as an example.

During my wedding, our wedding photographer mentioned to several families that he also takes family portraits. He ended up doing some shots of families at the wedding in addition to the pictures of us. Since he was already at the wedding, this extra business only cost him a couple of rolls of film.

If the photographer did one wedding per week, think about how much additional revenue he could make by just getting one family per wedding to do a portrait session.

Getting an add on to a sale not only can help your revenue but it can also help you build customer loyalty by ensuring your customer leaves your store with everything they are going to need in order for the product to solve the customers problems.

Also, be on the look out for additional ways to increase your revenue stream to make your business more profitable and successful.

Building Customer Loyalty

2009-04-21T19:49:00.004-06:00

Image by Angela Radulescu via Flickr

How loyal are your customers to you?

The answer to the question could be what stands between success and failure of your small business. Today you see many major retailers trying to build customer loyalty through their so called rewards cards. It is the latest attempt to keep customers coming to their stores as opposed to their competitors.

But what can you do to create customer loyalty?

The Freelance Folder blog has several ideas to build your customer loyalty.

The first idea they mention is to add a human touch to your service. When is the last time your tried to call a company on a 800-number and have been totally frustrated with the results? Make sure that your customers are able to reach someone that can answer their questions.

While I have said it is OK to outsource some projects, you should never outsource anything that will affect the service that your customer receives. These days too many companies are outsourcing their customer service functions which in the long run will only harm the experience the customer has when they call.

An outsourcer can provide the same level of customer service that you can because it is your business and to them it is just another account.

Another important way to build customer loyalty is to take care of the customer no matter what. To often small businesses have return policies that are too restrictive and cause them to loose customers in the long run. While a return always hurt, a customer that is able to return a product without problems is more likely to come back and buy more than a customer that cannot return a product.

The best way to deal with returns is to set aside a certain percentage of your sales to compensate for returns. This way you are not being caught by surprise with a really big return that you are not expecting.

Building customer loyalty should be one of your biggest priorities. It will mean the difference in the long term future of your company.

Finding the right Web Hosting Service...

2009-03-25T21:41:00.003-06:00

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The Start Up Spark has some great tips for small businesses on finding the right webhosting service for a website.

As the blog mentions, be sure you do plenty of homework before you decide who is going to do your hosting. For any small business price is going to be an important factor but you need to look beyond that.

Check to see what other small businesses are being hosted by the site and see what their experiences have been.

Also do an internet search of the companies name and you will most like find posting boards that talk about the service. While people on these boards tend toward the negative side, it will also alert you to issues that the company may have and that need to be avoided.

Also do not make your decision on what “free” items you get with your webhosting. I have seen webhosting services have all kinds of offer including free software but the free software is worth about what you pay for it. Do not use any of these free items to decide from one service over another.

Remember, your website is the first thing many of your potential customers are going to see. Make sure that you find the right web hosting partner for you and your business.

Overcoming Cheap Imports

2009-03-05T09:19:00.001-07:00

Image by Wade From Oklahoma via Flickr

The Babe of Business has a good article on how you overcome cheap imports by showing value and quality.

This is another area were your network can come in handy. While your big time competitors have big money to advertise their cheap products, you can use your network to get the word out about your products and the value and quality they have.

For example if someone in your group hears that a customer is planning to head to store “A” to buy a product, they can inform them that your store has a better quality product on sale that will last longer and you can do the same for them.

What you must remember is that you are not selling to the majority who think they are saving some money by buying something for a couple of dollars less but are getting far worse quality. You are marketing toward those who can see the value for the dollar, that they will be getting a better product for there money.

This is why it is so important to stake out your niche and take advantage of it.

The Obama Stimulus Plan and Small Business

2009-03-04T14:39:00.003-07:00

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

The Obama Stimulus Plan and Small Businesses - Join Us for a Townhall Meeting

The Small Business Trends website has announced it will be holding a town hall meeting tomorrow at 3:00PM eastern time which will discuss the Stimulus plan and how it will affect small businesses around the country.

The townhall meeting is scheduled to last one hour.

I would encourage all small business owners to make the attempt to listen to this broadcast.

Networking and Marketing Partners

2009-03-02T16:52:00.002-07:00

Image by shashiBellamkonda via Flickr

In my last entry I mentioned how important it is to get the word out about your business and the importance it plays in the economy.

However, you also need to build a network that will not only help you and your business but also be beneficial to other small business owners. Look for small business owners that own complimentary businesses of yours so that you can work together to promote each other’s business.

As a small business owner you do not have the money to go out and plaster the television with ads like your big time competitors. Therefore you need to look at less expensive ways to promote your business and creating a network is the best, least expensive way to do it.

One of the ways to build your network is to check with your locally owned business association for complimentary businesses. If you do not have that type of organization in your area check with the chamber of commerce, SCORE plus friends and family that may have suggestions for you.

You should be able to find many businesses that compliment yours. For example if you run an appliance store, you could work with repair people, stores that sell furniture but not appliances, home decorators and so on. You can refer clients to them with them referring clients to you.

Make sure that you feel comfortable with the people you network with. If you do not feel they will provide excellent customer service, consider finding someone else because you are putting your reputation on the line with a referral and joint marketing. Also make sure that the referring and the marketing are a two way street. If you find that you refer many clients over to your network but you never see any referrals from them then look into it. Sometimes it could be that you just have more people to refer than they do but you also don’t want someone to take advantage of you either.

Networking is an important marketing strategy for small businesses. Be sure to network with complimentary businesses that will fit your niche and your comfort level.

Small Businesses will be the leaders

2009-02-27T10:45:00.004-07:00

Image by Matthew Stewart | Photographer via Flickr

Small Businesses Will Lead Us to a Better Future

It is amazing that 63% of people feel that Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses will lead us to a better future.

If you look at most of the troubles that we are currently facing you will find that either government or big business or more likely both created the problems that we are facing.

Considering that small business owners have been largely ignored not only by the government but also by the general population, it is nice to see they are starting to see the importance that small businesses play in the success of the economy.

Now you need to get the message out on how important small businesses are to the economy. While sometimes a chamber of commerce is helpful in getting this information out, many of them have very large corporations as their members so are not willing to alienate those large companies by putting the focus on smaller businesses.

What some areas are now doing is creating locally owned business associations that are designed solely to promote locally owned business and to get information the public about their importance. In Utah their are two organizations designed for this purpose. First is the Vest Pocket and the second is Buy Local First.

Buy Local First comes out with a directory of locally owned businesses plus also promotes their importance to the local community.

Small businesses are very important to the economy and now is the time to let people know. If you do not have an organization designed to promote your small business get together with other small business owners to get the message out.

Learn lessons from the failures...

2009-02-23T08:16:00.003-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

Previously I have discussed how important it is for you to know thy enemy and to keep appraised what they are doing right and wrong in order for you to be more competitive. However, it is also important for you to learn from those that fail since as the old saying goes "Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it".

In the retail sector there has been many failures over the last year including such names as Steve & Berry's, Circuit City, Mervyn's and others.

Today I am going to give a couple of examples of things you can learn of what went wrong at Circuit City and how to use those as lessons in your own business. By studying your own competition including those who don't make it, you will learn valuable lessons to improve your business and insure the same thing doesn't happen to you.

Among the issues that Circuit City faces was the lack of a niche, customer service, and the layout of their newer format stores.

While I may start sounding like a broken record, it is critically important that you have your own niche away from the major competitors. In the case of Circuit City, it could not separate itself from its major competitor Best Buy. The only major difference between the two stores was that Circuit City eliminated appliances several years ago which seem to contribute to their problems, not help them. Otherwise, they seem to try to emulate Best Buy not set themselves apart from Best Buy.

Following up on their attempt to emulate Best Buy, Circuit City eliminated their commissioned sales staff a few years ago and put them all on hourly. At the time Circuit City said it got rid of the top of sales ladder because they would have wanted too much money and in my experience it was clear that they kept the mediocre people and that led to poor customer service.

Let me give you one of my personal examples. I wanted to buy and item and the only store to have it in my state was Circuit City (otherwise I would have gone to a local competitor). I walked into the store and immediately found it in a looked up case. There was two employees standing just a few feet away but neither one of them would come over to help me. Finally I went over to the customer service counter to ask for a manager in order to get some help.

Instead of coming up to the counter and helping the customer personally which should have been done, the manager calls on the phone, tells the customer service person to find someone to help me because he had better things to do. Finally someone did respond to the calls by the customer service counter and I got the item I needed.

Clearly Circuit City failed from management down to take care of the customer. While in many cases this could have been an isolated incident, I heard many similar stories from other people which showed that Circuit City was failing in this area.

Finally, Circuit City also had problems when it came to their new format stores. The last new Circuit City store to open near me was in their newest format and I took a drive over to check it out one day. While the store was nice and new, the whole layout of the store was confusing. There was one department that was spread over three different areas of the store. How confusing would this be to the average customer? Stores need to be logically set up so that people can come in to them and find what they need easily.

That is just three examples of what where major problems at Circuit City. These are valuable lessons to learn so that you do not suffer the same problems as they did.

Learn from your successful competitors and learn from the failures so that you do not make the same mistakes they did.

Know Thy Enemy...

2009-02-16T21:42:00.004-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

How well do you know your competition?

If your like many small business owners, the answer to that question is probably not well. Many times small business owners are so caught up doing their thing every day, that they forget to keep an eye out on what their competitors are doing.

In previous entries I mentioned how important it is to keep ahead of the competition, especially the big boys, but how can you do that if you are not keeping an eye out for what they are up to. Now I am not talking anything secret agent style here but hey if that is your style, have fun. The main thing you want to do is to find out what their stores look like, how well their employees are trained, how they price, and figure out how you can out smart them.

I would recommend you go out and visit each of your major competitors at least once a month. However, you should also not forget about the smaller competitors and visit them every few months to keep up on what is happening out in the world.

Often times the big players will send out people to shop the competition but they often will not visit locally owned stores because they don't consider them to be important. This can be a major advantage to you since you will know more about them than they know about you.

The more you know about your competition, the better prepared you are to be competitive and ahead of the them.

Email Clutter

2009-02-11T16:07:00.003-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

One of the worst villains in robbing us of our productivity is clutter, and one form of clutter that is becoming all too common is email clutter.

Much like the old snail mail, we get all kinds of junk emails and other emails that are not that important but take valuable time out of our day.

One of the ways I reduce email clutter is to route regular emails that are low priority directly to a special folder.

For example, I get a large number of emails from one source that I need to read but they are not a priority so I created a folder and any email that comes from that source is automatically sent to that folder so I don’t have to deal with it.

Another suggestion is to create an email account on one of those free email sites such as Yahoo, Hotmail, etc. Then anytime you sign up for newsletters or other low priority emails, you can have them sent to that email account so it does not clog up your important main account.

Also, create folders in your email system so that you can store emails that you want for either future reference or to read later. However, keep these folders to a minimum and only save really important emails. Otherwise the folder section of your email program will become cluttered just like everything else.

For more ideas check out the Organizing Queen.

Are you willing to put in the time?

2009-02-06T09:21:00.004-07:00

Image by Christolakis via Flickr

Wil Schoter is another small business blogger that I like to check in on now and again. Today he has a great entry that everyone who is considering starting their own small business should take into consideration.

When you first start your own small business you will not have a nice cushy 9 to 5 job. Starting a new business is going to take a lot of time and effort. Often it will just be you or a couple of people running the ship and you have to be there to nurture it all the time. If you look at the people who have been successful at starting small businesses, you will see that they often put in 16 to 20 hour days in the start up phase in order to get it successful.

That is one thing you want to consider especially if you have a family or don’t like to put in any more time than you have to. While in the long run the hard work will pay off, you have to ask yourself are you going to be able to make those kinds of sacrifices now.

This is another reason why it is so important to find a business that you will truly enjoy working at. You need to have the passion to see the start up times through so that you will see it through this phase and beyond.

Starting a business is not a full time job; it is a full time commitment. Are you willing to put the effort in?

Finding your Niche

2009-02-04T22:01:00.003-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

In my last entry I talked about staying ahead of the competition and the importance of having a niche. Since it has been some time since I talked about your niche today I will go over what a niche is and use an example to hopefully get your mind working on ideas to find the right one for you.

Basically a niche is the part of the market you go after.

Using the big retailers for example, Nordstrom’s niche has always been its customer service and return policy. People do not go to Nordstrom’s for low prices but for the service and the outstanding return policy. Target’s niche is being a step above Wal-Mart in quality.

Now look at the office supply market. The three major competitors are Office Depot, Staples and Office Max. So what sets them apart from each other? Well you could say that Staples with their “easy button” but many people don’t even remember which store that comes from. The problem with these three stores is that they are not separating themselves from each other so most people either shop at the most convenient location or the one that they have the best experience in.

So let’s assume that you want to open an office supply store and you have to figure out what your niche is going to be. First of all, if you are going to carry the same things the other three stores do you are not going to be very successful because there is no reason for people to shop at your store instead of the others except for convenience or if there is neither of the big competitors in the market.

Now let’s look at the three major areas of the office supply store and see where you can set yourself apart.

One of the big departments in office supply stores is electronics. However, consumer electronics is extremely competitive and there is very little money to be made in them. In fact you may sell a $500 all in one and make $20 dollars profit.

However, instead of selling the basic consumer electronics all the office supply stores sell, you could look at items they do a poor job selling and don’t have much of and that is higher in electronics. If you are looking for a good business copier, specialty printers, or other similar items, the big office supply stores just do not have the inventory or the ability to service this market. However, something you would need to take into consideration is that people who buy these items need excellent serving so how are you going to offer that?

While there may be more mark up in furniture, the big stores have the advertising dollars to pull people in. A majority of people rather get a cheap price than buy something quality by paying a few dollars more. But there is the market for quality and you may not sell as many pieces as the big boys, but you could go for a market that makes you more money in the long run. Once again people spending the money want service, what are you willing to provide? Design services? Set Up and building? That is something you would want to consider.

Finally there is the main office supply area of these stores. Once again you cannot compete by offering the same products they do and in general it is hard to look at having higher end products. However, if there is a big enough market you could consider selling the items that the other stores don’t carry in their inventory but have to order. You could find out from local businesses what items they cannot find in the big stores and work on bring customers in on those items plus having the everyday items.

What it all comes down to is what part of the market you are going to go after to set yourself apart form the competition. It does you no good to try to fight them head to head because you will loose. Find out what the customers need and what the big boys are not doing to satisfy their needs. The better you set yourself apart from the competition the more successful you will be.

What are you doing to stay ahead?

2009-02-02T19:50:00.002-07:00

Image by Angela Radulescu via Flickr

One of the things we talk about to small business owners is finding you niche. Once you find your niche, does that mean you can sit back and relax? Of course not, because we live in a constantly changing world, and your business needs to evolve on a regular basis or your business will find itself behind the eight ball pretty quickly.

An advantage you have as a small business owner is that you can respond to changing trends faster than the big corporations. Take a look at lodging facilities, some smaller lodging facilities were far ahead of everyone else when it came to offering their customers Wi-Fi service. In fact some of the big chain hotels are still behind the curve when getting an effective Wi-Fi network set up in their facilities.

However, what are these smaller lodging facilities doing now? After all, the big companies are quickly catching up so the smaller places need move the bar up even farther to improve their customer’s experience.

It is no different no matter what business you are running. If you’re small owner you can move faster than the bigger competition but you must be ready for your next move when they start catching up.

So how do you stay up with the latest trends? Research, Research, Research, and when you have done lots of research you need to do more of it. Does not sound like a lot of fun but it is the only way to see what is happening out in the marketplace and to implement new ideas before the big boys catch on.

There are many places where you can research what is happening in the marketplace. Your chamber of commerce is a good source, SCORE, magazines, Google searches, and many others.

The question is, what are you doing to stay ahead?

Stamp out that Negativity...

2009-02-01T18:09:00.003-07:00

Image by heath_bar via Flickr

Last week I mentioned one of my favorite blogs, the Zen Habits blog. Today the article comes from another one of my favorite blogs which is the Positivity Blog with a new entry called 8 Awesome Reasons to Blast Negativity Out of Your Life, and How to Do It

Negativity is one of the biggest challenges we face. Negativity can poison us and keep us from achieving what we truly desire and deserve. It can also harm both personal and business relationships.

Think for a moment, what kind of people would you rather be around? Someone is always griping and complaining, or someone that has a positive outlook? Which one makes you feel better and which one brings you down?

A perfect example is my wife’s brother in law. While he can be a nice guy, he is so negative that after a while I just have to get away. As Zig Ziglar would say “they brighten up a whole room by leaving it”.

On the other hand, I had a manager one time that was always positive. Even when things were not going well you could always count on him to have a positive attitude and as we called him “the little ball of fire”. Guess what? Everyone wanted to be around him and the energy level of the store increased when he was present.

The Positivity blog has several suggestions to help you to keep your attitude positive so go over and take a look.

Thinking of Starting a Business?

2009-01-29T22:09:00.005-07:00

Image by Barryspics via Flickr

Is it a good time to start a business?

With many people worried about their jobs in the light of lay offs (my wife was laid off of her job in October), the idea of starting a small business sounds good to many. However, as the Start Up Spark points out, while it may or may not be a good time to start a business, you will have to work at it.

Sadly at this point in time too many people are willing to grasp at straws in attempt to find that perfect get rich quick scheme. The worst part of these schemes much like lotteries is that the people who can least afford it get involved in them.

The idea of starting your business is great if you know what you are getting into. It gives you the opportunity to set your own course and control your own destiny. You will be the one making the decisions and enjoying and dealing with the consequences of them.

What you should also know is that there is no easy path. Starting a business is difficult and is going to take time and effort to get it going.

If you do decide to start a business, go in with your eyes wide open and know that it will success will not happen over night, or in a month but will take time…

Are you Twittering?

2009-01-25T13:34:00.003-07:00

Image by luc legay via FlickrSocial Networking has become a major way to promote your business and the Business Coaching blog talks about Twitter.

Twitter is one of the many forms of Social Networking that includes Facebook, My Space, and many others.

Twitter is relatively easy to use and a great opportunity to meet people. In Twitter you basically follow what people have to say and they follow what you have to say.

However, there is many on Twitter who just become marketing machines and all they do is inundate you with marketing and PR. There is a fine line that you need to be careful not to cross.

I have had many people follow my twitters only to check out their pages and it is full of self promotions and advertising links.

So remember, Twitter is an excellent opportunity to meet people. It is also an opportunity for people to find out what you have to offer. Just remember the social aspect of it and make sure you are not using it way to SPAM people.

When you set up your account be sure to include a picture, have a link to your website and additional contact information. Many people will check out this information before following people. Then follow some other people that you find interesting and before you know it, you will be a Twitter expert.

Being Creative.

2009-01-24T19:06:00.007-07:00

Image by Getty Images via DaylifeOf the many blogs I read, one of my favorites is the Zen Habits Blog. It is always filled with good information that is designed to make your life better. Today's entry is called:

The Secret to Being Insanely Creative

So what are the secrets of being insanely creative? It is not that big of a secret and you probably know the answer already.

One of the secrets is setting goals. As Zig Ziglar says "How can you hit a goal you cannot see?". Goals must be specific, have a specific time period and most of all be written down. You must have daily goals that work toward your important long range goals. Sometimes it is hard to set those goals but it is vitally important that you have them.

Another important ingrediant is your relationships. Are the people you associate with helping you achieve or they are holding you back. Often times our friends can hold us back because subconsciously they fear that if you achieve your goals either you will not need them any more or they will be something less. While it is painfull to do, you need to seek out relationships that will build you up and not take you down.

So what are you going to do to unlock your creativity?

Back...

2009-01-23T22:55:00.001-07:00

It has been some time since I posted to this blog. For the last year I was getting paid to blog on another network but that one has shut down so I will be reactivating this one. I will be doing some redesigning that I hope you will like and I hope you find the information of use.

Develop your business plan Part 6

2008-03-18T14:34:00.001-06:00

Here is part 6 on the Developing your business plan series. Once again their is some good information contained in here.

Starting A Small Business Series: The Executive Summary

2008-03-17T13:14:00.002-06:00

Although the Executive Summary is the first section of the business, it is usually the last part you will write because as the name implies, it is a basic summary of all the parts of the business plan and it needs to spark an interest in the reader to move on to the heart of the plan.

The Business Plan Blog had a great explanation of the executive summary so I recommend you read that to get a good idea on what you should have in it.

List of Freelance Blogs?

2008-03-12T15:23:00.003-06:00

Are you a freelancer?

The Bootstrapper Blog has a listing of 100 Blogs that could be of interest to you. It is a very comprehensive list and you should find something that will work for you. Also, even if you run a small retail business or something like that, often times the advice given to freelances work for the small business owner so go ahead and take a look.

Develop your business plan Part 5

2008-03-11T13:30:00.002-06:00

Here is Part 5 of the Developing a Business Plan Videos. This one talks about doing the numbers of the plan. I have gone over the financial statements before but the video might make it a little easier to understand and help you make a better plan.

Starting A Small Business Series: The Appendix

2008-03-10T11:39:00.000-06:00

The final section of the business plan (although not the last part you finish), is the appendix. This is the reference section of your business plan and what it contains depends on your needs.

The SBA website has a complete list of items that you may or may not need in your appendix.

Make Money on your off time...

2008-03-05T10:44:00.002-07:00

The Bootstrapper Blog has a listing of 50 ways to make money during your off time. The first one is a good one for all business people and that is Blogging. I have said before that all businesses should be blogging which can be used as a marketing opportunity.

Develop your business plan Part 4

2008-03-04T09:42:00.001-07:00

Here is Part 4 of the Developing you business plan video.

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2008-03-03T11:59:00.001-07:00

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Starting A Small Business Series: Financial Statements

2008-03-03T09:45:00.001-07:00

So what is the next section of your business plan?

It is your financial statements. We have already discussed the different business financial statements but to recap you have the Profit and Loss Statement, Balance Sheet and the all important Cash Flow.

If your business has been in operation you will want to include previous financial statements going back 3 to 5 years.

Now if you are just starting your business you will want to have estimates for the first five years. You will want to insure that the financial statements match what you are requesting from your investors because they will be going over these numbers with a fine tooth comb.

Next we have the appendix then we go back to the first section of the business plan but the last done and that is the executive summary.

Pay Pal Shops

2008-02-28T18:27:00.001-07:00

Interesting post from Entrepreneurs-Journey blog about how you can find hot products over at Pay Pal Shops. Take a look and see if they will help you.

Are you a state at home mom?

2008-02-27T10:52:00.004-07:00

NBC's Today Show had a feature on work for stay at home moms (SAHM's).

While focusing on SHAM's, they have some good information for men or woman including selling on Ebay and becoming a professional shopper. Thank you to BIZ Chicks Rule for referring to this video.

Develop your business plan Part 3

2008-02-26T11:33:00.000-07:00

Here is part 3 of the video series on doing your business plan. It follows nicely with my weekly post on how to do your business plan. Once I am done wrapping up the series on how to write a business plan, I will start going through an actually business plan step to give more practical experience for you.

Starting A Small Business Series-Financial Request

2008-02-25T10:24:00.000-07:00

Now some of you may not need this section of the business plan as this section is the funding request section.

So how much are you requesting to fund your business? Not only will you want to show how much you will require today, but if you are going to need more money in the next five years to expand your business you will want to make sure that is included in this section of the business plan.

While your financial statements will show about where your money is going in this section you want to specifically mention how and where you will use the money from your investors. You will want to be specific on where the money will be going whether it will be capital, operations, or other things.

Finally you will want to discuss your future financial situation. If you plan to go public with your business in the next five to ten years you will want to include that information in this section. Another piece of information is that if you plan to sell your business at anytime in the future.

Next week we will go over the financial information.

Are you a freelance?

2008-02-20T13:23:00.002-07:00

One of the things we stress is how important networking is to small businesses. We need to be networking gain customers and get valuable business contacts.

The Bootstrapper Blog has a listing of 50 Professional Networks for Freelancers. While tailored to freelancers there is valuable information here for any small business owner. Take a look and see what contacts you can use to improve your small business.

Develop your business plan Part 2

2008-02-19T09:10:00.002-07:00

Here is part two of the video "Developing your business plan". Great information for those getting ready to start writing their business plan.

Starting A Small Business Series: The Service or Product Line

2008-02-18T09:39:00.000-07:00

The next section of the Business Plan is the product information.

You will want to detail what your product is from a customer perspective. How will the product meet the needs of the customer and why they are going to want it? Also how is your product or service going to be superior to that offered by your competitors?

Next you will want to talk about the life cycle of the product or service. Is your product or service on a growth curve or is it a mature market. If your product or service is going to be in a mature market, how will you turn that into an opportunity for you? How long is the life cycle of the business?

Next discuss any copyright or trademarks your product or service will have. Also are there any trade secrets included with your product or service and any current legal agreements.

Finally you will want to explain any research and development that will involve your product or service. Is your product still under development? How much research and development will have to be done to keep your product ahead of your competitors and how much will it cost the business?

Next week we will discuss the funding request.

Building a Business Plan Video

2008-02-12T10:35:00.000-07:00

Since I have been going over a business plan, I found this series of videos that talk about the developing a business plan.

This is part 1 of 8.

Starting A Small Business Series: The Marketing and Sales Plan

2008-02-11T09:24:00.000-07:00

In this part of our developing your business plan series, we will go over the Marketing and Sales Management part of the business plan.

Here you tell your potential investors and yourself how you are going to develop the market for your business.

How do you plan to penetrate the market? How do you plan to expand your business through marketing? Do you plan to add locations, franchise, have distributors or any other ways you will look to expand your business. Also, if you are manufacturing a product how will you get it to market? Will you sell direct, to wholesalers, or some other way?

In the final part of the marketing strategy you will want to go into detail on how you plan to reach the market. Will you have an advertising budget that will allow for television or will you look to some other means such as newspapers and magazines. What kind of online presence do you plan to have? Will you have a basic website or a full blown e-commerce site? What other kinds of marketing do you plan to do such as catalogs, brochures, trade shows, or other kinds of promotions?

Next you will focus on sales. Will you have a internal sales force that people come in to visit or external that they go out and visit or both? Will the sales force be direct employees of the company or will they be contractors and the reasons you decided to make that decision. You will also want details on how you plan to recruit your sales people, train them, and compensate them. Explain all details and how you came to those decisions.

From there you will need a detail plan of how the sales force will sell your business. What their requirements are going to be and how they will get customers. Will they cold call on a list you buy or will they be knocking on doors.

Next week we will get into the product line part of the business plan.

Business Opportunities...

2008-02-07T11:28:00.000-07:00

Looking to have a business from home?

The Home Biz Notes Blog has a listing of 13 on line businesses that you can start and operate from home.

While this is in no way a complete list they will give you some good ideas on what you can pursue yourself. Just make sure whatever you decide to do, you find something that you are going to enjoy.

There is many opportunities to make money out there, what is going to be yours?

Andrew Morrison...

2008-02-06T10:26:00.000-07:00

Here is a video from Andrew Morrison from the Small Business Camp that gives some helpful information on building your business.

Bad or Good Times?

2008-02-05T10:44:00.000-07:00

The New York Times has an article about some of the things that Small Businesses are facing during these economic times.

While the NY Times paints a somewhat down picture (isn’t this what newspapers do?), the truth is this is a great opportunities for small business owners. At the first sign of troubles corporations start letting people go even if it causes them long term harm because they are only look at this quarters financial numbers.

This is the perfect opportunity for small businesses to show that they provide the best customer service and they will not slack during the off times.

Your suppliers will be looking to move inventory and that is good you. It’s time to get better terms from your suppliers as they are going to have access inventory and that is an opportunity for you to get better merchandise for the dollar.

Don’t listen to everyone who cries doom and gloom. Look at these times as an opportunity to grow and improve your business, it is an opportunity waiting for you.

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2008-02-04T13:39:00.000-07:00

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Starting A Small Business Series-Organization and Mangement

2008-02-04T11:37:00.000-07:00

The next section of the business plan is the Organization and Management.

In this section of the business plan you go into details about how your business is going to operation.

You will also want to detail all the departments your business will have. If it is just you or one other person this is not critical but if there will be multiple people running the business you will want to detail what the departments and power will they have, and how will the fit into the operation of the business.

At this point you will also want to detail the salary and benefits that people will be receiving and justifying those costs.

Have a detailed organization structure for the business. Usually you will have the CEO on top with the flow down through the different departments. You will also want a narrative description of each section, and how information will flow so that things don’t have to go through multiple layers to get things done.

Once again you will want to detail what organization form you’re going to take: sole proprietorship, partnership or corporation. You will want to name all the owners, their percentage of ownership, involvement in the business, and if a corporation what will the distribution of the stock be.

Next if there is going to be management beyond the owners you will want to detail the information from them. You will want to include their name and a good resume but that includes more detailed information. This information needs to justify what this person will be working for the business and not there just because they are a friend. If the company has been in operation for some time you will want to include years of service with the business.

Finally if you are going to have a board of directors you will want to follow all the above details with explanations on why they were chosen for the position and what they bring special to the company.

Once again you can go to the Small Business Administration Website for more information.

HR information

2008-02-01T19:43:00.000-07:00

The Bootstrapper Blog which is a great resource for information I have discovered has a listing of 100 articles to help with HR. Even if you only need to hire one person this information can come in hand since there is so many issues that need to be dealt with.

Give a look to some of their links and remember to tell them that the Business Connect Blog referred you.

Partner with relatives?

2008-01-31T07:12:00.000-07:00

Found this video on You Tube. Does a good job of discussing the pros and cons of having relatives as partners in your business.

Before going into the a partnership of any kind I would highly recommend you weigh the pros and cons and talk with an attorney and a tax accountant. In most cases a corporation is a better entity to use than a regular partnership.

Books from my reading list...

2008-01-30T10:33:00.000-07:00

Here are some books that I recommend for everyone to read. The links will take you to Amazon to purchase if you are interested.

The first one is the autobiography of Zig Ziglar. Not only does he give you some of the background on the many stories he tells but you also learn more about how the became the person he is.

The second one is from a guy who started off as a nanny in Los Angeles and is now the Executive Producer of Survivor

Next one is from Brian Tracy who is a success and personal achievement authority. The book describes a trip he took when he was 20 and the many lessons learned on the journey that helps him through life.

The next one is one of Zig’s new books and I am currently reading it. It has some great stories.

These are good books and I hope you will take a look at.

30 Second Speech...

2008-01-29T07:06:00.000-07:00

Do you have your elevator speech ready?

You’re probably asking yourself, what the heck I am talking about having your elevator speech ready. Simply put, when you get in an elevator today, or on the light rail train, or any place were you meet someone, can you explain your business in 30 seconds or less?

I went to a meeting of consultants in Reno this past October. While there one of the sessions was talking about marketing yourself and one of the emphases was on being able to describe your business in 30 seconds or less. The gentleman who ran the session cornered me the first night and I tried to give one but I babbled on.

By the last day I was able to give a great 30 second speech on what I do for a living. While for some this may seem simple, we try to interject so much into talking about what we do, that we do not have a concise quick speech about it.

I would recommend you practice giving a 30 second speech until you get you have it down pat. Then you can meet someone and quickly promote yourself and impress the person you’re talking to. The Freelance Folder also has some information on this.

Starting A Small Business Series-Company Information

2008-01-28T10:15:00.000-07:00

In the first part of preparing your actual business plan we talked about the marketing section. This week we will go over Company Information.

As can you can tell from the title, this section of the business plan deals with your company and how it would be organized.

You will want to mention the type of business organization you have chosen and an explanation of why you choose that form of business. You will also want to include information about the people who will be running the business such as yourself including what you will bring to the table from abilities, knowledge and drive.

You will also want to make some comment on how all of these elements will work together to build a successful business. I have mentioned in the past how important mentors for you and would recommend mentioning that you do have mentors in your weak areas so that you can overcome those.

If your company is a corporation, have information about the board of directors and once again what they will bring to the table to make the business a success.

While this will not be a large section of the business plan, it is the section that you get to talk about what you bring to the table. This is not the time to be modest but on the other hand make sure that you are honest about your abilities. In fact, honesty in this point will gain you brownie points and gain more by saying that you have mentors in this area.

For more information see the Small Business Administration website.

Declutter your life...

2008-01-26T11:12:00.000-07:00

I have found the Bootstrapper Blog to have some wonderful resources.

Today is no different as it has a listing of 50 online resources to help unclutter your life. Clutter is one of the things that does more damage than anything else in the house and in our cars.
I have to admit that for years I was a pack rat and kept everything that I might want to have sometime in the future. Meanwhile I collected more and more stuff to the point once my wife and I were married and she also happens to be a pack rat, combined with the fact that we are both sentimental, you can imagine how much stuff we had.

But after watching the TLC show Clean Sweep and reading a book from its main organizer Peter Walsh, I have slowly changed my ways.

My office is still pretty cluttered since it is also the only place with a spare closet, but we are slowly getting rid of most of access and we have set a goal of being uncluttered by Easter so we can have family over.

Take a look at the resources offered on the Bootstrapper blog and get clutter under control.

Working Capital

2008-01-25T10:51:00.000-07:00

During the Starting a Small Business Series we have gone over some of the basics of making your business plan and will continue that series until you are ready to print it out and start selling it.

One of the most important things going to the operation of the business is going to be how much working capital you have. Under capitalization is one of the biggest problems facing many small businesses but on the other hand it is often the only way you can get started as was the case with me.

The Accounting Solver Blog has some more information on working capital so take a look at that as it could be a good reference for you.

Tips for those working from home.

2008-01-24T17:26:00.000-07:00

Top 30 Tips for Staying Productive and Sane While Working From Home

The Zen Habits blog has these 30 tips to saying productive and since some of you how are planning on starting their own business will be working from home, this will come in handy. Since my office is also at home I thought these tips were good.

I agree that you must have a define work space. That way you are away from the rest of the house. I also find it helpful to have a door that you can close so when you are doing important business you will not have to worry about noise.

Another suggestion they have is have a good chair. This is another item that is so important. You are going to spend many hours in your office working on your computer you need a good office chair with good ergonomics. I am one to talk right now since my office chair broke and since I have not bought a new you yet I am using a winged high back chair right now that is supposed to be used by visitors.

I would also have set times you need to be working. These times are work times and everyone should know not to bother you while you are working during these periods. Also track your time so you know how many hours you are putting in and don't fudge!!

These are a few that stood out for me. Go over to the Zen Habits blog and see what suggestions stand out to you.

Invoicing Services

2008-01-23T11:46:00.000-07:00

The Bootstrapper Blog has a listing of 20 on line invoice services. I also offered some comments on my other blog Biz Plan Hacks.

As a small business owner you need to keep cost down. When it comes to invoice software the most popular is Quickbooks which is also expensive although going down in price every year. However, there is cheaper alternatives that I don't recommend because of their lack of functionality.

What I said on my other website is to figure out your needs, look at all the alternatives, figure out of they meet your needs for the next couple of years, make sure they are easy for you to use and finally stick to one.

Starting A Small Business Series-The Marketing Analysis

2008-01-22T10:31:00.000-07:00

We have talked about some of the important ingredients of a business plan, now it is time to get to the nitty gritty and start looking at the important sections of the business plan.

While you may vary your business plan depending on the type of business you are trying to start, you will want to make sure the basics are in your plan. The first of the basics is the market analysis.

The first part of the marketing analysis is the industry description and outlook. This is where you discuss the type of business that you plan to start. You will want to be very specific in all the details. If you are opening a retail store, what kind of retail store? Is it going to sell model trains, be a tourist shop, are you going to build something? Answer these questions. Then you will want to mention what the market is doing. Using the model train analogy you will want to mention that the market for model trains is going down due to market maturity and what the long term trends look like. If you’re opening a tourist shop what is the long term outlook for tourist in the area? Will a new tourist attraction open soon? Once again be very detailed.

Next you will want to identify your target market. How are you planning to sell to? How big is the market you are going after in your location? What characteristics does your market have? Are there needs already being met but you will offer something new and innovative? Once again the more detailed the better.

From the research you have done, why you will be able to sell to this market. How will you gain market share over your competitors. How much market share will gain from your geographical area and what is the market growth potential.

You also need to detail how the market is changing. If you were looking to start building computers you would need detailed information on how the computer industry has changed over the last 10 years and how you would stay ahead of the curve.

How did you come up with your marketing data? Potential investors will want to know the resources you used such as Chamber of Commerce data, census information, media outlets, trade groups and any other information you were able to find.

You will also want to detail any marketing tests you preformed and the data that was brought forth.

What will be the lead times? If you are building computers, how much time from the moment of customer order till the customer receives their product?

The next subject would be your competitive analysis. Who are your competitors and what advantages will you have over them? You will want to provide what you will be able to do well and what will be your weaknesses. While we don’t like to point out the negatives, you will have some disadvantages and you will want to spell them out otherwise your potential investors will feel that you are trying to sugar coat everything.

Finally you will want to discuss any regulatory hurdles you will have jump to start the business. You will want specifics on cost of applications, what you have to accomplish, legal fees, and time costs.Once again I have to stress that you need to have everything in the marketing plan to be very detail and specific. The more detail the better.

For more information look at the Small Business Administration Website.

Procrastination

2008-01-17T06:36:00.001-07:00

Are you a procrastinator?

I have to say yes to this question unfortunately but I have found ways to over come it. The Putt it off Blog has 28 ways in which you can overcome it yourself.

I overcame it by setting very specific goals with specific targets and sticking to them. I also have a very competitive spirit so I use that to be a motivating factor.

Take a look at some of the suggestions and see what will work for you. Just because it works for person A does not mean it will work for person B, so you need to find your own path to overcoming this vise.

Here is another area where a mentor can help you. Seek someone that can watch over you and motivate you to overcome the problem. Don't let procrastination harm your potential for success, overcome the problem and be stronger for it.

January is Building Time...

2008-01-16T08:15:00.000-07:00

Time to get the shoppers back into your store…

After having lived through the Christmas season you almost feel like you can take a breather before you face the long year ahead. But instead of sitting back and relaxing, it is time to get those customers back into the store according to this New York Times article.

I have to agree with the article. While we all know the Christmas season is tuff, it’s the months between January and March that really make the business. While sales may not be what they are in the Christmas season, this is the time of the year to build your customer loyalty, really focus on the customer service, and turn those one time customers into customers for life.

The Babe of Business blog has eight things you can do to increase your business. While you should be doing these kind of things year around, now is the perfect time to entice customers into the store and build your loyal clientele.

Now is also a good time to building relationships and building joint marketing programs with complimentary businesses. Find businesses that sell complimentary products to yours or have complimentary services and work together to build business in your stores. You can do joint advertising, promote the other in your store, and build a long term relationship that will benefit both businesses.

January is not the time to rest, it’s the time to build your business and make your business a success year round.

Accomplishing Goals?

2008-01-15T06:22:00.000-07:00

What action have you taken in 2008?

The Freelance Folder blog is asking what you have done so far in the 2008 year to do something new and get moving with your projects.

We are two weeks into the New Year so how are you doing on accomplishing your goals? Do you have your goals written down and are referencing them on a daily basis? Remember having written down goals is very critical to success. You need to have daily, weekly, monthly, short term (less than one to two years), medium range (1 to 5 years) and the all important long term goals (more than 5 years-the big goals).

Each time you accomplish a goal you will get excited. Now it’s the big goals that get you excited by every time you accomplish even a daily goal it creates excitement. I set goals for the day and every time I can scratch one of them off it gets me excited to get to the next one and the next one after that. Pretty soon you start accomplishing your short range goals which creates more excitement and one you reach on of your long range goals you are in heaven (not literally unless of course that was you ultimate goal).

So take a few minutes and write down those goals!!

Starting A Small Business Series-Business Plan Essentials:

2008-01-14T08:37:00.000-07:00

I have started with the basics when it comes to getting your business plan up and going. Today I will show you some of the essential elements you will need in your business plan. In future weeks we will discuss each one of them and then talk about other things you may want to include in it.

From the Small Business Administration website here are the essentials you will want in your business plan:

Executive Summary

Market Analysis

Company Description

Organization & Management

Marketing & Sales Management

Service or Product Line

Funding Request

Financials

Appendix

Your business plan may require more information since every plan is different. But this is the bare minimum you will want. Even though the Executive Summary comes first in the business plan we will talk about it last since you should write it last.

Get A PO Box

2008-01-10T22:22:00.000-07:00

Do you have a PO Box?

My Organizing Biz has a blog on why you should have a PO Box plus your regular mailing address.

I post office box is a great place to send mail that you know is going to result in solicitations. When you apply for a business license it becomes public record and will be in the local business journal. While this is good because it is free publicity for you, there are many businesses out there that look at these listings as a source to cold call. When you have the official business sent to the post office box, all that junk mail will also go into the box and not into your personal mail box.

I would recommend going to the PO Box more than Kelly does in the blog. I visit my Post Office box at least one per week. That way I do get all the important papers such as government forms but also can get rid of the junk mail so my box doesn’t get too full since the local postal employees get upset about that.

For the most part PO Boxes are not that expensive although I am paying almost 3 times as much in Holladay, Utah as I did in Spokane, Washington so what area you live in does play a factor.

Avoid the hassles, get a PO Box.

Starting on a Budget

2008-01-10T06:34:00.000-07:00

You can start a business on a budget?

Yaro Starak from the Entrepreneur Journeys blog goes into detail on how he started his businesses with little money but has made a go of it.

While we would all love to have tons of money to get started you there is economic ways to get started and the internet provides many of them.

Take a look at some of the ideas presented as they could be the catalyst for you and your adventure. Just remember that not everything is going to work for everyone but take things that will work best for you and build on it.

You will never know what you can achieve until you give it a try. Remember to believe in yourself.

Six Lessons from Stephen King?

2008-01-09T14:38:00.000-07:00

The Freelance Folder Blog has six lessons learned from Salem’s Lot and Stephen King about Freelancing. While it was written toward freelancers, it has information that applies to most any small business.

Lesson one is to trust the prickling on your neck. In other words if something doesn’t feel right, don’t do just for the business. Many times people just starting out or smaller operators want the business so bad that they are willing to deal in situations that may not be for the best. Remember it is better to turn down work that is going to end up being a bigger nightmare than it is worth than accepting the sale or project and having a living nightmare on your hands.

Lesson Two is if the locals say the house is haunted, don’t go ghost hunting. In other words listen to the warning of others. If someone says they have had problems with this person or this company or they have other warnings about dealings, make sure you take their warnings to heart. Once again if you don’t you could end up with a nightmare on your hands.

Lesson Three says do not hang around with people that suck the life out of you. In other words avoid people who are emotional and spiritual vampires. I have a sister in law like this; she will suck every emotion out of you. We feel drained after having to deal with her for just a short time. Find people that stimulate you and make you feel good, whether it be an employee, partner, spouse, or friends.

Lesson Four is if the problem is bigger than you get help. In other words find a mentor who can help you with your business. Find people that you can collaborate with and build your business.

Lesson Five is that there is three ways out of a situation gone bad: 1. Stay and Fight and Die a miserable death, 2. Stay Fight and Barely Survive, or 3. you can run and hope it doesn’t catch up with you. Well you probably won’t die from a business project gone bad (ok, I guess that depends on who the project was with), but you may wish you were dead. There are times you just need to cut loose, lick your wounds, and deal with the losses.

Finally Lesson Six is Keep the Faith. Have faith that in the long run you will be build your business and become the success that you see fit.

Starting A Small Business Series-Cash Flow Statements

2008-01-07T08:14:00.000-07:00

We’ve talked about the Profit and Loss Statement and the Balance Sheet and now we come to the important cash flow statement.

While a P&L will tell you if you made money, the cash flow statement tells you how much cash you have to operate your business. I will give you the basics of the cash flow and you can find more information at the Accounting Coach website.

First you start off with your balance of cash in the bank. So say you have $1000.00 left over from December as you enter January, that will go to the top of your cash flow. Next you add in any cash payments you have receive (or are projecting to receive). Next you add in payments you receive from credit accounts (accounts receivable). Finally you add in any investment income. This would be any investment you make into the business for example say you put $1000.00 towards a computer out of personal funds.

Then you subtract any payments you make during the month. This will include every cash payment you make such as rent, utilities, operating supplies. You subtotal that amount, and then add any capital purchases, loan principal and any draws you take. Say you take out $10.00 to go get your self lunch; that is taken out of your cash flow because that money is no longer there for company purchases.

You then subtract your outgoing from your incoming cash and you have your ending cash balance. Your ending cash balance from January then becomes your beginning cash balance for February and you start all over again.

Here is a sample Excel spreadsheet showing a cash flow statement.

Cash Flow Statement

Next week we will start detailing what you need in your business plan.

A Lazy Employee?

2008-01-02T11:29:00.000-07:00

Do you have a lazy employee?

The Bootstrapper Blog has 20 Fail-Proof ways to expose a lazy employee.

Now there are a couple of problems with this. First of all if you have only one employee and they are the one that is lazy, trying to get rid of them is going to be a lot of hassle and you will have to do everything yourself until you find a new employee.

The other thing to consider is what some of these items will have on the moral of your people. While you may have one bad employee by installing cameras or some of the other items talked about could make other employees feel as though do not trust them.

I once worked for a rental car company and the owner of the franchise wanted to install cameras on the front counter to insure that the employees were working constantly and not standing around. Guess what, it did nothing to the lazy employee, it just caused the other employees to feel like the owner hated them and the company loss several good employees.

The best thing I could suggest is to be observant and make sure to make sure everything you do is written down and documented. Many times a lazy employees fellow employees will take care of the situation themselves.

Happy New Year

2007-12-31T05:05:00.000-07:00

Happy New Year to all my readers.

You will see some more changes as we enter the new year. I will continue postings on Mondays (starting January 7th) the Starting a Small Business Series to help you get started on developing that business plan. Also one day a week I will post items to help you better compete against the big box stores.

I will be comment on important articles that will affect your business. You will also see some changes to the look of the blog in the near future to make it look better.

Thank you for reading and I look forward to hearing from you in the new year.

John Dornoff
Dornoff Consulting Group

Do you need a virtual assistant?

2007-12-27T10:23:00.000-07:00

Well you can be your own virtual assistant. The Bootstrapper blog has 100 tools in order to keep you organized during your day.

I have look through some of the list and all of them can be potential sources of help for you. Have have resources for to do lists, accounting, phone, email, scheduling, presentations, information, project and time management, and client relations.

Everything you can do to stay more organize will allow you to spend more time building your business.

Starting A Small Business Series-Profit and Loss Statements

2007-12-18T10:20:00.000-07:00

Last week we talked about the Profit and Loss Statement.

Today we will take a look at the Balance Sheet. So what is the balance sheet? It shows you how much your company is worth. You start off with your assets on one side with your liabilities and net worth on the other.

On the asset side your first listing is your current assets. These are assets that you could turn to cash very quickly. This obviously includes cash in the bank, your petty cash, temporary investments such as money market accounts, inventory, accounts receivable (money you are owed), supplies, and prepaid insurance.

Next is your investment which is anything long term such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc.

Following up after investments comes your plant and equipment. This can include land, your building, and manufacturing equipment with your allocated depreciation taken out. After your plant and equipment come intangible assets. This could include goodwill and trade names which can be hard to calculate. Last would come to misc. assets.

Now you total up all of your assets and move to the next column.

The next section you work on is your liabilities and we start of with current liabilities. This includes Notes payable, wages payable, interest payable, taxes payable, warranty liability, and unearned revenue. Current liabilities basically cover anything that will be due by the end of the year.

Next on your list will be your long term liabilities which are anything that will be due past this year. This would include bonds payable and notes payable such as a mortgage on your business or a business vehicle.

You then add your current liabilities and long term liabilities and get a total.

Finally you have your owner’s equity. If it is just you then that is pretty simple. If you have stock you will have your stock and retained earnings.

Finally you add your liabilities and equity together. The number you get should be equal to the number you have for your assets. If they do not match something is wrong go back and figure out what is wrong. Once you are done you know how much you own, how much you owe and how much equity you have in your business.

To see what a balance sheet should look like you can go to Accounting Coach.

Next week we will move to the Cash Flow Statement.

Lessons to be learned from CompUSA

2007-12-12T08:58:00.001-07:00

CompUSA has announced that it will be closing the remainder of it's stores at the first of the year. For those of us that have been watching this company, it is a surprise that it has made it this long (but then again K-Mart keeps going too).

The stores suffered not only due to issues within the stores but also with corporate management. The corporation could not decided what they wanted the stores to be. When they were not successful they looked to another successful chain and try to copy them instead of finding their own direction.

Today we will look at what the stores were and what they tried to be so that you can avoid the pitfalls that CompUSA made.

Just looking at the name you figure that CompUSA sells computers and computer supplies and that is what they started out doing. They also offered training and had a fairly good business department for many years.

However over the last few years (especially the last couple) CompUSA started losing their focus. They saw the success of Best Buy and like many companies instead of following their own path tried to copy someone else's and it failed.

Over the last year many of its stores have been remodeled and now look like a low end Best Buy. Instead of focusing on what they did best they tried to be all things to all people and started doing everything very poorly. Their business sector started to suffer which started costing them those type of customers.

In the end the store become the store for no one. The business people who used to buy their computer supplies there went elsewhere. The computer geeks could no longer find the supplies they need so they went to companies online like New Egg. Finally, the marketing they tried to attract with high end products such as LCD and Plasma TV's sought out stores with better customer service and a better selection. In the end CompUSA satisfied no one.

Once again it goes back to finding your niche, and sticking to it. While you can add items and possible move up or down, but do not alienate your existing customer base. While stores like Nordstrom and Wal-Mart can make mistakes and survive, you cannot afford to make mistakes like this.

Business Connect

Promote or Hire?

LinkedIN and your business

Making Your Store More Appealing

How are you laying off your employees?

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Develop your business plan Part 6

Starting A Small Business Series: The Executive Summary

List of Freelance Blogs?

Develop your business plan Part 5

Starting A Small Business Series: The Appendix

Make Money on your off time...

Develop your business plan Part 4

Special from Office Depot

Starting A Small Business Series: Financial Statements

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Are you a state at home mom?

Develop your business plan Part 3

Starting A Small Business Series-Financial Request

Are you a freelance?

Develop your business plan Part 2

Starting A Small Business Series: The Service or Product Line

Building a Business Plan Video

Starting A Small Business Series: The Marketing and Sales Plan

Business Opportunities...

Andrew Morrison...

Bad or Good Times?

Specials from Iprint and Office Depot.

Starting A Small Business Series-Organization and Mangement

HR information

Partner with relatives?