Small Business Minute

Reading time: 3 minutes Many successful entrepreneurs get asked, “What was their defining moment?” or some similar question. Several have never even thought about it, nor can they easily identify that special moment. Those that do, will admit that they didn’t recognize it at the time as a defining moment, because no trumpets blared or some similar event. It was only through hindsight that it becam...

Read Time: 5 mins Don’t worry about your competition. Pretty unusual advice to receive for any business owner. To be sure, we need to know some things about our competitors like: • Who they are • What products they sell • Their pricing strategy i.e. cheap or expensive • Their reputation i.e. after sales service, timeliness, etc. But this just makes good business sense. Far too often I find small b...

Successful entrepreneurs share many things in common. Hard work, focus, belief in themselves, hungry for knowledge and so on. One trait that doesn’t get much mention is the ability to accept and overcome failure. As entrepreneurs, failure can be a daily occurrence, but the worse is when a business fails. To be sure there is a lot of noise made on social media and from the start-up world about “fai...

Reading Time: 5 mins We all have our own definitions of training for our team, but in all honesty, most of it sucks. Sure, for customer facing team members, we do the mandatory, how to acknowledge a customer stuff, with all the expected please and thank you’s. It also goes without saying that we spend time teaching them “the system”, whether that be a retail POS or other software necessary to capt...

Reading Time: 6 minutes Be visible is really nothing more than the opportunity to get in front of the customer in some meaningful way. Unfortunately, it is proving far more difficult to do so. B to C or B to B businesses are equally challenged in getting through to their customers, because there are just many more roadblocks. In the time before voicemail, a phone call to a customer’s home resulted...

Read Time: 3:58 minutes I often get approached by entrepreneurs who are facing significant challenges in their businesses. By significant I mean – They’ve dug themselves into a hole so deep that they’re going to go out of business if something doesn’t change! So, my first piece of advice courtesy of Will Rogers , the American humourist is, “When you find yourself in a hole, quit digging! As far ba...

We all spend time, money and other resources making sure we put forth the right professional imagine. Many people limit their definition of image to how we look, dress and speak and for the most part that would have been acceptable once upon a time. But not anymore. In our connected digital world, the tools we use to do business number in the many. What was once a Yellow Pages ad has been replaced...

Recognition is the easiest and most effective way to motivate employees, yet remarkably, one of the least used.¬ Entrepreneurs spend endless hours trying to figure out how to motivate their teams, yet ignore this basic human need. A little research will show that there are an untold number of studies that rank recognition, or appreciation for their work, in the top 10 qualities that lead to job sa...

Every business has lots of moving parts. By default, an owner must have a wide ranging skill set if they hope to achieve any success with their enterprise. Those skills include, but not limited to, sales, marketing, human resources, bookkeeping, production and administration. Of course, at the onset, we as owners tend to do all these activities. But as your company evolves, and demands on your tim...

The economy is humming along and your sales are doing just fine. As a matter of fact, things are actually pretty good. That’s why this is exactly the time you should heed that famous Boy Scout motto to “Always be Prepared”. Great advice, but be prepared for what? Every seven years On average, there is an economic downturn of some sorts every seven years. Sometimes a little longer, sometimes a litt...

I like to define entrepreneurs into one of two categories, they are either a hunter or gatherer. A hunter is someone who’s business requires them to go out every day and find new customers. Whereas a gatherer is much like a farmer who continuously harvests business from an established base of existing customers. The best businesses do both. Of course, all entrepreneurs start out as hunters. They m...

Many entrepreneurs’ struggles can be traced to their inability to bring focus to their business. It is said that if you try to be great at everything, you’ll end up being good at nothing. I like to use the example of sunlight to explain the power of focus. The Power of Focus Most day our world is full of sunlight and even on the hottest of days there’s little risk of it setting anythin...

What if, you could start your business all over again? What would you do differently? What do you like or dislike about your current business? What would you change? Why Mess With A Good Thing? These sound like simple questions and that’s because they are. As entrepreneurs, we seem to get ourselves trapped into doing things one way. And why wouldn’t we, if it’s brought us some success? Why mess wi...

As entrepreneurs, we all set goals. It’s a way to measure our progress. The biggest difference I have found between individuals is the size of the goals. Some people are just more ambitious than others. But the size of ones’ ambition is not a precursor to success. “Without Goals We Risk Drifting Aimlessly” Goals are wonderful, they keep us moving forward. Much like a ships compass, goa...

When we first hang out our Small Business shingle, we outwardly exude confidence in our idea and our abilities that we will succeed. But if truth be told, we have absolutely no idea how the story will end. Will it be a fairy tale or a horror story? Mouse in a maze Throughout the planning stages, we have spent hours upon hours dreaming of the future we will create. We hope that this future will tak...

Profit, that elusive goal that frustrates many a business owners. To be sure, many businesses are just bad ideas that never should have been started in the first place. However, there are plenty of others that are well run with decent revenues but for some reason they aren’t as profitable as they should be. When helping business owners, one of the first places I look is their pricing model. Other...

Every entrepreneur goes into business with a list of dreams, hopes and desires for their business and their life. Unfortunately, dreams require more than just hoping and praying for a successful outcome. What we need to realize is that dreams are just the starting point of the entrepreneurial adventure. Dreams get us in the game, but to be successful in business requires being able to put all the...

I’m frequently asked how one goes about pricing their goods and services for profit. It sounds like a simple enough question, but in reality, it can very complex. Get it right and all should be well. Get it wrong and you’ll be constantly chasing revenue, if only to pay the bills. Now if your product is a “me too”, you don’t have a lot of flexibility, as the existing products have already establish...

Far too often I come across entrepreneurs who can’t seem to launch their new business, product, service or even a new strategy. They are constantly tweaking it, in an attempt to make it better or even perfect the final offering. What they fail to realize is that they’re wasting valuable learning time by not being in the market. Regardless of when they finally do launch, chances are the...

There’s a lot of time and energy wasted by small businesses on the whole concept of brand building and little on reputation. So much of this noise can be traced back to the explosion of Social Media and if the truth be told, that’s all most of it is, noise. To be honest branding any kind of service business has always been a challenge and is best suited to products. The exception to th...

One of the simplest ways to increase your sales closing ratio is by simply following up with your prospects in a timely manner. All too often I encounter entrepreneurs who lament at how difficult business is or that they just don’t get sales even though they are pitching and quoting. Digging a little deeper quickly uncovers one of the main reasons for their poor sales performance, they don’t follo...

Successful people are always on the lookout for ways to improve themselves and their businesses. Unfortunately, with the advent of Social Media, there are now an overwhelming number of so called experts promoting the latest and greatest way to take you and or your business to the next level. Scream Loud Enough I get the sense that they believe that if they scream loud enough or post frequently eno...

No one likes doing hard stuff. It’s far easier and requires far less motivation to do the things we like. Great concert pianists produce wonderful music in what appears to be an effortless manner. Top ranked Olympians appear to have superhuman abilities and successful entrepreneurs have an air of quiet self-confidence. What We Don’t See The one thing all these individuals have in common, is...

Why would anyone want to be an entrepreneur?  Why would you want to have to constantly worry about getting business, hiring employees, making payroll, covering rent, dealing with grumpy customers, finding customers, firing customers, firing people, sending out invoices, collecting payment, marketing, fixing the computer, quoting on jobs, preparing presentations, working too hard, sleeping too litt...

Sitting down with a cup coffee, you look at your financials and you realize your annual projections are not unfolding quite like you planned. Revenue is down, expenses are up and profitability is just a flicker on your Profit and Loss statements. You know that the longer you wait, the harder it will be to make up the shortfall. It’s time to step up your game and maybe even get outside your comfort...