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While the dog days of summer are upon us, the entrepreneur really hasn’t had time to take much of a deep breath. Between managing the business - balancing finances with business and internal staffing - and trying smart ways to keep top of mind with clients and marketing for new business, it’s been a busy summer.
We are working hard and need to continue working SMART. A few tips — manage expenses to maintain profit, stay focused on what’s important, and identify what can be readily promoted and what needs immediate fixing. All are key in this challenging economy.
Speaking of which, we're in the process of launching an exciting marketing e-campaign. So, you'll be hearing from us in the upcoming months about new services and tools that can help you grow your top line, better evaluate your bottom line, and identify and engage your key players.
Stay tuned,
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Outside of start-up expenses, what good is increasing sales if those sales cost you more than you pull in? This is a good time to review the last few months of expenses with a ruthless eye, trim the fat, and get the most you can out of each dollar you spend. Many small cuts can add up to larger savings, so question every expense, and remember that no expense is sacred.
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| Assess communications ex- penditures. Are there ways to reduce or change service for cell phones, internet access, and land lines? If you constantly exceed time allotments for cell phones, restructure your service. Give your cell phone number out on a limited basis to reduce incoming calls. Evaluate whether all extra services for land lines are really necessary — a one-time purchase of an answering machine could save money on monthly charges for voice mail, for example. Combining cell, land lines, and internet service with one provider may save money. Shop different vendors for better pricing.
Reduce credit card debt. Set up a payment plan to reduce credit card debt. Pay credit card bills off early — you will reduce the rolling fee interest. If you have racked up debt on a high interest credit card, look for a lower interest card and try to move your balance or consider taking a personal loan at a lower interest rate to pay it off. Some banks are already offering lower interest credit cards, and many credit unions offer low interest, fixed rate cards. |
Review your promotional and advertising expenditures. Is there some way to get more for your money? Evaluate all costs — yellow pages, radio, television, and newspaper ads, 800 numbers, etc. Determine which cuts will be most effective. Are you spending too much money in giveaways that are yielding you nothing? Is purchasing a table at a yearly conference worth the money spent, or would it be cheaper and more effective to network or try a less expensive, local conference? Do you take full advantage of your network and face-to-face networking that do not cost much, if anything?
Are you using free social
networking tools to advertise
your business?
Evaluate perks. Are there any perks you could cut? You want to keep a positive working environment for employees, but this may be the time to give up company season tickets, reduce the amount of money spent on office beverages and snacks, cut back on lunch meetings, or reduce expenses for an employee outing. |
Study utility bills. If you are spending more for the basics, come up with a plan to reduce your use of electricity, gas, and water.
Examine subscription, professional
development, and software costs. Cut magazine subscriptions you do not fully utilize. Postpone expensive training costs. If you do not have a pressing need for the latest software updates, skip them for now.
Reappraise employee costs. It may be time to reduce pension and health plan expenses. If you are truly struggling, you may have to ask employees to take a pay cut or to take unpaid time off — this is often a better alternative to layoffs. The toughest part of the process is letting a valued employee go. If you do not have enough business to meet payroll, you will have to consolidate positions, eliminate unnecessary tasks, and reduce your staff.
If you can cut expenses to break
even or make a profit without
increasing sales volume, you
have made a good start on the
road to survival. Then you can
focus on building a cash reserve
and increasing your sales. |
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Phone calls, cell phones, e-mails, website updates, tweets, blogs, social networking sites, professional networking sites, RSS feeds – do you feel like you are spending too much time managing information and that you are constantly pulled away from work that requires your attention? You are not alone. Rest assured, you can take back control.
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| • First, block off time on your calendar for your billable work. If you work best early in the morning or later in the afternoon, be fairly ruthless about keeping that time sacred for work. Hang out your “do not disturb” sign, and do your best to tune out the information flow during those hours.
• Create a schedule for regular website and blog updates. Depending upon the type of work you do, website maintenance and updates and blog entries can be daily, weekly, or monthly. Determine what is best for your circumstances.
• Set aside certain times of the day to initiate phone calls. If you have a pressing deadline, consider lettng incoming phone calls go directly to voice mail. |
• Unless your livelihood depends
upon internet orders, set aside
certain times of the day to respond
to or to send e-mails — once, twice,
or three times a day. If you travel extensively,
you can answer and initiate e-mails during your
plane flight, keep them in your drafts folder, and
then send them later when you reestablish an
internet connection.
• Set aside time to update or explore professional networking sites, such as LinkedIn, or social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, if you are utilizing those for business purposes.
• If you are using Twitter and the information overload is too much to handle, there are programs, like TweetDeck, which can help you manage information from Twitter, Facebook, and more.
• If you don’t use it, lose it. If you find yourself tracking many blogs, RSS feeds, or other information sources, cull out the sites that you do not use on a regular basis. If you want to further reduce the flow, drop any sites that, although interesting, you can do without. |
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What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the
over abundance of information sources that might consume it.
-Herbert Simon, Economist
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There are many good reasons to “take a hike.” Walking has numerous medical benefits. Walking is good for weight management: it can help build muscle and burn calories. Your eyes can look farther than the confines of the office, relieving eye strain. You can get a healthy dose of Vitamin D from the sun. Walking also helps to control blood pressure and reduce risk of disease.
There is another good reason to take a walk — it may be good for |
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business. Small business owners and entrepreneurs tend to work long hours and perform many varied tasks. Walking is a great way to clear your mind, reduce stress, increase creativity, and provide you with an increased sense of well-being.
Even a fifteen-minute walk around the block can help you to let go of your stress. The change of scenery and fresh air can help you find a new perspective on your work. As you clear your mind and relax, you may find that creative solution for your business simply present themselves! |
SWOT, which stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and
Threats, is a well-known strategic planning method that can help
analyze the value of a project or business venture. SWOT is best
carried out by a team of people — a manager, an accountant, a salesperson,
for example. So if you don’t have a broad representation in
staff, ask professional friends and representatives of your target
market to assist.
An illustrated diagram of SWOT analysis often takes the form of a box
with two rows and two columns that create four squares: the two
squares in the
SWOT analysis can help
determine the steps you’ll take
to achieve your goal.
top row are for Strengths and Weaknesses (your
company’s internal conditions),
and Opportunities and Threats
(external factors) are listed in the
squares on the bottom row. The
left column (Strengths and
Opportunities) contains positive,
helpful factors; the right column (Weaknesses and Threats) contains
harmful factors.
Begin by determining and listing your Strengths: the attributes of
your company that will be helpful in achieving your objective, and your
Weaknesses: those harmful factors that may prevent you from achieving
your objective.
When thinking of your strengths and weaknesses, think of the 5Ps
(product, price, place, promotion, positioning), personnel, finances,
customer base, manufacuring, technology, infrastructure, etc.). Your
strengths might be an ace salesperson, a quality product, and a solid
infrastructure to deliver. Weaknesses may be a small advertising
budget, weak marketing plan, and no marketing staff.
Next, factor in external conditions in the bottom two squares. Opportunities, on the left, are conditions that may help you to achieve your objective. Threats, on the right, are harmful, and potentially |
disastrous, to achieving your objective. External conditions include technological
changes, legislation, economic
factors, social factors, the
marketplace, and your competition. Your opportunities may be that one
competitor has closed
shop, a second competitor sells higher
priced widgets, and the
marketplace is looking
for a lower priced
widget. Threats may be
that overall, widget
sales are down, your
competitor has a
widget with added
benefits, and there’s talk
of adding a widget tax.
SWOT analysis can help
determine the steps you’ll take
to achieve your goal. It can also
help you to determine whether
a goal is attainable. If not,
develop a new objective and
retest. Once you have your list
and your analysis shows you
have an attainable goal, you and
your SWOT team can ask questions. How can we use and exploit
our Strengths? Can we mitigate
our Weaknesses? How can we
benefit from Opportunities? How
will we cope with Threats? How
do our Strengths match up to
our Opportunities? Can we
convert our Weaknesses and
Threats into Strengths and
Opportunities?
SWOT is a great tool to analyze
your most pressing business
objective, and you can adapt it to
assess other aspects of your business — such as analysis of each
of your competitors as part of
your marketing study. |
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Every tool has a weakness.
Don’t fall into the trap of compiling lists that may not be crucial to achieving your objective or desired
outcome. Be critical and honest when seeking to convert Weaknesses and Threats into Strengths and
Opportunities. Don’t try to use weak Opportunities to offset strong Threats. |
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Twitter is a free, social networking service and micro-blogging application that enables users to send and receive “tweets.” Tweets are 140-character text-based posts that are displayed on the user’s profile page
and delivered to other users who have subscribed to follow them. The
original goal of these tweets was to answer the question, “What are you
doing?” As a user, you can restrict delivery of your tweets to friends, or
allow anyone access to them. Users can send and receive tweets
through the Twitter website, or through Short Message Service (SMS)
or other applications such as Tweetie and Twitterrific or CoTweet for
businesses. Service is free over the internet, but SMS may result in
phone service provider fees.
What gives this social service big business potential? Twitter came on
the scene in 2006 and by November 2008 it had an estimated four to
five million users. One report estimated the number of unique visitors
to the site per month was roughly 6 million and the total number of
visits in a given month as high as 55 million. That’s a lot of traffic, and
businesses are taking notice. Businesses are using Twitter to build
awareness of their products and services, to build relationships with
customers, as a public relations tool, to provide information and tips, to
roll out new products, to find employees, and to release breaking news.
Jet Blue has announced new flights, provided info about delays, and
advertised promotions. Whole Foods has connected people to causes
and answered customer questions. 10 Downing Street has provided
links to pictures of the G20 Summit. The New York Times announces
breaking news stories. Dell provides tips as well as information on new
products.
If you’re interested in using Twitter, social media advisors like Chris
Brogan recommend that after setting up an account, you first use Twitter to listen. Listen to what people are excited about, listen for business
opportunities, listen for your name and your competitor’s names, and
listen for words that relate to what you do or what you are passionate
about. As you use Twitter, remember, even though it is about you, it is
not all about you. Talk to people about their interests. Share links to
events or causes in your community or to informative website articles.
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Rather than answer, “What are
you doing?” you might want to
answer the question, “What has
your attention?” — or “What are
you passionate about?” When
you talk about what you are
doing, make it helpful, and do not
be afraid to ask questions to get
opinions.
Twitter may prove to be a useful
tool in your marketing toolbox,
and even better, right now it is
free!
Whether your
business is art,
law, or manufacturing,
if
you feel the
need to jumpstart
your creativity, pick up
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.
Cameron sets up a 12-week, 12-
step process to get your creative
juices flowing through daily
walks, daily “morning pages”
(writing), and weekly “artist’s
dates.” There is work involved,
but you can gain a better understanding
of yourself and how you
deal with others, begin to come
up with creative ways to solve
personal and business issues, and
keep a balanced outlook on life.
Warning: following the directions
of this book may cause you to
come up with innovative ideas
when you least expect them!
Other books by Cameron you may
find useful include Finding Water
and Vein of Gold.
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