Innovation

They say “when life hands you lemons, make lemonade.”  The same philosophy should be applied creatively by small business owners to take advantage of the financial conditions and possible slow down in their businesses.

Any event that generates extra time for a small business owner is a gift that should allow time to reflect on the business and think about business and personal growth plans and taking the business to the next level.

There are a myriad of ways to enhance a business when one finally has the time to give the project full attention.  For example, a slow down in business opens up time for the owners to modernize marketing materials and technology, to cross train their employees for greater flexibility, or to shore up their own capital either by accepting an open line of credit or accepting the many offers of new business credit cards that arrive daily for businesses based on sound financial footings.

These ideas are not unique to any one industry, although I apply them to the solo law practice I run, and I previously owned a small law firm that navigated successfully through the last economic slow down/market crash.

Protect your business read more

The client-service industries are infamous for ideas that exist outside of the realm of possible. For consulting, idea-generation, advertising, and advisory-type companies, there is often a struggle to really identify with a client’s needs, goals, and situation. There is a tendency to propose ideas without consideration for the “execution experience.” Questions like “will the team go crazy trying to do this?” “do they have the energy to pull this off?” and “can they even afford this?” are often secondary and left unconsidered. Some of the most productive service-based organizations we have interviewed insist that the only way to really understand a client’s reality is to make something yourself. Method, a brand experience agency, is a perfect example of a company that has grounded its client-facing approach with multiple internal projects. Their own website, method.com, was described as a “challenging and very personal branding exercise” by CEO Robbie Vann-Adibé. “We were committed to applying the design fundamentals, strategy, and technical expertise we use for our clients in order to fully support our own brand.”  They benefited from taking a taste of their own medicine.Another great example is New York agency Brooklyn Brothers - the advertising agency that also produces Fat Pig Chocolate, PMS vitamins, and a series of children’s books (see previous interview). The team at Brooklyn Brothers believes that making a product lends invaluable insights into logistics and the real amount of time and effort it takes to execute. Not only do their own products boost profitability (and fun), they are also a competitive advantage when serving clients.  read more

Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur, a small business owner, or a corporate executive, one of the things that can drive you absolutely nuts is trying to figure out how to silence the inner critic that rears its ugly head and stomps your business dreams into the ground whenever you try to take a significant step forward.

It’s even more discouraging when the answers people give you about how to deal with this critical inner voice sound good in theory but are difficult in practice.

No doubt, you’ve already had to contend with “The Critic” when you try to venture out or move your business forward. The following remarks by The Critic may sound familiar:

• Where are you going to get the money to do this?

• This will never work.

• You’re just wasting time with this idea.

• What if you don’t succeed?

• You can’t pull this off.

Well, get ready to celebrate, because I’m about to reveal the secret that will solve this excruciating problem once and for all. And, relax. It doesn’t involve that common but useless advice to “push through your fears.” read more

Reality Check” is a monster of a book. It has 94 short chapters and runs about 460 pages – but it is such an easy, entertaining and hilarious read, that you would never dream that it was that long. In fact, I previewed the book digitally and had commented to a few people that it was a short read. And in a way it is. You can read it any way you like; you can start from start to finish or you can grab a chapter or two whenever you have about 3 minutes to spare. That’s about how long it takes to read any of the chapters.

I’ve been reading this book over the last week or so and it’s a shame that it’s so big because it’s one of these things you want to take everywhere you go – for those few spare minutes where you want to read something short that you can think about and noodle on later.

The book is written in a form that’s a cross between a blog post, a presentation and a conversation. You run into the blog-post style in the introductions and in the commentary throughout the book: read more

There are tough times ahead for us entrepreneurs and small business owners. The economy has hit many of us hard, and we’re going to have to work to get out of this hole. That’s all the bad news.

The good news is . . . we can do it, if we do it now!

Now is the time to innovate and create and produce a real plan of attack to succeed. Now is the time to sit down and be creative about how to push your business forward without a marketing budget. Now is the time to think creatively about how you can get your company noticed, or get more sales, or more leads, with a new type of marketing campaign or idea.

The point is, now is the time to do this. Your competitors will probably cut jobs, and cut marketing and cut something else. Now is the time for you to eat their lunch by making aggressive steps forward while they cut, cut, cut!

Do it now.

* * * * *

Jim Kukral, The Business Web Coach, is an award-winning blogger, speaker and successful web coach. For over 12-years, Jim has been helping both small businesses and Fortune 500 clients find success online.

Just a quick note to say that I’ll be at the upcoming New York Times Small Business Summit on November 17, 2008 .

The agenda looks great. The day features two keynotes: Gary Hirshberg, CEO of Stoneyfield Farm, and Liz Lange, Founder of Liz Lange Maternity. Then there are breakout sessions covering: strategies for growth in a tough economy, empowering your team, and the new marketing landscape. You can wander through the vendor fair and check out offerings to help you run your business. There will be speed networking, too, which is always fun and worthwhile. And a cocktail reception for more relaxed networking caps the day.

I hope you will stop in and say “hi” — I’ll be in the American Express OPEN Advice Center. I’ll be there to answer your questions. Anything you want to know about, anything you think I might be able to help with, I will be happy to try to assist you.

I understand they are setting me up with a plasma screen hooked to my laptop, so that we can talk about social media sites, for instance. Be happy to show you some of the neat little tricks I’ve learned about how to use social media sites for low-cost marketing without having social media take over your life.

When: November 17, 2008 from 8:30 AM to 6:30 PM

Where: Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers, 811 7th Avenue (at the corner of 53rd Street), New York, NY 10019

Find out more: Visit the New York Times Small Business Summit website.

Hope to see you there!

We say that, don’t we? Smug and cocky: “I get it – it doesn’t take a brick wall . . .”

But there I was, in the bathroom of the Woman’s City Club in Akron, Ohio, washing my hands. I looked into the mirror and it hit me!

I must first confess that at 51, my mirror gazing moments are few and far between. I’m amazed to find wrinkles by my eyes. After all, I have kids. I yell more than I laugh! Where did the laugh lines come from?

But on this day, in the middle of a monthly Boardroom meeting led by Norma Rist, I had excused myself to use the restroom. I looked in the mirror and my reflection yelled:

“You idiot – your business model is all wrong for you. You should be going in a totally different direction!” read more

The current state of economic affairs cries out for leaders.

But, not necessarily for the anointed, elected or self-professed type. In fact, not even the hired and titled type.

Now more than ever you need to lead - not for fame and fortune though, but because of who you will need to become in order to do so. You see, taking the task to lead isn’t particularly noble or altruistic, done authentically, it’s a selfish objective accomplished through selfless actions.

People, and by that I might mean those in your family, church, school, association, product group or company, are hungry to connect with something authentic, and few things feel more authentic than leadership driven from a passion to become better and, in doing so, make those who follow better.

• True leadership is an inside job. It requires you to focus on yourself, on being the true yourself that connects to a higher purpose and then goes to work on purpose. By higher, I don’t necessarily mean spiritual or religious, I mean authentic - something that drives you past your fear, to a place where you make decisions about the actions you take for the good of the cause.
• True leadership requires that you live a story. Your higher cause, the thing that drives you to work on yourself, needs a simple manta. A story you tell yourself, and then others, and that is passed throughout the cause, likely becoming on it’s own something larger than you first created. It’s the rallying cry for the troops.
• True leadership takes dogged determination. Oh, others will try to talk you out of lifting yourself up because you may ask them to raise their game, you might shine a light that allows other to shine as well, but you will encounter those who want you to stay in the dark with them. You may need to say “this is how we do it here” several thousand times before you believe it so thoroughly no one can doubt you.

But in the end, the lead you take is equal to the lead you make. (apologies to Lennon/McCartney)

John Jantsch is a marketing and digital technology coach and author of Duct Tape Marketing.