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Anticipate Trends to Capture New Business

Owners of new and growing small businesses today know one thing for sure: conditions on the business playing field can change rapidly. The technology that seemed cutting edge last year is now outdated; or worse, obsolete. Buyer moods can swing dramatically, and marketing strategies are in constant flux.

Anticipating trends can be extremely valuable in keeping you current on everything from sales strategies and customer desires to technology tools and the general economy. As your business grows, change will be inevitable and small business owners should constantly look ahead and seek out ways to shake things up. The more you test the winds of change, the better your chances of success down the road.

But how can you tell the difference between a fleeting fad and a true trend? Louis Patler, a market research guru for companies such as American Express and Dell, has spent decades tracking emerging trends and studying their impact on business. He says the key to successfully piloting a business in the years ahead will be embracing new ways of thinking.

For example, Patler says that truisms like “stick to what your business does best” are outmoded. If you want your business to grow, consider that past business traditions and processes might only hold you back. Trying new approaches is vital.

Not all customers are created equal. Some are more valuable and loyal than others, and those are the ones you should lavish the most attention on with special savings and service offers. And don’t expect loyalty from employees. As American society becomes ever more mobile and labor shortages worsen, workers won’t stay on a job for more than three years.

Advances in technology will continue to radically change how small companies do business. You will need to keep up. Small business owners who know how to acquire and manage information will achieve the most success. Capturing and analyzing data about customer needs, wants, behavior and how they use your product or service will become increasingly critical.

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Avoid Business Owner Burnout

Choosing to go into business for you is a major decision that usually means a commitment to hard work and long hours. As you struggle to build your business, however, you also must be careful not to overdo it and succumb to business owner burnout. It’s vital to take some time off to recharge your personal batteries.

But there’s a problem. Many business owners are afraid to leave, even for a short period. They fear that something will go wrong or they’ll miss out on that next big opportunity. With so much to do, how can an entrepreneur ever relax?

According to a survey conducted by American Express, 40 percent of the smallest business owners—those with less than $200,000 in annual revenues—plan no vacation time whatsoever in any given year. And even those who do schedule a break never really get away. One of every three link vacation time to a business trip and half will check in with the office at least once a day, if not several times.

According to the AmEx survey, these are the vacation-blocking concerns cited most often by business owners:

• There is no other competent person to leave in charge and others will make the wrong decisions.
• An important client or customer will not receive appropriate service.
• The business will miss a new opportunity.
• An operational breakdown will occur without anyone to solve the problem.

Despite these concerns, you can schedule a refreshing getaway with some careful advance planning. For example, draw up a list of worst-case scenarios and brief those in charge on the possibilities and chief concerns of each customer.

Tell key clients or customers in advance of any extended time away you are planning. Introduce your stand-ins and express your confidence in their ability to handle any issues that may arise. If you never delegate important tasks to others at your business, you can’t expect them to fill your shoes when you take time off. To create a saner schedule for yourself, and achieve a comfort level that good things will happen when you’re not there, learning to delegate responsibilities is vital.

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Grow Your Business with Success Thinking

In order to be a successful small business, you have to think and act like a successful business. Sounds simple, perhaps, but many small business owners and startup entrepreneurs forget this basic concept. In the face of financial adversity, they adopt a “can’t do” attitude.

As leader of your business you should spread a message of success to everyone involved, from employees and vendors to customers and prospects. High-performance businesses—both big and small—allow people to take risks, generate new ideas, make mistakes and learn from them.

The most successful entrepreneurs find ways to make successful thinking contagious. One way they do that is by emphasizing long-term potential over short-term thinking. They learn to innovate rather than hesitate, and shun the status quo as they seek to spark new interest and enthusiasm inside the business.

Sure, working productively will help build your business. But generating creativity and passion for what your business does, no matter how seemingly mundane, is a hallmark of a high-performance business. But these don’t need to be grandiose concepts. Simply going out of your way to help a customer in an unusual fashion qualifies.

 Emphasize the collective success of your business as a whole, not of any individual person, project or product. Then you can accelerate success by identifying a few profitable activities and making them happen ever more flawlessly and quickly.

Open the lines of communication. Generally, those around you need more information, not less, in order to feel successful. Let people know where you think the business needs to go, the problems it faces and what keeps you up at night. That makes it easier for you to involve them in finding solutions to your biggest challenges. Ask their advice about what you are doing right, what hurts and what needs fixing. That way, everyone has a bigger stake in your success.

Be open to new ideas, even if they sound silly or outlandish. One such idea just might be your “next big thing.” And reward people for extra effort. Non-cash incentives—like time off or a company lunch—have gained popularity as a means of rewarding employees. But cash bonuses still reign.

And always deliver what you promise. That includes keeping promises to employees and suppliers as well as customers. Integrity fuels the success engine, and it’s tough to recover if you blow it.

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Develop Leadership Skills to Secure Your Small Business Success

Successful business owners shine at most aspects of operating their business. Usually they’re great at planning, or marketing, or creative thinking or crunching numbers, or knowing just how to satisfy customers. But when it comes to leading, managing and motivating others involved in the business, whether employees, outside sales reps or key partners, they sometimes fall short.

One reason is widespread confusion about the difference between “managing” and “leading.” Leadership experts say they are two very different roles, even though most small business owners consider them the same.

“Managing” implies structure, control, rules, deadlines and efficiency, says Ken Blanchard, best-selling author of The One Minute Manager. But according to Blanchard, “leadership” is nearly the opposite of “management.” Leading requires actions that are more experimental, unstructured, visionary, flexible and passionate. Managers and leaders think and behave differently.

Blanchard and his partner Drea Zigarmi spent seven years studying how business leaders exert influence and how their values, beliefs and personalities contribute to their success—or failure. Through it all, one finding was clear: A one-size-fits-all style of leadership does not exist.

Owning a business automatically puts you in a position of leadership. Your goal is to engage employees, partners, vendors, investors, independent contractors or other participants in your venture in a course of action that helps achieve a mutually shared vision. But being in a leadership position does not necessarily make you a leader.

Many entrepreneurs turn to management techniques to enlist the minds and muscles of the people they lead, but fail to capture an equally important component—their hearts. If you merely work to focus activities of followers and fail to engage them in a purpose, you won’t likely be seen as a good leader.

“The first step to becoming a better leader is to study yourself and get honest, unfiltered feedback about how you are doing from the people you lead,” says Blanchard. “You cannot effectively lead if you do not know your own values.”

Try combining direction with support. Direction includes setting goals, scheduling, specifying priorities, evaluating results, defining roles and showing how results are to be accomplished. Support includes listening, praising and encouraging, seeking input, sharing information, offering reasons for decisions and helping others to solve problems.

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Make Ethics Count

In these days of corporate scandals and fiscal misdeeds, small business owners seem to know something that their big corporate counterparts do not: ethics count. Integrity and reputation are everything. But these things are sometimes taken for granted, and employees might stumble from time to time with a poor ethical choice that can damage your reputation.

Putting your business through an ethical refresher course might be a good idea. Two-thirds of small business owners say they are more concerned about ethical business practices today than in the past, according to a survey by the management consulting firm George S. May International. “It may be difficult to measure the benefit of ethical actions to your bottom line,” says Israel Kushnir, president of May International. “But a lack of ethics will definitely have a negative impact on a small business.”

Now under the public spotlight, big companies are rushing to beef up their formal codes of ethics, form special ethics departments and provide their people with ethics training. Although formal ethics training is rare at small companies, business owners always have recognized the value of their reputation and are looking for new or better ways to define their values for employees and customers. Some are putting ethics policies on paper while others are simply raising the issue more often in the workplace.

The Josephson Institute of Ethics, www.josephsoninstitute.org, is a “public-benefit, nonpartisan, nonprofit” organization that helps advance ethical decision-making. Founder Michael Josephson’s daily radio commentary on ethics and character-building runs on stations across the country and his “Character Counts” initiative has been adopted by schools and youth groups nationwide.

The group’s Web site has a helpful step-by-step guide to making ethical decisions, available free. The Institute also conducts Ethics in the Workplace training seminars and has a catalog of publications, videos, CDs, tapes, banners and other ethics awareness products you can buy.

The Ethics Resource Center(ERC) is a Washington, DC-based nonprofit organization that offers informational products and services, including help creating a code of conduct, an ethics effectiveness test, a business ethics Q&A and other items. ERC also conducts a National Business Ethics Survey annually. Visit www.ethics.org.

Two popular books on business ethics are The Power of Ethical Management by Ken Blanchard and Norman Vincent Peale, and Street-Smart Ethics: Succeeding in Business Without Selling Your Soul by Clinton McLemore. Both are available at Amazon.com.

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Eliminate Office Clutter for Better Results

Office clutter tends to grow like weeds or mold. But it’s not just damaging to your business aesthetics. Excessive clutter makes your business less productive and less profitable. Maybe organizing isn’t your strong point, but eliminating clutter and getting your business better organized should still be a high priority, especially if things are starting to get out of hand.

Despite the operating efficiencies that technology has brought to businesses large and small, the need for paper lives on. Chris Perrow is a professional organizer who deals daily with the negative impact that office clutter has on small companies.

According to Perrow, most business owners are on information overload, working long hours without thinking much about simple productivity issues of how and why things get done. “When they stop to analyze the situation, they often find much could be delegated, eliminated or done at a more efficient time,” she says.

The key to eliminating clutter and improving results through greater organization is to have a system in place to keep things organized. Business owners often keep things they don’t need on the theory that “I may need this some day.”

Carol Halsey, an organizing coach based in Wilsonville, OR, suggests a five-step approach to dealing with office paperwork that she calls DRAFT, for Discard, Refer, Act, File and Table.

• Discard—If it’s something you’ll never retrieve again, trash it, don’t file it. Your files should be a “resource holding tank,” not a dead storage place.
• Refer—If someone else needs the information or can handle it for you, pass it along.
• Act—If it requires action by you, do it now. It’s inefficient to delay and handle the paper a second or third time.
• File—If it’s important and you will truly need it later, file it in a proper filing system that allows you to find things quickly.
• Table–If it’s something you’ll need in the near future (but not today), place it in a simple follow-up system for easy, quick access.

Better efficiency is something every business owner can achieve. Help is available from the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO), a membership group of 2,700 organizing consultants, trainers, authors and product manufacturers. The Web site’s Automated Referral Program can help you find an organizing specialist in dozens of topics areas such as home, medical or legal offices. Visit the site at www.napo.net. Organize Your Office by Ronni Eisenberg, File…Don’t Pile by Pat Dorff and the Office Clutter Cure by Don Aslett are three helpful and inexpensive books for under $10 each through Amazon.com.

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Build Your Business Partnerships Carefully

In the early stages of forming or building a business, you may face the choice of whether or not to bring in a partner. And that may worry you, since you’ve probably heard stories about business partners who could not get along and ended up fighting for control of the company.

Studies show that two heads may be better than one. Businesses launched by partners, rather than solo entrepreneurs, have a better chance of really taking off, according to research by Marquette University’s Kohler Center for Entrepreneurship. Their study found that partners, not lone-wolf entrepreneurs, started more than 90 percent of America’s fastest growing companies.

Partners can share responsibilities and often bring different skills and knowledge to the business. One partner may be great with numbers and planning, while the other is a whiz at marketing and sales. Combining these elements can open more doors and help the business realize more opportunities more quickly than it could with only one person involved.

But conflicts between partners waste time and money, erode focus and strategic direction, cause emotional and financial pain and destroy businesses and reputations, says George Gage, a business mediator and partnership expert with BMC Associates in Washington, DC. Business schools rarely teach successful partnering techniques, and without proper preparation, partnerships are often doomed, says Gage, who has worked with many warring partners.

Gage, who is also author of The Partnership Charter: How to Start Out Right With Your New Business Partnership (or fix The One You’re In), lists seven cautions that would-be and existing partners should consider:

• If you think you are not “partner material,” don’t take the partner path.
• Use extreme caution when selecting a partner.
• If you don’t really need a partner, don’t get one.
• If it doesn’t feel good before you start, follow your gut and don’t do it.
• Don’t be fooled into thinking that legal agreements and documents will keep you out of trouble with one another.
• If you currently have a partner, and it does not feel like a positive working relationship, don’t just ignore it. Try to fix things.
• If there are unanswered questions or vague boundaries and responsibilities with current partners, address these issues while you are still getting along.

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Plan Ahead to Grow Your Business Tomorrow

Achieving steady, sustainable growth in a small business is one of today’s more difficult challenges. General economic ups and downs get in the way, as do regional issues, government policies, tax laws—and even the weather.

But it also may be your internal approach to generating and managing growth that’s producing slower sales than you expected, even in the face of what seem to be bright opportunities. Your approach to fostering growth may simply be too hit-and-miss. Perhaps you had a detailed business plan when you first started, but what type of plan does your small business have now for moving into the future?

The everyday marketplace tends to be a chaotic universe where things rarely go according to your original design. A growth plan that acts like an internal compass can be a helpful tool.

Start with your day-to-day actions . If you want your business to grow, that should be the focal point of everything you do. Gather the financial details about what’s happening internally. Then put your plan in writing. It does not need to be lengthy and ultra-detailed. Just the basic points will do. For example, how has your business done in fulfilling your original mission? Did you start with a bang only to see things flatten out? Perhaps you aren’t delivering what you first promised to your customers. Fix any problems or shortfalls quickly.

Keeping up with changes in your marketplace is crucial, so you might have to conduct some new research to stay up to date. This doesn’t have to be formal research. You might start with a simple customer survey, for example, or check for available research online. Make adjustments as needed in your approach.

 Communicate your growth vision to others involved with your business, including outside vendors and contractors as well as partners, investors and employees. Don’t just dream—delegate specific actions to reach those goals.

 Find out what objections customers are raising to your sales effort—why they have purchased or declined your product or service. Adjust your sales process to place greater emphasis on closing.

Two helpful books on small business growth planning are Strategic Planning for Small Business Made Easy for $19.95, the latest in the “Made Easy” series from Entrepreneur Press, and The 7 Irrefutable Rules of Small Business Growth for $18.95 by small business growth expert Steven S. Little.

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Smooth Out Your Seasonal Sales Bumps

If you operate a seasonal business and are starting to wonder if the uneven revenue streams and stress-filled crunch times are worth all the hassle, take heart. Millions of small businesses post the bulk of their annual sales during a short season or cycle.

For many retailers the holidays are boom time. Fitness centers soar in January and sag with the summer exodus. Some businesses sell more when the weather warms, the tax or wedding season arrives or tourists travel.

Others thrive on cold or times when kids are in school. No matter what type of seasonal business it is, the common thread is that you must succeed in a short time. Issues such as cash flow, burnout and seasonal help are magnified.

To help smooth the bumps it will be important to create a tight budget and stick to it throughout the year. Create a special cash reserve account for use only in leaner months. Set money aside whenever you can. Creating a cash flow forecast will help you identify patterns and see what you are up against. Include a worst-case plan to anticipate any nasty shocks.

Operating a seasonal business also requires that you plan and use your time more efficiently than other business owners. Some periods may call for only 25-hour workweeks, while others go far beyond that. To make sure everything gets done and also avoid burnout, you’ll need to schedule your time carefully.

Put slower times to good use by using them to update your Web site, catch up on maintenance, strengthen customer relationships or write marketing plans. You may want to employ only a small core of permanent workers and use temps or interns to fill in. Consider offering off-season sales or rates, and look for ways to generate revenue during quieter periods.

CAPlines seasonal lines of credit are SBA-guaranteed short-term loans that help small businesses survive sales ups and downs due to seasonal changes. To qualify, your business must have established a definite pattern of seasonal activity. You’ll find complete details and information on these credit lines in the Special Purpose Loan Programs section at www.sba.gov/financing.

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Train Yourself for Small Business Success

There are many things to know about building a successful small business—from marketing and tax issues, to technology, finance, human resources management and more. Most entrepreneurs don’t have expertise in all of those areas. That’s why individuals interested in starting or expanding a business have been tapping into training programs at a record pace.

For many business owners, learning opportunities and training programs are becoming vital steps to planning, launching and growing a business. During one recent 12-month period, a record 2.5 million people sought help from one of many U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) training and assistance programs.

Seeking help is simply smart. No business owner can be adept at every aspect of operating successfully. Plus, conditions change, so keeping yourself informed is vital to long-term success.

The single most popular program in America is probably the SBA Small Business Training Network/E-Business Institute, which registers nearly a million users at its Web site each year. The Small Business Training Network is a Web-based conglomerate that can link you to online courses, workshops, publications, learning tools, information resources and access to electronic counseling and other types of technical help. For details on the Small Business Training Network, go to the main SBA Web site at www.sba.gov and click on “Training.”

Free online courses are offered on about 75 topics in areas such as business startup, growing your business, home-based business and re-engineering your skills. Sample titles include: Growth Strategies; Analyzing Profitability; Building Your Brand; and, Understanding Business Insurance.

Local SBA-sponsored training events are offered nationwide. These range from breakfast talks on local economic conditions, to brown-bag networking lunches, loan seminars, startup workshops and free business assessments. Click your state on the Web site map for a calendar listing dates and event details in your area. In addition, dozens of top colleges and universities offer business training courses you can take online. Most of these require a fee.

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Boost Your Odds of Startup Success

If you’ve dreamed of business ownership for years, but stories of all the business that failed are stopping you, take heart. There are many ways that you can tilt the odds of success in your favor.

For one thing, the daunting statistics often bandied about that nine of ten new businesses will fail are likely false. A review of business closings by StartupJournal.com, a Dow Jones & Co. division, shows that the number of outright failures is highly exaggerated.

Nearly a third of business closures that government statistics assume to be failures are not really failures at all. These businesses were considered a success by their owners who simply sold off the pieces or closed them to retire or pursue other activities.

Data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Business Tracking Series show that about 65 percent of new businesses are still operating after four years. That means new ventures actually succeed more often than not.

But the more resources a new business has to start with, the better its chances. That includes money, of course, but other assets such as market savvy and the right people. Here are four factors that improve the odds of new business survival:

• People. If you can afford to hire employees, do it. Well-staffed businesses have better survival rates than solo operations.
• Startup capital of at least $50,000. Not easy, perhaps, but businesses that start with less have higher failure rates.
• A college degree for the owner. Better yet, enroll in a college-based entrepreneurship program.
• Home beginnings. To keep costs low, start initial stages of your business from a home office.

The most common reasons for failure within the first few years include competition, mismanagement, high rent and insurance costs, high debt, inability to get financing, loss of clients and difficulty with collections. “If you’re ready to take the risk of starting a new enterprise, research your business carefully before taking the plunge,” says Tony Lee of StartupJournal. Even though business failure rates aren’t as high as we think, aspiring entrepreneurs still need to do their homework.

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Launch Your Business Online

If you are looking to start a small business quickly, with little capital, and run the entire operation yourself, here’s some good news. Thanks to Web-based services that offer everything you need, affordably, you can get your venture up and running in no time and never look back.

Launching a business of any kind is never really easy. For example, no matter how small the business, you still need a legal structure of some type, such as corporation, LLC, partnership or sole proprietorship, computers, phones and Web connections, some financial, budgeting and marketing skills, a bank account, merchant services to process credit card payments, and much more.

But if you want to start small, build it yourself and grow the business over time, launching with the help of Web-based services is a viable choice that scores of entrepreneurs are selecting as a way to get into the business ownership game.

Service providers such as Interland, Yahoo Small Business, BigStep, 1&1 and others offer simplified do-it-yourself packages that make the setup process straightforward. Even with little tech know-how, you can get a basic Web site registered, designed and online quickly for as little as $20 per month.

You’ll still need to work hard at attracting customers, just like any new business. In some ways the task is ever harder online because you are competing with millions of others doing the same thing. Make sure your Web site is listed in search engines and get more out of your listings. You’ll find help for search engine submission at SearchEngineWatch.com. This site offers submission tips, Web searching tips, search engine reviews and other resources.

Targeted ads attached to keyword search results are a great way to promote your wares. Their simplicity, low cost and popularity among small businesses have made them the main method for connecting buyers and merchants online. Business owners also like the concept because you pay only when someone clicks your ad and visits your site. Google AdWords, www.google.com/ads, is one of the leaders.

To get visitors more involved in your Web site, add surveys, guest books, auto responders and downloadable documents. Your Web host may offer some of these. Helpful resources include: ConstantContact.com and Topica.com.

Microsoft Small Business Center (MSBC) is a portal that offers nearly everything you’ll need to get up and running — all in one place. MSBC offers a helpful suite of tools and services such as Web marketing, payment processing, online catalog creation, shopping cart, list building, banner ads and search engine submission. Visit www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness.

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