Business Owners Toolbox Blog Discussions and articles to help the small business owner solve the challenges they face as they grow their business.

November 29, 2011

How to market on a tight budget

Filed under: Marketing,Not yet categorized — Tags: , — Mike Van Horn @ 9:16 pm

My answer to a LinkedIn question from Leanne Smith

Short on money? Substitute time. For most  of us small-biz types, marketing is time intensive. So you’d better have a time budget plus a money budget.

Where do you get the biggest bang for your buck? or for your hour? List all the things you do for marketing down one column. Ads, press releases, networking lunches, social media, taking a prospect for coffee, etc. Whatever you spend money or time on related to marketing.
In other columns, list for each of these things:
— How much money you spend on this in a year
— How much time you spend on this in a year (Multiply by what an hour of your time is worth.)
— What results you’ve gotten: contacts, prospects, customers, nibbles, “laters”, etc.
— How much revenue this has brought in over the past year

Now you rate all these things you do, and compare them. What’s paying off? What isn’t? How could you improve the payback from any of these?

I hereby give you permission to STOP DOING THE THINGS THAT DON’T WORK! Networking groups? Yellow page ads? Online directories? Feh.

Do more of what works, and tweak it so it works better.

If your marketing pays off, brings in customers, and boosts your revenue and profit, then you won’t be on such a tight budget.

But beware! Marketing is like a yacht. If you’re around boats, you’ve probably heard people say, “A yacht is a hole in the water that you throw money into!” Marketing is the same way. There’s no end of ways you can spend money on marketing, and most of them don’t pay off.

Business growth dilemma #3: Grow profit while you keep personal touch

Filed under: Growth Management,Overcome growth barriers,Small business myths and dilemmas — Tags: , , — Mike Van Horn @ 12:11 pm

Many businesses lose their personal touch as they grow. This is the classic struggle between “corporate bean counters”—profitable and impersonal, and “mom and pop”–small and happy but poor and hard working.

We know that growth and profitability spring from good systems and procedures. The things you used to make up as you go along, you must now do by the book. Everything you do must make the numbers. Alas, the personal touch that customers love seems threatened.

So how can you retain your personal touch while improving efficiency, productivity—and profitability?

It requires a shift in attitude.

The owner of a retail store said to me, “My employees—and me also—used to resist all these systems and procedures. We wanted to serve each customer in our individual way. But we found that systematizing the routine things allowed us to be more creative and personal with customers. And customers loved the consistency and predictability in our operations.”

Another owner said, “My business is an expression of my soul. So if I wasn’t there all the time, the business suffered. So I was chained to the business. To launch a second location, I had to find a way to ‘bottle my soul’ and train others to run things by my values and standards. And they still have to make their numbers!”

You must turn your viewpoint around, and view systems and procedures as a way to maintain your personal touch rather than overwhelming it.

This is a major theme in my “Top 3 Barriers to Small Business Growth—and how to overcome them” program.

November 26, 2011

Business Growth Myth #3. “I can’t find and keep good people”

Filed under: Employees and Human Resources,Growth Management,Small business myths and dilemmas — Tags: , , — Mike Van Horn @ 4:26 pm

I hear this from both solopreneurs and owners with a handful of employees:
“I can’t find good people to hire.”
“I’ll train a good person; then they quit and become my competitor.”
“I had an employee. It didn’t work out. I’m not hiring anybody else.”
“My work is so unique, only I can do it. Too much trouble trying to train someone else to do it.”
“I can’t rely on my managers to make good decisions.”

What I see. If you fail to get needed help, if you opt to go it alone, if you have people who only follow orders and take no initiative, this guarantees you remain a small operation. This may be what you want, but if you want to grow, you’ve got to overcome this attitude. You must learn to ask:

“What is the highest skilled person I could bring in to free me up to focus on growing the company?”

My recommendations. (From our “Finding and Keeping Good People” and “Employer Assertiveness” ebooks)

— Make sure you hire the right people. If you have trouble interviewing and selecting quality people, get help from someone skilled at this.

— Start with a job description that answers the question just above. Look for, not just work skills and experience, but personal qualities and attitudes as well. For many jobs, the latter are more important.

— Help your people do the job you hired them for: training, clear direction, trust, feedback, systems and tools, acknowledgment.

— Be firm, fair, and consistent with your people. Employees leave because they don’t like their boss!

— It someone is not working out, let them go. Hire slow, fire fast!

— For every job that you think only you can do, look for the pieces that you could hand off to others.

This is a major theme in my “Top 3 Barriers to Small Business Growth—and how to overcome them” program.

 

November 15, 2011

Cost of training when cash is tight

Filed under: Employees and Human Resources,Growth Management,Thrive in tough times — Tags: , — Mike Van Horn @ 12:25 pm

Are training costs an essential part of your budget? Do you allocate funds to training programs even if your revenues are lower than expected? Linked In question by Eric Saint-Guillain

I advise owners of small growing businesses. When their business is small, money is tight, there’s no budget for training. So one of three things happens:
— Training doesn’t happen, productivity suffers, mistakes get more expensive, good people are fired for not doing a job they haven’t had proper training for.
— Training happens ad hoc, but since it’s not budgeted for, the money is drawn from other sources, such as marketing–or profit.
— Training duty is assigned to people who are already working full tilt, so it’s not accorded the importance it deserves, and gets done haphazardly or grudgingly by people whose hearts are not in it.

It’s a “coming of age” marker for a young, growing business when the owner decides to allocate money and time to training, for all levels–workers, managers, and him/herself.

 My comments were aimed at companies with employees, but they are equally true for solopreneurs. As a consultant, I find that I get most of my training via:
— My industry association, Institute for Management Consultants (IMC USA)
— Webinars and other such events
— My clients! I learn a tremendous amount from them.

Here’s my sermon!

Training needs to be viewed as an investment in the increased profitability of the operation. Otherwise, why are you doing it? An owner who is a strategic planner sees training of valuable people in the same light as upgrading and maintaining valuable equipment.

It’s insane not to do it–even if money is tight. If you as executive let operations slide so that you cannot afford to take care of your most productive resources, then you should be fired. If you’re the owner, you’d better learn the lesson well, or you’ll soon be left behind by competitors, and lose everything you’ve put into the business.

Getting Paid for Work for Canadian Client

Filed under: Finances — Tags: , , — Mike Van Horn @ 12:21 pm

How do I bill for my graphic design work for clients outside the U.S.—especially in Canada? LinkedIn question by Priscilla Pike, graphic designer

Specify in your contract:
— You get paid in US dollars
— Disputes will be handled in your jurisdiction

Who owns the work you do? Check the laws in other countries about “work for hire.”

Get paid via your merchant account. Don’t have one? Set it up. It makes out of country receivables so much easier for you. I’m not sure about PayPal outside US.

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