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Small Business Mastery
Introductory
Running a small business is much harder than running a corporation.
Surprising? Not if you're a small business entrepreneur.
As a fledgling business owner on a restricted budget you have to multi-task,
juggle, prioritize and balance. Unlike corporations, you don't have a
specialized professional team to help you manage, allowing you to focus on
more critical business strategies.
Neither do you have the capital to afford such luxuries. At best you have
about twenty employees that you need to train, supervise, motivate,
schedule and pay.
You're the sole manager, running your business on a shoe-string budget
with only 24 hours a day.
Given such stressful financial and time constraints, how can you successfully
maintain a balance between excellence, efficiency, and improving
productivity all on your own?
Manage your business like the big corporations do. Corporations rely on
efficient organization that is cost-effective. Yes, even big companies have
budget (granted big, but not unlimited) constraints that warrant
resourcefulness.
Today big businesses resort to business management software whenever
possible to replace business processes that were once done manually,
reducing costs of labor, time and human error.
Scheduling employees, for instance, used to be a tedious, time-consuming
task before automated scheduling software made rosters, schedules and
shift management a breeze.
Today, small businesses can not only easily be a more efficient organization
with the help of such software but can also obtain business software at no
cost. The business software market offers a variety of free trial software programs for evaluation before purchasing. The downside of those programs
is either a time limitation (meaning you might not get fully acquainted with
all features) or limited in features (meaning you can't test all the features).
If you like the program, you find out it carries a corporate price tag.
On the other hand, there are companies (few though they exist), such as
Kippax, that offer free fully functional business management software, with
no time/feature limitations.
Kippax, a leading provider of employee scheduling software, provides
businesses of all sizes with DRoster Employee Scheduling. DRoster creates,
manages, and automates shifts, rosters, schedules, personnel contact
information, job descriptions and tasks. DRoster Employee Scheduling software enables a small business to manage
its workforce in advance. You can ensure replacement for absentees, breaks,
time-off, vacations. Kappix gives small businesses the professional edge that
big companies have. This software provider is an example of the few quality
providers of true free business management software.
Now you can "think big" - focus on more critical business issues and leave
the scheduling to DRoster. Kappix provides DRoster at no cost along with
free support. Their employee scheduling software is intuitive and designed to
meet the scheduling needs of a myriad of industries.
Free software like Kappix's DRoster Employee Scheduling Software, can
afford you the time to boost productivity without sacrificing valuable money
and precious time. Think big, like the big successful corporations. At no cost.
Skills Required To Run A
Small Business
Would you like to run your own small business? Have you an idea for
a small business but do not think that you could make it work?
Are you bored of being an employee and yearn to become your own boss?
Have you the required skills to run a small business? In this article I look at
the type of skills that people need to possess to be able to successfully run a
small business.
My name is Stephen Hill and I have been running my own business for
around nine years now. Previously I had been employed by a major
insurance company and even though I progressed well during my time
there, I always wanted to run my own business, to choose my own hours of
work and basically have no one to answer to etc.
I am now a speech coach helping people who stammer/stutter to achieve
fluency and I also help people to promote their websites as a form of web
marketer or web promoter.
I love what I do as it allows me to take my children to school as well as to
pick them up from school. I am able to watch their football and netball
matches and attend their school plays and other functions.
I am not bound by what hours I work, for example nine to five. I sometimes
work late at night when I do the web promotion work but have the day free
to relax. This is not to say that I do not work hard, because I think that I do
work very hard.
Self-belief is an important skill required to be your own boss. If you have an
inner belief and self confidence that you will make the business succeed,
then you will have a great chance to make it work. There will be times when
during a month you only earn a small amount of money but in other months
you should earn quite a lot.
Some people prefer to know exactly what their income will be each month
and these people may struggle to be their own boss. Discipline is another requirement if you are to be a success at running your
own small business. It is very easy to become lazy and to watch too much
television or to have an extra couple of hours in bed in the morning. Even
though you may have nobody to answer to, you have to be of the character
to ensure you put in the required number of hours and work.
I also think it is important to have a positive attitude. There will be periods
when business is slow, this is where you may start to think in a negative
way. This can lead people into becoming very stressed and even depressed.
By thinking in a positive way and by working even harder to attract more
work is the only way to react in this situation. This of course is not that easy
to do but in my opinion, there is not enough time in the day to get
depressed.
Lastly is the ability to always try and improve your own self and to learn
from any mistakes you make. We all make mistakes which is fine and
natural.
There is again not enough time to beat ourselves up over these errors, all
we need to do is to learn from them and to then move on. We should always
be looking at ways of improving the business as well as our own knowledge.
Standing still and treading water is no way to continue.
Small Business Networking
Small business networking is absolutely critical to your business
success. As a computer consultant you are in the professional
services business.
This industry is all about relationships and relationships are built through
networking.
You will need to make small business networking your priority for the first
few months of operations. This is a process that can't be rushed. You're not
going to go to your first network event and get six clients who all need
network upgrades next week. But if you do participate in a small business
networking event there’s a good chance that you will come away five or six
quality contacts
Networking for Contacts
Aside from the potential client contacts you make, the beauty of small
business networking is that the accountant you struck up a conversation
with just happens to have a neighbor whose brother is looking to network
his company's regional office. Or the dentist you were talking to has a
similar business philosophy and would probably be a great client to do
business with. These contacts are priceless
Once you make the contact you then have to spend time following up with
meetings, proposals and sales calls. But this time is much better spent than
chasing down one-shot clients. Though small business networking you make
in-roads with people who are, or who can put you in touch with, the steady
clients that will support your business long-term.
Don't expect to walk out of every event with a handful of paying clients. Do
expect, however, to generate a bunch of quality leads and referral sources.
These referrals and leads are the crux of small business networking.
You need to have a bunch of different leads in your funnel and a lot of
different contacts in your funnel at any given time. Some of these will be
hotter at different stages and will be ready to move into paying client status at different stages and different dates. Small business networking keeps you
in contact with these people throughout their buying phases.
The Bottom Line on Small Business Networking
Client contact and client referrals are what will lead you to long-term, steady
clients - The kind of clients that will make your business a success. Getting
out and attending small business networking events may appear to be
unproductive socializing but the contacts you make will generate an
enormous return on your invested time. Start your small business network
today - you never know where it will take you.
Small Business Startup
Small business startups require a lot of work. You might however,
be surprised by what type of work should be taking up the majority
of your time.
Computer consultants, when they contemplate small business startups, tend
to focus on the technical aspects of the business. The rational is that they
want to offer a decent service and must have great technical skills before
anyone will be willing to pay them.
In fact, the 90/10 Rule tells us that during small business startups, 90% of
your time should be spent on direct marketing activities and only 10% on
building technical skills.
The type of small business startup activities to spend 90% of your
time on include:
• Prospecting
• Lead generation
• Going out on sales calls
• Preparing proposals
During the small business startup phase, you must be very attuned to the
need for acquiring high quality clients. Every non-client hour that does not
have to go into administrative or organizational duties should be plowed into
prospecting and networking. This can ease up a bit once you start to get
beyond the small business startup phase. For now, though, client generation
is your priority.
The Bottom Line on Small Business Startup
For small business startups, following the 90/10 Rule is critical. Spending
90% of your time on direct marketing and business development activity
versus 10% on technical skills development is a trade-off that is well worth
it.
Small Business Owners - Listen Up
Have you ever considered why SPAM has caused such a public backlash
compared to the deafening silence from its unsolicited paper cousins of
direct and junk mail? People seem to care a lot more about what enters their
Inbox than their letterbox. And for the word “care” think about logical
substitutes of “notice”, “read” and “respond”.
All this translates into campaign results that can surpass other forms of
direct communication making it an ideal cost-effective option for any small
business owner.
And what’s more I believe that as a small business owner the odds are
stacked in their favor to become budding email marketing superstars.
Let me explain why…
Firstly, it’s about personality. E-mail messages written in a personal style
seem to work the best. Writing this way doesn’t seem to faze most small
business owners. Usually their business shows more of their personality
when dealing with customers than larger competitors so writing this way
seems to be a natural option.
Secondly, a small business owner can understand what content that has a
good chance of being read. With them working closely with customers they
tend to understand what their customers want to know about and can easily
translate this into articles and reports that will be read.
Thirdly, the time and cost-efficient nature of email marketing ideally suits
the busy small business owner. It can take the same amount of effort to create an email newsletter for 500 subscribers as it does 50,000. Plus the
costs of an email production are a fraction of the alternative paper option.
For a small business owner, a regular e-mail message can have as much
personality and content to end up being the next best thing as a phone call
from themselves, just more efficient and at a lot less costly to produce.
So, there you have it, three reasons why small business owners can make it
big in the Inbox. Have fun harnessing this great tool for your company.
Small Business Mistakes
Here’s an interesting notion: Do you realize that there are mistakes
you can make at various stages of your business’ growth that can be
slowly killing it for months or even years if you don’t watch for
them?
Well, these mistakes do exist and they are not just reserved for the rookie
companies. Many working businesses, including those you might think are
“successful” because they’ve been around for 10+ years, are often still
making them… and are possibly losing a lot of money and/or wasting a lot of
time in the process.
Although some of these big and sneaky mistakes seem aimed more at
service type companies, they really do fit the bill for almost any type of
industry. I’ve done my best with the listings below to give examples to prove
it.
Underestimating Project/Service Time- This is a big one and it pertains to
service companies as well as companies that sell a product. This is a service
company’s bread and butter. If you don’t estimate your time to perform
each and every service in your repertoire, you will get burned and there is
little you can do about it but bite the bullet and learn from it.
The best way to estimate time is to do it once yourself or watch your best
employee do the task and then throw in a little fudge factor on top of it. For
product companies, time becomes an issue with logistics so be aware!
Not Knowing YOUR Company Numbers/Incorrectly Setting Prices- Notice I
emphasized the word “your”. It’s a common mistake to use a competitor’s as
your pricing gauge without actually knowing why they use those numbers.
Think about the nightmare you will get yourself into if you take a
competitor’s price, cut it by 10% and then start selling.
What if the competition has a bad pricing structure and is barely making
money or even losing money What if your costs are more than theirs? You
can use competitor as a starting point but you can’t base your whole
strategy on it.Different industries have their own variables as far as costs go and you need
to be aware of them for your project or product pricing. What you pay for a
product you are going to sell is not the only cost to have in your head when
you are pricing products. How much your labor and materials cost for a
service is only a piece of an hourly rate.
Employees cost more than just salary and not every employee is part of
your labor cost. Every company has insurance to pay for. There are tons of
overhead expenditures that need to be part of your price. Oh, by the way,
the big one that many people forget about in their price is the quality factor.
What you include as “standard services” or “standard product features” as
well as job site etiquette or in store service or warranties all need to go into
your pricing. I’ll get to more on why in the next segment.
Not Charging for All of Your Time & Costs- This seems like a stupid
statement to some but I bet most business owners will admit that they have
given away a little too much of the farm at times. Hey, there is nothing
wrong with giving a little extra here and there to show you care. But either
way, that’s not what I’m talking about here.
What concerns me are those that put a lot of quality into their work or
products or stores and do not cover the cost for it. As an example, say you
run a service company and your competitors don’t do a certain standard
service that you do. You can’t just undercut their price to steal a job; you
need to have that cost covered in your rate and advertise the fact that it
comes with the price upfront.
Stores undermine themselves, for example, when they put more people on
the floor for customer service but don’t charge for it. These things cost you
money and when your competitors don’t do them it costs them less money.
Put out better service and then underprice them, and your competition just
has to wait a little bit for you to fall on your face so they can swoop back in.
As a business owner you need to believe that you are providing your clients
worthwhile wares that deserve to be paid for. If you get the chance to
explain why your prices are higher, then take that opportunity and do it.
If they don’t like the fact that you include things that others charge extra for
later or that you treat them better, then they are most likely completely
price shoppers. You don’t want them as regular customers anyway. Trust
me.Not Getting Paid Fast Enough- That’s right, the old cash flow issue. As long
as you are actually making enough money to pay the bills, this problem can
be solved, prevented or at least made to be not as bad as it could be.
Here’s the deal:
First off all, bill customers very promptly. It is very common for a small
business to not have the procedures or systems in place to get invoices
generated and out the door in a timely fashion (see the next segment for
more).
Again, this would seem unlikely since that’s the reason why we are doing the
work- to get paid. But it is very easy for the people responsible for getting
this info to the billing people to be too busy to get it there or not have
enough organization to give it to them the right way.
The second part to slowing down or stopping a regular cash flow crunch is to
make the quickest payment deals possible with customers and the slowest
possible with vendors and employees. If there is any way not to pay
employees any more than twice a month, you better do it.
Contractors always have an issue with this. If you must pay weekly, then tell
them before they are hired that they will be getting the first week held back,
essentially buying you a week. It will help, I promise.
Part three involves credit. If your company can get a credit card, then get it.
This allows for certain important things to be bought (that you can afford)
that might come up during a cash flow crunch. Better yet, especially if you
have no choice but to deal with 45+ day customer payments, do your best
to get a company line of credit.
This is a must if you plan on selling to the government or doing commercial
service work. These clients often have 60 to 90 days wait periods.
Failure to Have Solid Systems and Procedures in Place- Too many
procedures (known as “red tape”) is the reason why many people start their
own business in the first place. Unfortunately, having no procedures and
systems in place at all is not an alternative
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