Do you ever find yourself feeling like you’re business isn’t moving anywhere? You love what you are doing. You are passionate about your products / services. And you know that you have all that it takes to be a huge success. Yet, here you are frustrated because nothing seems to be happening and you’re not making any money.Your bills continue to flow in and pile up, and you know you will have a major problem unless something happens really soon.

One of the most important things we learn about is to be clear on your “why.”  Your ‘why’ is your purpose for all that you are doing. It is the profound difference you are making in your life, your family’s life, or someone else’s life. When you think about it, you feel a glow and warmth, a surge of energy unlike anything else.Your “why” is what your whole journey is all about.And, it is the single most important thing to stay connected to when you have a period that isn’t quite as productive as you want it to be. read more

The New Year is for resolutions, and small businesses are going to have to do some evaluation and make some resolutions to survive and thrive in the current economic crisis.

USA.gov  has a list of popular New Year’s resolutions for  the individual that can also suit  the small business owner.

Lose Weight: Slim down your business by focusing on products that are core to your business and eliminating those that are not. This may also mean scaling back existing products or developing new products scaled for a budget-conscious customer and evaluating necessary personnel.

Get educated: Take advantage of slow business times to get more training.  Attend conferences, participate in webinars or just plain read.  Developing your industry-specific skills, business acumen or studying your competition will help you survive the current financial crisis and prepare for the economic recovery . read more

My wife’s small business, based on accounting and tax prep services, is entering its third year.

1) We operate on a tight budget, stretching the earnings from the previous year’s tax rush… always holding back a chunk for tech upgrades during the Christmas sales season. This year we’re expecting our “nest egg” to go farther than ever. Operating on a budget and holding a reserve has always been a gem of financial wisdom, so nothing new there.

2) With some less stable businesses going under we’ve found a fantastic upgrade to our location, just in time to make the move before the next rush. Staying fiscally sound and looking for opportunities to grow in this environment can open up a hidden growth potential.

3) A bit of psychology can help as well. Right now we could be poised on the brink of certain economic doom, but there’s little proof of that. So the glass could just as easily be half empty, and if we are confident that our “T’s” are crossed and “I’s” dotted, then we should also behave confidently in our daily business practices, and let the forecasters rail on about doom and gloom… while we maintain the daily chores to build sound businesses upon solid business practices.

For ultimately they are forecasters, and we are business owners. We will tell the tale, our actions will decide the outcome. If we call the game before the rain, we may just squander a perfectly good game, for what might have been. Or we could be ready to play ball when the time has come, and play the game of our lives.

Pump up your marketing spend in a recession, some experts argue. Slash expenses, including marketing, say others — after all, there’s less business to be had. But neither approach gets it right. The best strategy is to cut your marketing spend in some areas - but increase it in others.

Learn the smart way to decide where to place your precious marketing dollars from Knowledge@Wharton, the Wharton School’s online business journal, in this conversation with Wharton marketing professor Eric Bradlow.

 

 Knowledge@Wharton interview with Eric Bradlow: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I’ve been reading Jeffrey Rothfeder’s book McIlhenny’s Gold, which details the history of the family and company behind the well known Tabasco Sauce you’ve probably used many times in your life.  It’s a fascinating book for business buffs, in part because the McIlhenny family seems to do almost everything wrong based on traditional business planning, and yet continues to succeed at a level beyond pretty much anyone’s expectations.

What may be most interesting is how certain events early in the life of McIlhenny’s company seem to parallel the financial crisis of today.  In 1873, just a few years after the Tabasco sauce business had been started (and was still, by any definition, a “small business”), there was an economic collapse.  read more

In an interesting discussion thread here at OPEN Forum the moderator asked “do you update your business plan?”

The comments were revealing — one comment in particular. The commenter responded by describing how early on in his business he was advised to create a business plan for investors, but he didn’t want to spend hours on that exercise, stating: “I couldn’t see 40 hours of writing a business plan on assumption (typical entrepreneurs view) when the whole plan could change in a month and then how do you tell the investors the plan you made the deal on has changed?”

However, he says that later on he came to realize he needed planning of sorts in his business as it grew larger, stating:

“I learned when you get bigger you need some sort of plan for your own execution or else you just can get mixed up, simply. Maybe not a full BP by the book but something. I do have my BP in my head but it should be written down like all told me to do. If I did everything right I would modify my written plan once a month. Once a year is not nearly enough and writing it will bring about new ideas yet.” read more

An age-old chestnut in business centers on the railroads during the rise of the automobile: Even as roads, cars, and 18-wheelers undercut rail’s dominance of the transportation industry, railroad executives comforted themselves by claiming dominance of the “trains business.” Goodyear, Ford, Mack – these new companies weren’t competitors. Instead, they were a new industry, similar perhaps, but heck, none of them made trains.Had the barons of rail seen themselves in the transportation industry, rather than the train industry, the great rail companies of the 19th century would still be household names. (Quick, can you name one now? Yeah, me either…)

So what does this have to do with your business? Well, we’re in the midst of a similar shift, but with a major twist. Today, I’ll assert, no matter what business you think you’re in – be it making widgets or providing a service, you’re now in the media business, plain and simple. Those that recognize this shift will succeed, those that ignore it will atrophy and eventually become irrelevant.

Now, what do I mean by the media business? Well, let’s start where all good businesses start: with the customer. Your customer’s media habits have changed dramatically in the past ten years. More likely than not, your customers spend nearly 15 hours a week online – it’s where they play, communicate, interact with services, and shop and research major purchases. In short, your customer has developed a major new media habit. The question is: Has your business? read more