10 Lessons Remain Timeless For Small Businesses
Statesman Journal:
1. Anyone who can take a shower can have a good idea. What matters is what happens after you towel off. Your ideas are only as good as your follow-through! All us have great ideas. You need to develop a strategic plan for capturing your idea for immediate and future implementation.
2. The No. 1 killer of small business is loneliness. Get out of the office! Visit your competitors. Talk with your peers. Join your chamber. Become a member of Opportunity Knocks.
3. Profits are what you pay taxes on, cash is what you take home. First learn how to track it – then how to forecast it. There is a dramatic difference between the money that flows through your business and the profitability of operations. Learn to manage by the numbers, track trends and modify by what you learn.
4. Nothing happens until the sale is made. Celebrate the customer. It often is tempting to fall in love with what we do and forget what our customers love. Keep operational and strategic planning focused on your customer.
5. Marketing. First you have to know what it is. Develop a marketing plan. There is a lot more to marketing than advertising. There is more to advertising than buying an ad. There is more to buying an ad than paying the bill. Plan you efforts.
6. Teams mean leverage. You cannot do it alone. Consider your attorney, accountant, insurance agent, banker and financial planner as part of your ‘outside management team.’ Consider your peers and your colleagues as valuable sources of information. Work with them. Find a team environment that answers your needs.
7. Employees are from Pluto, employers are from Saturn. You must first understand employees before you can manage them. Not much more needs to be said. There are motivation, reward and loyalty issues that are only yours if your employees are willing to give.
8. The day you hire your first employee is the day you begin to make the transition to manager. Take you own skill inventory. What do you like to do? What will you delegate? What are you good at?
9. Growing or dying – there is no in-between. If your business isn’t growing, it needs a strategic change. And if you aren’t managing by the numbers, you won’t know where you are.
10. The No. 1 common characteristic of successful business owners is the desire to learn. You must grow at the same (or faster) rate as your company. Don’t neglect your own professional development.
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