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Anyone starting a business will encounter speed bumps along the way. There are always plenty of reasons not to start a business, but entrepreneurs push past the obstacles and do it anyway. That's because they defy the restraints of rationality and instead choose to be "unreasonable."
Here are a few of the challenges that life might toss into the path of a fledgling business.
1. Bad Economy
No matter how tough the economy gets, people still need to eat, drink and live; which means there are always opportunities to serve. If you believe in the old adage of "buy-low-sell-high" the depths of an economic dip should be the best time to start a business. When the economy gets ugly, entrepreneurs get unreasonable.
2. Lack of money
It's hard to stay enthusiastic about starting a business while struggling to pay for food, shelter and clothing. Yet owning a successful business is the best way to get beyond basic survival worries. If poverty is holding you back, perhaps you just need to get unreasonable and start your business anyway.
3. Raising a family
The first few years of childrearing will seriously reduce the amount of time and energy available for building a business. Recently I visited an amazing home-based retail store, owned by a mother of two pre-school children. The mother built the business while managing two pregnancies and raising two infants. That's just plain unreasonable, yet she did it anyway.
4. Divorce
There's nothing quite like a prolonged marital breakup to throw a kink into a business plan. It'll drain your time and nuke your bank account. Yet, entrepreneurs will usually find ways to redirect some energy toward starting a business.
5. Burnout
This is the most deceptive roadblock of all, because it quietly erodes our ability to reason. Like slowly boiled frogs, we are unaware of the problem until it's too late and we're cooked. If life and work are wearing you to a frazzle, you may have to get unreasonable to make the needed changes to your environment.
6. Self-limiting beliefs
Do you hold yourself back with limiting or negative thoughts? Something within the entrepreneur enables her to keep her eyes on the prize, and to focus on the business no matter what obstacles block the path. Absolutely unreasonable.
7. Good Economy
When faced with the perceived uncertainty of owning a business, a lot of rational people will opt instead for a job - which creates the illusion of security... until it comes to an end. Yet some businesses are best started when the economy is booming. Or is that just unreasonable?
If you wait for government to solve your problems, or for the economic stars to line up perfectly, or to win the lottery, or for life to remove all barriers from your path - you likely never will start that dream business.
Businesses thrive not because entrepreneurs have perfect lives, but because they choose to build their enterprises while wading chest deep in the river of life.
You can start your business today wherever you are, with whatever you have, right now. It might be a matter of choosing to be unreasonable and simply getting on with your plan.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
How To Build Your Company Without Money
Despite the fact that banks are not lending, credit is tight and some businesses are going belly up, there are entrepreneurs out there who are thriving in this uncertain economy. These businesses that are flourishing understand that money is not the only currency to run their business with. They have built and bulletproofed their business with the other currency, which is relationships and joint venture marketing.
If you do not understand what joint venture marketing is or think that joint ventures are only for the big companies like Oprah, Walmart or Coca Cola think again. Joint ventures are the small, medium and large business strategy of the future. Common Wealth Alliance says 25% of all revenue or $40 trillion dollars per year is from joint ventures. Shouldn’t your business be benefiting from it too?
As an entrepreneur, no one can help you understand or learn about joint ventures better than private JV club. Joint venture marketing is the number one, most effective marketing strategy on the planet.
What is a Joint Venture?
It’s simple; a joint venture is two people or companies working together for a specific purpose for a common goal and to create a win/win.
Find untapped markets
Create new ways to bring in money
Gain an entire sales force at zero cost
Open new territories
Bring new customers overnight
Generate website traffic
Joint Ventures help create wealth without the help of a bank loan or credit. It is the way entrepreneurs learn to help each other succeed. Entrepreneurs do this by helping each other borrow what they need. Such as, new leads, exposure, credibility, new products, sales force. If company A has clients but no new product to sell them and company B has a new product and no clients to sell the product to, then they joint venture and split the profits.
Using the joint venture method means there is NO bank involved in giving company A or B a small business loan or credit to develop a product or buy advertising. This saves you time, debt and interest.
Most importantly, it is fun. Gone are the days of being the lone entrepreneur. When you create a joint venture, you work together now and again in the future. You build and bond with other entrepreneurs and become part of a business network that works together to benefit the whole. So what are you waiting for? Take your business to the next level. Learn joint venture marketing and take your company to the next level
If you do not understand what joint venture marketing is or think that joint ventures are only for the big companies like Oprah, Walmart or Coca Cola think again. Joint ventures are the small, medium and large business strategy of the future. Common Wealth Alliance says 25% of all revenue or $40 trillion dollars per year is from joint ventures. Shouldn’t your business be benefiting from it too?
As an entrepreneur, no one can help you understand or learn about joint ventures better than private JV club. Joint venture marketing is the number one, most effective marketing strategy on the planet.
What is a Joint Venture?
It’s simple; a joint venture is two people or companies working together for a specific purpose for a common goal and to create a win/win.
Find untapped markets
Create new ways to bring in money
Gain an entire sales force at zero cost
Open new territories
Bring new customers overnight
Generate website traffic
Joint Ventures help create wealth without the help of a bank loan or credit. It is the way entrepreneurs learn to help each other succeed. Entrepreneurs do this by helping each other borrow what they need. Such as, new leads, exposure, credibility, new products, sales force. If company A has clients but no new product to sell them and company B has a new product and no clients to sell the product to, then they joint venture and split the profits.
Using the joint venture method means there is NO bank involved in giving company A or B a small business loan or credit to develop a product or buy advertising. This saves you time, debt and interest.
Most importantly, it is fun. Gone are the days of being the lone entrepreneur. When you create a joint venture, you work together now and again in the future. You build and bond with other entrepreneurs and become part of a business network that works together to benefit the whole. So what are you waiting for? Take your business to the next level. Learn joint venture marketing and take your company to the next level
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Small Business Tip - How To Manage Cash Flow
Cash is king right? When in business .... ANY size business .... managing your cash flow is key to survival, not just growth. So .... how do you best go about ensuring you have your ducks in a row? Read on folks .... and pay attention.
Before you consider improving parts of the process, it’s important to bring the entire process under control. The process is the simultaneous timing of receipts and payments. How do you know if you’re in control? For most companies you could say you’re in control if you can predict cash balances within 10% accuracy, over the next 30 days.
Any business can get into control fairly easy but it takes a little discipline. Start by preparing a realistic schedule of receipts summarized by week. Typically these are outstanding customer invoices. Schedule receipts based on customers past payment patterns not you terms. Don’t kid yourself, in this environment plan for delayed customer payments.
Next prepared a weekly schedule of payments your business will be making over the next 30 days. Be sure to include all your expected payments such as payroll, payments to suppliers, installment loans, etc. Rank payments by penalty to pay beyond terms.
Finally, starting with your current cash balance, prepare a weekly schedule that adds your receipts and subtracts your payments. This will provide a weekly projected cash balance.
Update the forecast every week using new cash balances. In weeks where receipts were below forecast you have to consider slowing down your payments. When you see a heavy cash receipts week coming near you should attempt to confirm that customers will be paying as you are planning.
Once your cash management is under control here’s a few ways to improve the cash flow:
1 . Calling customers in advance
2. Make collections a priority with your sales team
3. Corrected invoices slow receipts. Monitor invoice corrections closely. Make sure invoices are accurate and in format acceptable to the customer
4. Reduce credit limits for customers paying slow due to their own cash problems.
5. Stick to your payment schedule for major items
6. Be reliable. Communicate clearly and in advance to all stake holders when moving off agreed terms. This includes employees, lenders, shareholders, and suppliers.
7. Include your management team in the process. You’ll need their help and support to be successful.
8. Control on what you can control.
9. Delay unnecessary spending indefinitely. Ask yourself if the expenditure is not made will it kill the company in the next three months? Three months later if you're still alive, ask the question again.
There you go .... now you have a plan. It's up to you to put it into action.
Before you consider improving parts of the process, it’s important to bring the entire process under control. The process is the simultaneous timing of receipts and payments. How do you know if you’re in control? For most companies you could say you’re in control if you can predict cash balances within 10% accuracy, over the next 30 days.
Any business can get into control fairly easy but it takes a little discipline. Start by preparing a realistic schedule of receipts summarized by week. Typically these are outstanding customer invoices. Schedule receipts based on customers past payment patterns not you terms. Don’t kid yourself, in this environment plan for delayed customer payments.
Next prepared a weekly schedule of payments your business will be making over the next 30 days. Be sure to include all your expected payments such as payroll, payments to suppliers, installment loans, etc. Rank payments by penalty to pay beyond terms.
Finally, starting with your current cash balance, prepare a weekly schedule that adds your receipts and subtracts your payments. This will provide a weekly projected cash balance.
Update the forecast every week using new cash balances. In weeks where receipts were below forecast you have to consider slowing down your payments. When you see a heavy cash receipts week coming near you should attempt to confirm that customers will be paying as you are planning.
Once your cash management is under control here’s a few ways to improve the cash flow:
1 . Calling customers in advance
2. Make collections a priority with your sales team
3. Corrected invoices slow receipts. Monitor invoice corrections closely. Make sure invoices are accurate and in format acceptable to the customer
4. Reduce credit limits for customers paying slow due to their own cash problems.
5. Stick to your payment schedule for major items
6. Be reliable. Communicate clearly and in advance to all stake holders when moving off agreed terms. This includes employees, lenders, shareholders, and suppliers.
7. Include your management team in the process. You’ll need their help and support to be successful.
8. Control on what you can control.
9. Delay unnecessary spending indefinitely. Ask yourself if the expenditure is not made will it kill the company in the next three months? Three months later if you're still alive, ask the question again.
There you go .... now you have a plan. It's up to you to put it into action.
How You Can Increase Your Productivity
Every day I meet people who ask me “What can I do to get more accomplished and become more productive?” The first thing I ask them is “Do you love your job? Do you absolutely love what you do?” I wish I can tell you that the standard reply was “YES”, but more times than not, the people who ask me this question have varying degrees of contempt for the job they do each day. Rarely does someone who is crazy in love and passionate about what they do for living seek assistance for more productivity from a “lack” mindset. When these mentally stimulated people ask for help, it’s only to get to the next level on their journey.
As impossible as it may seem at the moment, if you don’t love what you do, make this your number one priority. When you wake up each day, thankful for the opportunity to once again do something you enjoy, your productivity will experience a boost that has to be experienced to appreciate. When I suggest this to my clients, they initially balk at the idea of pulling up stakes and leaving behind their “job security.” Security? How much security is there in waking up each day wishing that you had one more day before you had to drag yourself back into your place of employment?
I don’t know what kind of time line will work best for you. If you have a family that relies on the income you provide, it may be a little longer than it will be if you are single. What I do know is this: You’ll be scared. Accept this. Expect it.
Far too many people are waiting to “not be scared” before they make a move into something they enjoy. I would urge you to develop and intense fear of reaching the end of your life having worked at something you detested for 35 years. This is the kind of fear that can be useful.
When most people talk about a major life change “not being feasible”, what they are really talking about is the amount of fear they experience when they think about it. When you learn to differentiate between your fear of a change, and the real life obstacles, you’ll find the fears are many and the obstacles few.
As impossible as it may seem at the moment, if you don’t love what you do, make this your number one priority. When you wake up each day, thankful for the opportunity to once again do something you enjoy, your productivity will experience a boost that has to be experienced to appreciate. When I suggest this to my clients, they initially balk at the idea of pulling up stakes and leaving behind their “job security.” Security? How much security is there in waking up each day wishing that you had one more day before you had to drag yourself back into your place of employment?
I don’t know what kind of time line will work best for you. If you have a family that relies on the income you provide, it may be a little longer than it will be if you are single. What I do know is this: You’ll be scared. Accept this. Expect it.
Far too many people are waiting to “not be scared” before they make a move into something they enjoy. I would urge you to develop and intense fear of reaching the end of your life having worked at something you detested for 35 years. This is the kind of fear that can be useful.
When most people talk about a major life change “not being feasible”, what they are really talking about is the amount of fear they experience when they think about it. When you learn to differentiate between your fear of a change, and the real life obstacles, you’ll find the fears are many and the obstacles few.
Small Business Origination- What You Need To Know
So you had been told that you make killer lasagna, homemade bread and pasta sauce. You get a business license, location picked out and now you are ready to get going on a business loan and start your business. Getting a small business loan isn’t what it use to be. What is the next step in the small business origination loan process?
Not everyone will be qualified for a loan. Loaning money is cautious business. You wouldn’t loan money just to anyone, especially a loan of hundreds or thousands of dollars. Just like you wouldn’t trust your money in the hands of the mafia- why would a bank loan out their money to just anyone? The risk decisioning questions a bank will ask of potential clients are the same questions that you would ask of someone you were going to lend money to yourself.
• A well thought out business plan is one of the number one things a bank looks for when deciding whether or not to lend.
• Depending on where you live will depend on your ability to get a loan
• If your family has a history of starting Chinese food restaurants that all fail or burn down- you can bet that the bank may reconsider your request.
• But, if you were to come into the bank with 700 signatures from local people who rave about your pasta sauce and you are looking for a small business loan to start your own barbeque restaurant, they may look more than twice.
Some companies can now provide instant prescreens and instant credit decisioning to banks, credit unions and credit card merchants, saving you and the bank time and money while deciding whether or not to loan to someone. Through special software, a list of several questions are answered by you and then electronically submitted through a system that can calculate your credit score instantly.
When banks provide instant prescreens and instant credit decisioning, it lets you go to several banks in a matter of hours instead of weeks, when they can offer you instant credit decisioning, determining your small business origination. It also saves the banks time. If they can find out your credit score in seconds, they can make an instant credit decision about offering you a loan immediately. Which will either tell you to continue with this loan from this bank or the bank will tell you your credit score is not good enough and to move on to another lender.
It’s wise to have a lot of trust in the banks or lending services you are looking into. Do your own research on several banks before committing. Even though they may promise you incredible rates- remember you are interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you. The more you show them how serious you are and how ready you are to build your business, the more confidence they will have in you. Read the fine print of course and make certain that your interest rate isn’t astronomical. A high percentage rate may wipe you out of money faster than you can make it.
Get your business started now! When you can stop dreaming of your drive-through espresso stand, the tattoo parlor or a dot com mecca and start building it, you can start earning money and seeing your dream into fruition. Be smart, do your homework and come prepared! Be prepared to show numbers. The more “squeaky clean” your credit is- the better.
Not everyone will be qualified for a loan. Loaning money is cautious business. You wouldn’t loan money just to anyone, especially a loan of hundreds or thousands of dollars. Just like you wouldn’t trust your money in the hands of the mafia- why would a bank loan out their money to just anyone? The risk decisioning questions a bank will ask of potential clients are the same questions that you would ask of someone you were going to lend money to yourself.
• A well thought out business plan is one of the number one things a bank looks for when deciding whether or not to lend.
• Depending on where you live will depend on your ability to get a loan
• If your family has a history of starting Chinese food restaurants that all fail or burn down- you can bet that the bank may reconsider your request.
• But, if you were to come into the bank with 700 signatures from local people who rave about your pasta sauce and you are looking for a small business loan to start your own barbeque restaurant, they may look more than twice.
Some companies can now provide instant prescreens and instant credit decisioning to banks, credit unions and credit card merchants, saving you and the bank time and money while deciding whether or not to loan to someone. Through special software, a list of several questions are answered by you and then electronically submitted through a system that can calculate your credit score instantly.
When banks provide instant prescreens and instant credit decisioning, it lets you go to several banks in a matter of hours instead of weeks, when they can offer you instant credit decisioning, determining your small business origination. It also saves the banks time. If they can find out your credit score in seconds, they can make an instant credit decision about offering you a loan immediately. Which will either tell you to continue with this loan from this bank or the bank will tell you your credit score is not good enough and to move on to another lender.
It’s wise to have a lot of trust in the banks or lending services you are looking into. Do your own research on several banks before committing. Even though they may promise you incredible rates- remember you are interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you. The more you show them how serious you are and how ready you are to build your business, the more confidence they will have in you. Read the fine print of course and make certain that your interest rate isn’t astronomical. A high percentage rate may wipe you out of money faster than you can make it.
Get your business started now! When you can stop dreaming of your drive-through espresso stand, the tattoo parlor or a dot com mecca and start building it, you can start earning money and seeing your dream into fruition. Be smart, do your homework and come prepared! Be prepared to show numbers. The more “squeaky clean” your credit is- the better.
Planning For Your Business Plan
Roadmap To Your Business Success
Having a business plan helps you focus, be accountable and enables you to ask pertinent questions about yourself, your business and your business environment. It helps you to identify all the potential risks your business can face and what your strategy will be to mitigate these risks. By identifying a business strategy ahead of time, the easier it will be to understand your direction, your budgets, schedules, and how to market to your target audience.
But before you jump in to create your plan, there are four important steps that must initially take place before you begin:
Step 1 - Know who you are
The first step to creating your business plan is to understand who you are. Here are some very specific questions to ask yourself:
" What kind of business do you have? What do you do?
" Who is your customer?
" What do you sell?
" How does your product/service benefit your customer and how do you do it better than anyone else?
" What does your product lack in comparison to your competitors?
" How will you alleviate external threats to your business such as in an economic downturn?
Answers to these questions will help you in creating your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis and will help you identify positive or negative internal and external factors to achieving your business objectives.
The second part to step one is that you'll want to ask yourself some personal questions:
" What do you enjoy doing personally and professionally?
" What are you proud of personally and professionally?
Starting a business is very time intensive and it's easy to let personal goals and aspirations get pushed aside. What could start out as a passion with drive and total commitment to serve can easily become a chore when burn out sets in. You'll want to avoid this by including a balance in your life.
By answering the personal questions above, you'll have set the stage in creating your brand story for the branding section of your business plan.
Step 2 - Know where your business is today
Next, you'll need to know where you are today. This may take some time to answer unless you are in your first year. Otherwise research will be required to get through this step. To start, you'll need to gather answers to questions such as:
" Where did your business come from last year? Here, you are looking for answers as to not only what type of clients did you get but also from what sales and marketing activity.
" How many new clients did you acquire? How many repeat clients did you have?
" What is your average dollar spent and average dollar made per client?
" What is your closing ratio?
Answers to these questions will help you plan things such as determining how many customers must walk through the door or must you get in front of should you want to increase your earnings. Step two is an essential step in not only creating the marketing plan, but in creating your sales plan and understanding what it will take for your business to be successful.
Step 3 - Assessing what has worked and what hasn't
After you have determined where your business is today, you'll now want to evaluate what you've been doing. Is the road you are on leading you to where you want to go? Take a hard look at what you've been doing and what has brought in business. When you find that certain activities are not as successful as others in bringing in business, don't keep repeating them. Eliminate them from the plan. If you're not tracking where your business is coming from (advertising, print, radio, TV, direct mail or word of mouth) then start - TODAY! It doesn't make sense to continue spending money on anything that doesn't increase the bottom line.
Step 4 - Where you want to be
In this step, you'll want to allow yourself to dream. Ask yourself where do you want to go? Write down all that you want to do, to be, to achieve, to learn, and to earn. This should be both professionally and personally. Here you'll begin setting goals for yourself. These goals can be changed, adjusted or altered along the way when necessary. It's important that you at least create them so that you have something to measure your success against. A well balanced plan should include all aspects of your life - professional, family, spiritual, recreation and growth.
Having completed these four steps will enable you to create the backbone of your business (and life) plan. It will be a plan that is a living document to be updated as you or your business changes, a document that will keep you on a path driven for success.
Having a business plan helps you focus, be accountable and enables you to ask pertinent questions about yourself, your business and your business environment. It helps you to identify all the potential risks your business can face and what your strategy will be to mitigate these risks. By identifying a business strategy ahead of time, the easier it will be to understand your direction, your budgets, schedules, and how to market to your target audience.
But before you jump in to create your plan, there are four important steps that must initially take place before you begin:
Step 1 - Know who you are
The first step to creating your business plan is to understand who you are. Here are some very specific questions to ask yourself:
" What kind of business do you have? What do you do?
" Who is your customer?
" What do you sell?
" How does your product/service benefit your customer and how do you do it better than anyone else?
" What does your product lack in comparison to your competitors?
" How will you alleviate external threats to your business such as in an economic downturn?
Answers to these questions will help you in creating your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis and will help you identify positive or negative internal and external factors to achieving your business objectives.
The second part to step one is that you'll want to ask yourself some personal questions:
" What do you enjoy doing personally and professionally?
" What are you proud of personally and professionally?
Starting a business is very time intensive and it's easy to let personal goals and aspirations get pushed aside. What could start out as a passion with drive and total commitment to serve can easily become a chore when burn out sets in. You'll want to avoid this by including a balance in your life.
By answering the personal questions above, you'll have set the stage in creating your brand story for the branding section of your business plan.
Step 2 - Know where your business is today
Next, you'll need to know where you are today. This may take some time to answer unless you are in your first year. Otherwise research will be required to get through this step. To start, you'll need to gather answers to questions such as:
" Where did your business come from last year? Here, you are looking for answers as to not only what type of clients did you get but also from what sales and marketing activity.
" How many new clients did you acquire? How many repeat clients did you have?
" What is your average dollar spent and average dollar made per client?
" What is your closing ratio?
Answers to these questions will help you plan things such as determining how many customers must walk through the door or must you get in front of should you want to increase your earnings. Step two is an essential step in not only creating the marketing plan, but in creating your sales plan and understanding what it will take for your business to be successful.
Step 3 - Assessing what has worked and what hasn't
After you have determined where your business is today, you'll now want to evaluate what you've been doing. Is the road you are on leading you to where you want to go? Take a hard look at what you've been doing and what has brought in business. When you find that certain activities are not as successful as others in bringing in business, don't keep repeating them. Eliminate them from the plan. If you're not tracking where your business is coming from (advertising, print, radio, TV, direct mail or word of mouth) then start - TODAY! It doesn't make sense to continue spending money on anything that doesn't increase the bottom line.
Step 4 - Where you want to be
In this step, you'll want to allow yourself to dream. Ask yourself where do you want to go? Write down all that you want to do, to be, to achieve, to learn, and to earn. This should be both professionally and personally. Here you'll begin setting goals for yourself. These goals can be changed, adjusted or altered along the way when necessary. It's important that you at least create them so that you have something to measure your success against. A well balanced plan should include all aspects of your life - professional, family, spiritual, recreation and growth.
Having completed these four steps will enable you to create the backbone of your business (and life) plan. It will be a plan that is a living document to be updated as you or your business changes, a document that will keep you on a path driven for success.
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