climate-changer.com

There is nothing wrong with a little analysis.  Until it becomes analysis paralysis.  Ultimately, in the end, you must take some sort of action.  A decision not made is a decision made for you.

This is especially important when you are trying to decide what direction your company should take.  If you have employees, they are looking to you for leadership.  You set the direction and communicate it to the troops.  They execute their job functions to push the company in that direction.  Lack of leadership usually means that nothing gets done.

If you are just starting your own business, you may have several different business options you are considering.  My advice?  Take action and set off in a direction.  If it is the wrong direction, you start over with a new opportunity.  Taking weeks, months, or years to make a decision means that you don’t start a business for that long and you could be spending the time learning.  Yes, there is some expense to making mistakes and setting off in the wrong direction, but indecision can be far more costly.

Spend some time doing research about what your choices are, which ones have merrit, and any other information you find pertinent, but give yourself a deadline for making a decision.  Then take action!  Do your dream!  Go for it!

matchstic.com

Courage is being able to do something in the face of obvious danger.  I have been discussing some politics the last couple of weeks and the main thing I wish is that politicians would have the courage to do the right thing in the face of political pressure to do the wrong thing.  Sometimes people get it wrong.  Especially masses of people who develop a mob mentality about a particular subject.  Unfortunately, we the people elect politicians.  It is a blessing and a curse to live a democratic society.  On the plus side, we help decide public policy so there is no taxation without representation.  On the minus side, we live in our own little worlds and often do not see the bigger picture.  That’s why the President and members of congress need to have the political will to set a particular direction and communicate the need for the direction to the people.  President Kennedy said that we need to go to the moon, not because it is easy, but because it is hard.  Political courage and leadership does not exist like that today. Continue Reading »

solidprinciples.com

Several things have to happen for me to decide to hire: 1) I have to have the business to support the new employee, 2) I have to have work for that new employee to do, 3) I have to be able to know that the employee is doing an appropriate amount of work, 4) I have to be able to find a qualified person, 5) I have to have no other choices.

I have to have the business to support the new employee. For my consulting business, I need a new project that I can place an employee at, that I probably cannot take on myself with my current workload.  There may be a day when I hire to support the consultants in the field, but right now it’s about getting business that a new consultant will do.  Getting this business may be about proper marketing and sales, and I am not sure what our government could do to help me get new business except for overall growth in the economy. Continue Reading »

thewhitedsepulcre

I am a small business person now.  I have my own consulting practice and two clients.  I live comfortably and make enough money, although I could always use more.  I make nowhere near $200,000 per year in realized income.  If I did, I really wouldn’t mind sharing more of my income with the federal government, as long as they were using it wisely.

Realizing or showing a $200,000 personal income usually means you’re spending too much.  Your fixed expenses are high.  Maybe you’re living in a million dollar home with a big mortgage.  Maybe you have an expensive car you’re paying for.  Something is causing you to spend a lot of money.  Because I know that if you don’t need to realize a high income you won’t.  You can put as much as $42,000 year year in a 401k.  You can hold money in your business if it is a corporation (and pay corporate taxes on it), unless you have a subchapter S corp.  Even still, you have so many business expense choices to keep you from realizing an income as high as $200,000. Continue Reading »

I have been working on a marketing project lately and what is the deliverable for marketing ultimately?  A nice little report that details the problem the company is facing, case studies of other companies, options to pursue, and the option selected with an implementation plan.  Unlike a technology project though, there really isn’t a hard and visible product of the marketing project.  It is research and strategy, both of which don’t sound like a whole lot.  They are software for the business though, and sometimes software is more important than hardware.

New companies often avoid marketing.  Or they see sales as marketing, or advertising as marketing.  I hear many people talk about internet marketing, which is actually advertising.  They are getting their message out to a mass audience hoping to get a few leads that they can sell to.  Internet marketing often encompasses marketing and sales directly to the customer, without much effort from the company beyond creating the web presence.  Individuals and companies often sell on the internet without really doing any marketing at all.  I call this brute force selling, not really having a marketing strategy (or having one that came from the top of your head) and just getting a message out there that may sell your product to people.  You might get some feedback from friends about your selling method and make changes based on that feedback.  The feedback is a shallow kind of research but can be very helpful to improving you message. Continue Reading »

women-unlimited.co.uk

I know that a lot of you are struggling to get your business off the ground: get your first sales, get a little growth in revenue, perhaps hire your first employee.  It is always a struggle to get things going, but sometimes you will have a situation where you will get more business than you can possibly handle.  I have written about our experience with this kind of problem, where our business growth was somewhat out of control because of being listed on Yahoo, but I have also run across another business that had the same situation.  It was a one man shop that brokered logistics services.  The owner ran across some government business, wound up selling millions of dollars, and had a very hard time dealing with it all.  Last year the company grossed between 10 and 15 million dollars with probably half of that gross profit before salaries and such. Continue Reading »

freelancefolder.com

In a job, you typically sell your time for money.  The employer really wants the product of your labor, but pays you on an hourly basis.  Now some people are lucky enough to also be bonused or commissioned based on the results of their efforts, but most people just trade their time for a paycheck.  In multi-level marketing, we called a job Just Over Broke, because you can never really rise above your circumstances by working harder or doing more, and you can’t multiply your “profits” by using technology or brokering the efforts of others.

In my current business, I am actually selling my time for money, but because I am more like a temporary worker, I can get a higher hourly rate and hold back money for when I am not working.  I have also sold more work than I can possibly do, so I am brokering my work out to others in exchange for a small portion of their hourly rate.  I can also get excellent people that are extremely specialized, so ultimately the client will be happier than if I had done the work myself.  It is not always easy finding the right people, but doing this kind of business means that I earn some amount of residual income from my efforts.  Residual income means that I might earn for a month, year, or five years from my efforts today.

My focus is helping my client do what they want to do and I go above and beyond the call of duty to make that happen.  But ultimately the work is performed by others.  So I can spend my time selling work and putting together deals, building my business to an unlimited size, rather than selling my own time where there is a limited amount I can sell.   Selling time for money is a great way to start a business, don’t get me wrong, but ultimately it is a dead end that you need to move away from.

Do you still sell your time for money?

mabryonline.org

I am sorry to have to say this, but I am going to have to get away from my daily postings on this Small Business blog. I simply am too busy right now with consulting. Consulting has been wonderful because I have been unemployed now for 4 weeks and am busier now that at any other time in my life. I really enjoy doing it and I plan to continue for as long as possible.

I am changing my editorial calendar so that I am posting once per week on Monday, but I will not be posting the remainder of the week. The good thing is that it will be all original content, and be written by me, but I will not be using the youtube videos, writing business poems, or posting Dilbert on Sundays. This will strictly be a business blog with content written by me.

I do appreciate my readers and I hope this will be a welcome change. Please let me know what you think.

This is my last Dilbert posting on the blog, hope you enjoy! Make sure to visit Dilbert.com for new comics in the future…

"A Few Of My Favorite Things" courtesy justiandmyself.blogspot.com

Taking walks in the park with your hand in mine
The long evening talks when we’re feeling fine
Getting to the top on a challenging hike
These are just some of the things I like

I know it might seem work is always on my mind
And my writing in the evening when I’m way behind
They are a means to an end not a reason to fight
It’s only one small part of what I like

I liked golfing with you the other day
Calling you up and saying hey
Driving out to my mom’s and dad’s house
Thanksgiving turkey and Mickey Mouse
A day without sun just doesn’t seem right
These are some other things, that I like

Chasing your dreams just takes some time
But I don’t see forever as a 5 to 9
Sometimes I can take a break and break out the bike
Riding with you is one thing I like

It’s hard to be together and just be alone
We’re always interrupted by the telephone
As hard as we try when it doesn’t go right
Still being with you is one thing that I like

I liked holding your hand the other day
When your dad said grace and we all would pray
I know there’ll come a day when we’ll be alone
It’ll be quiet when the kids are all grown
I know we’ll need each other and it wouldn’t be right
If my music, was the only thing that I like