Women Owned Business - Small Business Connection

Six Start-Up Tips Every Business Needs By Michael Potter, J.D.

Every business deserves a chance to succeed. But after deciding to open a business, it can be a daunting task to develop, organize and present your products or services without the right resources to help you on your way. But where to begin? Perhaps this checklist will help you.

#1: BUILD YOUR BUSINESS ‘BRAND’ FROM THE VERY ‘GET-GO’.

Your business identity deserves careful thought. The name of your business should convey an immediate sense of what you offer your customer. You’ll want a name that’s easy to remember but not so ‘cute’ that it leaves the impress you are serious about your business.

When you come up with your first choice, do a domain name check and also a trademark check to make sure it’s an original name and that you’re not infringing on the legal rights of someone else who’s already an existing provider and who got there ahead of you.

Having a second or third choice also make sense. After all, if your first choice of business name is already taken, you’ll need to abandon it in favor of another. Brainstorm the names you like with a few other people who are bright and imaginative. Sometimes a twist on the first or second choice names might be the best in the marketplace.

#2: BUILD A WEB PRESENCE THAT CONVEYS YOUR VISION

Build awareness of the existing of your business starting with the World Wide Web. The virtual world is very real, and today most savvy consumers will start looking for you on the Internet before they ever pick up the yellow pages. Of course, that assumes they initiate the idea of doing business with you in the first place.

Most consumers will not be that pro-active. They begin searching for a suitable provider only when they become aware of the ‘need’ you fill. So your web presence must address that from the start.

Too many business enterprises overwhelm their customers with so much information that it’s easy for the customer to get sidetracked. So keep your website clutter-free. Use imagination and simplicity so that your customers enjoy the experience of visiting your site and that makes it easier for them to refer other potential customers as well.

#3: IDENTIFY YOUR CUSTOMER CHARACTERISTICS

You’d be surprised how many business owners think of their customers as some kind of faceless mass of humanity. The most successful business enterprise develop a composite of who their ‘ideal’ customer is, and they plan their entire marketing approach to that ideal customer.

But remember too that it’s rare to daily encounter the perfect or ideal customer. A friend of mine used to tell me that sometimes the maidens have to kiss a lot of frogs to find the prince. If you develop a customer profile as a composite of many customers, you’ll have more flexibility to meet the needs of real people.

#4: ORGANIZE YOUR BUSINESS ENTITY

The most common form of business ownership today is the Sole Proprietor. We typically see that in the brand-new ‘mom and pop’ small business owner who simply gets some business cards, obtains a business license, opens a business checking account and simply ‘opens shop’.

In a Sole Proprietorship you and the business are one-and-the-same. That is, your business does not have a separate legal identity from you - and therefore you are personally and completely exposed to all the risks. On the other hand, operating as a corporation or limited liability company can help to manage and better yet minimize those legal risks.

At my workshops around the country, I discuss the difference in a way that’s down-to-earth and understandable. For example, the use of a corporation makes sense if you intend to have the business continue in perpetuity after your death or if you wish to ‘go public’ (i.e. sell stock in the Stock Exchange). If you intend to ’stay private’ (which makes sense for most people) a limited liability company (’LLC’) probably makes sense.

The LLC is by far easier to maintain and manage. It has fewer formality requirements and the trend today in the United States is towards the registration of more LLCs than corporations every year. Given the statistics, I believe that trend will maintain itself and continue over the next several years.

#5: ESTABLISH A STRONG BUSINESS PLAN

It’s surprising but even today, many people still think that developing a strong and dynamic Business Plan is a mostly-academic exercise that has little practical place in the market today. But nothing could be farther from the truth.

A well-crafted Business Plan should be the bedrock foundation of your business. It encompasses your vision, your message, your organization, your marketing, and even your financing. Without a written and specific Business Plan, a capital loan application has little credibility. However, with a Business Plan that is specific and well thought out, lenders have a much better picture of what you have in mind, and frankly, so do you.

You see, most business owners get what I like to call ‘Widgetitis’ - meaning that they get caught up in their widget concept and get so involved in its development that they ‘underwhelm’ potential Lenders when it’s time for the financing to get the business along its path.

#6: WHAT ABOUT AN OFFICE?

Depending on the size and needs of your business, you may want to begin with a Home-Based Business. That means that your personal residence may become what the IRS calls your ‘principal place of business’. In such a case, you can legitimately take deductions for the business portion use of your home. If you identify a specific portion of your home as your working space, then treat that area as you would any other business space. That means having your primary work area there.

Set it up with your computer, internet connection, a fax machine, a dedicated business telephone line, answering service, office supplies and everything else you need to do business. It may require more than one area. For example, you might have inventory that is stored in a specific room or a portion of your garage or even another physical structure on your property.

If you are self-employed, you may be able to deduct certain expenses for the part of your home that you use for business. The use of that portion of your home you wish to deduct must be exclusively business.

If the area (such as a bedroom converted to office use) is not exclusively used for business, the deduction won’t pass muster. However if this area of the home is where your most important business activities occur on a regular basis, and where you spend most of your time doing business, then you are most likely entitled to the deduction. As it says in the One-Minute Tax Coach, if your home-based business in indeed your ‘principal place of business’ then deductible expenses for the business use of your home may include the business portion of your real estate taxes, deductible mortgage interest, rent, casualty losses, related utilities (such as phone and electricity), business or property insurance, property depreciation, business related maintenance and business related repairs. You can’t generally deduct expenses for lawn care or painting a room that’s not used for business.

Documentation is the name of the game so that you can legitimately defend your deductions if need be. It’s surprising how many people overlook deductions they’re legitimately entitled to take, and how many people fail to claim home-based business deductions out of unreasonable wariness born out of fear of the unknown.

When figuring the business-related amount you can deduct use the dollar amount of expenses attributable solely to the portion of the home used in the business. The amount you’ll be able to deduct for expenses attributable to the whole house depends entirely on the percentage of your home used for business. The easiest way to figure this percentage, is to divide the number of square feet used exclusively for business by the total square feet in your home.

Another way to go is based on the number of rooms. For example, if all the rooms are approximately the same size, you can divide the number of rooms used for business by the total number of rooms in your home. Then, you can calculate the business portion of your expenses by applying this same percentage to the total expense.

Also, remember that if your gross income from the business use of your home is less than your annual total business expenses, then your deduction for outgoing expenses for the business use of your home (other than mortgage interest, taxes, casualty losses, etc.) is limited. However, those same business expenses that can’t be deducted because of the gross income limitation can indeed be ‘carried forward’ to the next year subject to the deduction limit for that particular year.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michael Potter, Esq. is also known as the One-Minute Tax Coach. His multi-media workshops for business owners and private investors provide an inter-active mix of humor, imagination, inspiration and practical knowledge that every business owner and investor needs. Michael is on a mission to help 100,000 entrepreneurs achieve their dreams. See http://www.OneMinuteTaxCoach.com or http://www.WealthAdvisors.Net

Note from Tammy:  I just spent the week studying Michael Gerber’s E-Myth Revisited.  Have you read it?  The impact on your business?  Where are you in your business - just starting out?  still planning to start or struggling to get into the black?  Let’s talk.  I will be creating a series based on the concepts in the E- myth books.  You can learn more at E-Myth Worldwide

It’s A Shame For You Not To Make Money - When Some Entreprenuers Do It So Easily  By Kim Schott  “Are you ever afraid of speaking to prospects?” I am often asked this question in my Client Attraction coaching sessions.

My response has always been that if you can’t seem to let the fear go, then just feel the fear, and go get help from your team. You’ve heard the saying “There are no self-made millionaires, there are team made millionaires.”

Successful people feel the fear too, and they seek the guidance from their alliances or team members so that the risk is reduced. That’s been my experience. When I feel myself getting stopped, I just grab my cell phone and call my business mentors who just so happen to be millionaires themselves. Through trial and error, I have found that limiting fears or beliefs don’t have a chance against me.

So let me ask you this, do you often stop your sales and marketing because of anxiety, and didn’t know where it was coming from? Have you experienced a fear of success, fear of rejection or a fear of failure? I don’t think I know anyone who’s not experienced some form of fear of rejection when marketing themselves, especially to a different gender, or a different culture.

I think it’s inherent in many of us. Problem is, it holds us back from doing what it takes to follow up with prospects and to get clients. And we need to tame that fear in order to consistantly fill your practice to capacity and make this year the most prosperous year yet.

What does fear do? Well, fear keeps people from closing the sale, from writing that book, from asking for testimonials, from collaborating with strategic alliances. You’ve heard me say this before: if you don’t market today, you won’t have clients in three months. Then your small business has really become just a hobby.

Now, my mentors tell me that there’s more to getting clients than just the outer game of marketing. There’s also an inner game of your mindset and beliefs, your paradigms. If you don’t deal with the paradigms, then you’ll keep making the same money you’ve been making for years to come. Now I prefer to take more time off, while attracting more clients and makeing more money. Why would I want to work 50+ hours a week on my own business, when I can do that at a corporate job?

So, I went on a search by talking to self-employed (6 and 7 figure) champions to find out how they became masters of their emotions.

Here is what I’ve found… most business coaches and motivational speakers would lead you to believe that success or failure in your business is totally dependent upon your goals. While goals are essential and a person cannot be truly successful without them, there are many people who have goals and still do not have enough clients to fill their practice. The goal was never the problem. Their motivation is where the real problem lies. Unfortunately, this concept is only understood by two or three people out of 100.

Having a better understanding of your Motivational Gap, the gap between your vision and your business reality, is the key to financial freedom and will guide you down the right road towards your ideal clients.

I’ve broken down the Motivational Gap into a series of steps, so that when done in sequence, it will help you eliminate the fears that hold you back from marketing with local and global clients in a big wildly wealthy way. Here’s what you do:

1. What truly motivates you? Think of a client situation where you were highly motivated and would have been an excellent role model for others to emulate.

2. Describe the ideal vision of what you want your business to look like, and the revenue results you want in your business.

3. Describe where your business is now.

The gap between where you are versus where you want to be is what creates the motivation. Goals that are too small create very low or no motivation and yet goals that are too big seem impossible, thereby making it difficult to create any energy. To reach your client and revenue goals, you need to be motivated by the gap!

Do the exercie above immediately. Take an afternoon, and really work through what motivates you. Soon, you’ll notice that you will start attracting more clients than before, taking advantage of opportunities, doing joint ventures, and getting better results in marketing. That immediately equals more results, and in my experience, financial freedom and being able to live the life you really want.

Kim Schott, your Global Client Communication Expert, is the author of the Keys to Client Communication System, the step-by-step, paint by numbers client attraction program to attract more clients in less time. To receive your weekly how-to articles on consistantly attracting more local and global clients in less time, visit http://www.SchottCulturalConsulting.com

Gorilla vs Guerilla - How Smaller Businesses Can Win By Jim Estill

We make our living as guerillas – not the bad kind, but more of a freedom fighter. By using the term ‘guerilla’ I mean EMJ fights for business against big gorillas (other distributors) in the field. Our competitors are almost 100 times our size; EMJ is a Canadian-based, $165 million per year distributor. We have made an operating profit for the past 80 consecutive quarters. So even though we are up against the big gorillas as a distributor, we must be doing something right.

If you are in a business where some of the competitors are much larger, you may be able to benefit from using guerilla tactics. The principles of running a guerrilla organization differ from running a gorilla organization. As a guerrilla, we hide from our competitor; we do not try to crush them. I even go so far as to examine what they do well and let them do it. At the same time, I look for under-serviced markets and get to these markets fast.

A gorilla takes all competitors head on, trying to crush the competition. Sometimes this takes the form of a price war. Sometimes it takes major prolonged, drawn-out investment. This works as long as you are the same size, or larger than the competition. Even then, such a long battle can sap power and ultimately profits.

Companies that die often believe they were gorillas. It is certain death for a business to fight gorillas unless they can withstand the siege. Any time we hire someone with a gorilla-company background, we watch and coach that person to make sure they are indoctrinated with the appropriate tactics. We have to make sure they understand out business model.

My 8 favorite guerilla tactics are:

1 – Act fast. I use my company’s size for my advantage. I can act lightning fast. In the computer business, this is a huge asset. Things change so rapidly that moving fast and being first to market is a huge advantage. Larger companies do not react quickly. Develop a reputation for being first – it gets the attention of customers.

2 – Welcome smaller opportunities. Gorillas tend to say ‘no’ to manufacturers who don’t think they can do significant volume with. But a small opportunity rejected by a gorilla can be a very profitable opportunity for a guerilla. For EMJ, a million dollar per product line is an opportunity big enough to get the attention of my first string. In your business, look for the right-sized opportunity for you. Frequently, it is the smaller opportunity that has the best promise. The gorillas will leave you alone. There is always a right-sized opportunity for a company of any size. Knowing your rightful place in the market can help you to thrive.

3 – Get focused. Higher focus means we know more, stock more, and sell more product of fewer manufacturers. The smaller our product listing, the more powerful we become. We know a lot about a little. That means we know the products we sell better than a gorilla, and we become a sales tool for the reseller, not just an order-taker. Could you become more focused and specialized in a business area by giving up on a part of your business?

4 – Be more flexible. We can adapt more easily to our customers and suppliers. We try not to be ruled by policy. The bigger a company gets, the more likely they are to have policy and some of it is required. As a small distributor, we can be more flexible. Are there areas that your competition is ignoring that by being more entrepreneurial, you can capitalize on?

5 – Be smarter. This sounds too simple, almost embarrassing to write. Since we are smaller, we can look at the business we do more carefully and make sure it makes good business sense. We don’t pick up another manufacturer just to increase the size of our line card. That’s just not good business sense for us. That’s the way we have to think – and so should you.

6 – Lower your overhead. For some reason, most companies seem to choose more expensive offices and furnishings as they grow. This expectation tends to increase costs in all areas of the company that distribution, at current margin levels, can ill afford. At EMJ, we buy quality used furniture. We are on the outskirts of Guelph where the cost of land and taxes is less. Our capital base is even high enough that our cost of capital is less than some of the gorillas. Are there areas that you can be lower overhead than the gorillas in your field? Costs always add up on the bottom line.

7 – Foster staff loyalty  One major advantage guerillas have over gorillas is the ability to attract, motivate, and keep good people. Primarily this is because guerillas can be more flexible, easier to work for and give people more of a sense of accomplishment because what they do contributes more directly the company’s bottom line. I have always found there to be great power by being smaller and treating my people with respect and not just as numbers. Gorillas can try to do this but it is tough for them to copy you.

8 – Just BE a gorilla. We like to enter market areas that we can dominate and specialize in. We may not be the biggest but in certain specific niches, we dominate. As long as we are the biggest in an area, we can act the part. We can under-price and over-service the competition forever. Anyone who enters our markets learns that it is expensive and often impossible to unseat us.

9 – Be personal. One thing a smaller organization can do is to be more personal. People buy from people. You can foster relationships that will help you sell. Part of the way we are personal is by showing our customers what markets and products ARE profitable. There is nothing that cements a customer relationship better than making them money, because you’ll be making money for them AND for you!

10 – Be opportunistic  To sum up guerilla strategy is simply to be opportunistic. Take advantage of opportunities that the gorillas cannot do. There are many companies that remain profitable by being opportunistic.

In summary, unless you are huge – think guerilla. Appropriate guerilla tactics for your size will win any battle.

Jim Estill started EMJ Data a wholesaler of computers from the trunk of his car and grew it to $375,000,000 in sales before selling it to SYNNEX where he is now CEO of SYNNEX Canada a Billion dollar distributor. he is a regular blogger at http://jimestill.blogspot.com.

Brian Tracy - Outselling Your Competition + Bonus CDs!