Category: Business

Being Clear

Sometimes when you are head over heels inside your own business desperately making it work, you can overlook details that will send the buyers in another direction. Stating what the services are and for what cost in a clear, accessible way will eliminate all of the confusion. Your clients won’t be clear if you aren’t being clear.

E-mail Advertising

Many companies have taken their business online in order to find clients. No more stalking the post office for addresses and leads, let them come to you. By building a simple platform that offers a service or a hook product will engage the buyer if they are even remotely interested in the product. Meaning, Build a landing page that is specifically designed to grab people’s email address in exchange for an e-book or some information on the service. This is known as building an e-mail list. The hook being that once you have access to their account and have generated an interest, you can then begin to promote categorical products that keep them interested.

Buying Leads

There are thousands of freelance platforms that can get you involved in capturing leads for any business and you don’t even have to … Read the rest

… Read the rest

When owning one company you can make an informed decision to expand all your assets. Expanding assets are the greatest ways to improve business valuation. When you have multiple companies it can difficult to make one decision. When making a difficult decision you can make one choice a simple choice. Educating yourself on how to make business decisions is the best way to make a living. When you find yourself in a jam you can rely on your education as opposed to blind decisions.

Difficult decisions come in the form afraid to re-invest in the company. When you look to make more money re-investing provides a better return than diversifying. When you diversify you place too much emphasis on losing money. Re-investing is a clever way of diversifying without diversifying. Diversifying can be the only way to success when you talk to the wrong people.

How many times have you read about companies acquiring other companies? A bunch of times leading to the poorest decision a company can make. When you acquire a bunch of companies much like myself you realize it wasn’t the best decision. There are many decisions beyond your control. Purchasing multiple companies translates to someone else … Read the rest

Standardization

The first thing I will like to mention is standardizing services or products. In the onset of a business, an entrepreneur figures things out as he/she develops. As time elapses, the entrepreneur figures out what works and settles into a way of doing business. This usually happens at the $100,000 mark. The problem with this is the knowledge is embedded in the head of the owner. The owner often fails to communicate this knowledge to new hires. There is kind of an “unspoken standard” or “way of doing things”. People learn “the unspoken way” haphazardly. By not standardizing, the owner’s loses 50% of the value of the business when it is time to sell. Nobody wants to buy a business when all the knowledge is in the owners’ head and if they do there are usually lots of contingencies tied to the Nsouly.

Delegation

Most entrepreneurs have this false belief that they are the best: No one can do anything as well as they do and without them the business will fail. This false belief enslaves them into believing they have to work harder than anyone to achieve success. They have a hard time even getting away from … Read the rest

… Read the rest

No matter the individual, there will always be some aspect to a business where they could use additional assistance. Trying to figure out this the aspect of the business on an individual basis is possible, but can be costly by costing them valuable time, resources and money. Whether it is accounting, technology, marketing, legal, etc… there are outside resources and individuals that can assist an entrepreneur in building the business. Strategically partnering with someone who compliments your own given skill sets will help a business grow that much faster and can be a great determining factor on whether or not the business is a success.

There are disadvantages to bringing in a partner or additional help. When bringing in an additional partner you may not retain as much equity in your company as you originally had wished. A lot of entrepreneurs struggle with this notion because they feel they it is their idea and they deserve to own all of it. What entrepreneurs need to understand is that a strategic partner can be the difference between succeeding and failing. It is better to own part of a successful business, than all of a failing one. Even if not giving up … Read the rest

According to Wikipedia “brainstorming is a group creativity technique that was designed to generate a large number of ideas for the solution of a problem.” Brainstorming business ideas should be uncensored. No idea is dumb or impossible and each person’s contribution is equally valuable. The mail clerk’s ideas are as valued as the President’s.

In order to step outside of the existing business or industry framework, participants must “erase” their memories and pretend they know nothing about what is (or is not) possible. Consider each idea with equal thoughtfulness, no matter how outlandish. The task at hand when brainstorming truly unique business ideas is to free-associate, generating as many ideas as you can.

Brainstorming via the Five Senses

There’s nothing more boring than a sterile conference room. Yet this is where many new business idea / concept development sessions take place, in a room with four blank walls and no stimuli (far from the best atmosphere for brainstorming new ideas). Brainstorming sessions need “springboards” to get the creative juices flowing.

One technique for breaking out and generating innovative business, product, or service ideas is to get all of the external senses involved. Try filling colorful gift bags with small items … Read the rest

A Small Business Cannot Run on Passion Alone

Passion is critical in small business, but it must be channeled and directed. Single-minded focus is gained only by going through a deep thinking, soul-searching process that delivers a clear sense of Mission, Vision and Values.

This process must occur at the personal level and then be reflected in the business itself, through words that spell out the Mission, Vision and Values in easily understood language.

These words become the primary essence of the business. For the small business person, these statements spell out their beliefs and assumptions about their business and inform everything that they think, say and do.

Every morning, when the successful small business person gets out of bed, it is with a real sense of purpose, namely, to fulfill his or her Mission.

Their Mission, Vision and Values are well understood within their business, and they are the critical clauses of the employment contract that everyone in the business signs up for.

Mission, Vision and Values inform and shape all business policy development and the processes and measures that are put in place to ensure disciplined execution.

Making Good Strategic Decisions

Once the value base of the business … Read the rest