Are you a relationship builder?
Personal relationships are coming to the forefront of business. The relationships can’t be superficial, they have to include meaningful dialogue and authenticity. No more putting up the front because we don’t want people to see who we really are? Are we still talking about business? We are but we are also talking about human beings as capital for your business. Calling human beings capital may not resonate with you intially (or never) but I use it to illustrate the importance of building relationships with people inside of your current circle and out. This spririt of cooperation will be vital to small business survival. It’s time to make connections that are
Forget what you know, start looking at who you know
People are worried about the economy right now. Resources that were available 2 years ago aren’t so readily available now. This is the time to start getting creative and clear on the reources that you have at your disposal that don’t cost anything more than your time. The people in your life are one such asset. I was a victim of ignoring all of the resource and opportunity that I came in contact with on a day-to-day basis. I finally woke up about 2 years ago and asked friends and family a simple question, “What are you up to?” You may not be thinking that this is ground breaking and
The Best Platform for your business
Don’t look now. Apparently you aren’t talented enough to run a business. Is this news to you? It is for the Wall Street Journal. I ran accross an article this morning from the WSJ that continues my disappointment in the coverage that small business gets in the media. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123025114273834377.html?mod=googlenews_wsj So with all of the pressure to make your business a success, how do you Build it to last? Since, we are talking about the first step, your platform, we will just talk about getting started on the right foot. The first question is why are you engaged the business you are running. Was it a good idea that someone had?
Spending too much time trying to figure out what your business should look like?
Have you ever thought about starting a business and then wondered what you could actually do out in the marketplace? Have you ever stopped wondering about it as soon as you realized that the answer wasn’t sitting right in front of your face? The reality is that for some, a business opportunity does fall into your lap. For most it does not. For the people where the business does seem to fall into their lap, I would bet that in the majority of the cases, they put themselves in a position to receive the opportunity. It didn’t just materialize into thin air. What to do for the rest who may
Big Problems, Big Solutions
We are in a great time right now for creating your business. Why is that you might ask? The answer is this, we are in an unprecedented time in our nations history. We are running into problems that we have never experienced. Because of this, our country is looking for someone to create and innovate us out of this mess. With so many problems facing our nation it stands to reason that the innovators and creators of this world will be the ones to deliver us out of this mess. For those of you who thought that it would be Obama or our government, you are crazy. No disrespect to
Work with a team, don’t let the team work you
What are we afraid of when we ask someone to just handle our business affairs for us? Do we feel like we aren’t smart enough or good enough to get the job done? Sorry that may have been a little too Stuart Smalleyesque… http://bmac20.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/stuartsmalley.jpg but you get the point. It’s important that when you are working with a team of consulting professionals to move your business forward that you work with them rather than just let them run with it. The bottom line is that it’s your business and who better to further your vision and push it in the direction than you. It’s great to take advice but you
What’s your business plan?
We have spent some time talking about one end of the business planning spectrum, the person who doesn’t want to do anything because they don’t know how to do it. The other side of the person who doesn’t do anything is the person who doesn’t start becuase their plan isn’t perfect. I am sure all of us know someone like this. The person who takes no action with putting together their business plan because there may be some holes in their process. Or they worry about the uncertainty of their businesses success. The hardest part about dealing with someone like this is that they are usually pretty smart well put
Your business- Own it and Win
As someone who owns a business you are most likely a person who goes against the grain. You also probably possess a can-do attitude and a desire to win. At time however you fail to recognize the sometimes fine line between doing too much and not enough. A great example of when business owners don’t do enough is in the area of web marketing. Take a look at the stats in this article: http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2008/12/small-business-don%E2%80%99t-get-it%E2%80%93still-failing-to-invest-in-search-marketing.html We as business owners, unless our business is technical in nature don’t want to deal with anything that seems technical. Search marketing is a great example as soon as someone starts to explain it to us,
Business done easy? Be careful what you ask for.
One thing that I hear when I spend time with new entrepreneurs is a desire to have their business plans, processes and structure done with little work on their part. There is one big reason for this that I will explain. Before I get into that, I will say that you are setting yourself up for disaster by letting someone do work for you without any involvement from you the business owner. I was inspired to write about this from spending a week in Lake Tahoe with an entrepreneur group called CEO Space. I don’t know how many times I heard the phrase, ‘I don’t know, I just want someone
Taking the easy road with your website
For most, setting up a website can seem like a pretty big task. Fortunately our tech nerd friends keep making it easier and easier to put a site together. I wont get into the nuts and bolts of doing a website as that is not my expertise. I will give you a few nuggets to start mapping out and be aware of when you are ready to get started. The first thing to understand clearly is what you want your site to do and what the vision is for your project. This makes the process a lot quicker when you can clearly articulate your needs to the company or person
