Photo (CC) by Randy Adams, on Flickr

Want to improve the operation of your business? One simple tip is to listen to and watch what other business owners are doing.

This simple piece of advice can save you a great deal of time, effort and money. It can help you from going down a path that others have tried and found unsuccessful.

This is not to say that you follow everything you see or hear. The other owner might be on a wrong path as well. Or the path that person is taking may fit with what you are trying to accomplish in your business plan. Or the path may be one that was trending in the past but now there is something that works even better.

Yet, there are gems of information to be mined from the thoughts and ideas of others.

Recently I had the opportunity to ask some business owners to give me one piece of advice they would offer to a business owner. Some of the responses I got were:

• The customer may not always be right but they are always the customer
• Need to be knowledgeable about your products and excited
• Be sincere
• Smile and be interested in their needs so you can meet them
• Connect with your customer
• Listen to your customer
• Listen to what customers actually want and not what you think they want
• Be personable and genuine
• Have samples – food, candle aromas, sprays
• Identify what makes you unique
• Positive attitude
• Create engaging displays
• Greet each customer with eye contact and a smile
• Love your product

Notice the similarity among the answers. Several talk about listening to and understanding the customer. The first tip, “the customer may not always be right but they are always the customer” is a good reminder that you want people to keep coming back. Thus it might be in your best interest to give a little even when you don’t feel you should. Think about the lifetime value of the customer. It often isn’t a one time purchase they are making. Plus happy customers become your ambassadors. That one person might become your greatest marketing asset.

A summary of these tips would also encourage you to be friendly, knowledgeable, and upbeat. We all have bad days but you need to learn how to not let it affect your interactions with the customers. Plus you also see several comments about having effective visual displays and engaging marketing, your silent salesperson.

One great thing about learning from others is how it fits perfectly with building your networks. Asking people for one or two tips gets them talking and helps you begin a relationship.

Another plus with this type of learning is the cost is little or nothing except for your time. And wanting to learn also encourages you to attend some of the networking opportunities that you might otherwise pass on.

One final note to offer is to remember to be prepared to also be willing to share your own tips and ideas. This deepens a relationship such that future conversations become deeper and offer even more in-depth ideas.

Bottom line – When looking for advice on how to improve your business, learn from the experts, those business owners just like you.

Photo (CC BY-SA 2.0) by Anna J. Lenabem, on Flickr

Well, here we are at the end of one year and the beginning of another. Welcome, 2016!

For many people, this is the day we make resolutions for the upcoming year. Often these hopes are for something in our personal life.

Do you also take time to make resolutions for managing your business? And for those of you who are still thinking about going into business, do you outline one or two steps that will help you come closer to achieving your dream? I would encourage you to do that along with your personal resolutions. These two types of resolutions may fit well together.

So let’s talk about making resolutions.

Of the people who make resolutions, only about eight percent actually follow-through. This low success rate can be attributed to many reasons but, at the core, understand we are creatures of habit. If we haven’t been taking steps towards this goal already, it is hard to break that habit and now take steps forward.

How can you improve those odds? Let me suggest a few ideas:

• Write it down. And then put it someplace you will see it every day. Our minds are full of keeping our daily life in order. Without a visual reminder, it gets easy to push our desire into a corner and then forget about it.
• Tell others. Writing it down is good. Having others know about your plans and be there for support increases your chances of success. Start by telling family and friends.
• Do some up-front thinking. Your goal may require several intermediate steps. Quite often we make the resolution without thinking of the “how.”  Your big idea will probably need to be broken down into several smaller chunks.
• Get a partner, mentor, coach, or what-ever you want to call the person who will keep you on task. That person can encourage, remind, and offer ideas on how you can move forward.
• Limit the list. Don’t plan on making ten or even five changes at once. Remember, this is changing our behavior and it won’t come easy. One or two changes, at most, offer you the best chances for success.
• Plan on hitting a hurdle. You will find yourself going off-track. That’s okay.  Know that the odds of this happening are high and put pieces into place to help you get back on track. This is where your support person/team, family and friends can help.
• Celebrate milestones. Don’t aim for one big party at the end. This is where chunking the task can give you some natural milestones. However, even chunking might not give you enough reinforcement points. Maybe you want to build your business network but find it hard to meet new people. Challenge yourself to add 12 new people to your network during the year, one per month. When you find that first contact, tell your support person/team. Tell them you want to meet for a cup of coffee and tell them how this new person can help your business. You might even invite your new network friend to the meeting as well.

Making changes in our business and in our personal lives takes work. That work starts with a resolution to do so.

What’s your resolution for 2016?

Good luck. 

For more statistics on New Year’s resolutions, go to: http://www.statisticbrain.com/new-years-resolution-statistics/

Photo (CC) by Lauren, on Flickr

A common assumption among people wanting to start a business is that coming up with the idea is the hardest part.

When you talk with people already in business, though, they often comment that the business idea was the easiest step to take. Small-business owners mention that they didn’t realize how hard it would be to move from the idea stage to opening the doors.

As you go through your daily life, you see lots of new ideas every day. The hard part is knowing which ideas really are opportunities, then examining and understanding the opportunities that match your passion and offer the greatest return in whatever terms you wish to measure it.

The extremely small number of ideas that turn into successful businesses is a good indication of just how tough that can be.

One indication of the difficulty is seen in the commercial success of patents. The number of patents that are filed keeps ramping up, with well in excess of 100,000 U.S patent applications made each year. Yet only a very small portion, some say as little as one-tenth of 1 percent, ever will achieve any type of success.

The first hurdle for an idea is that it must solve a problem. That makes sense, but it goes beyond this. The problem must be one that a large enough group of people have and are looking for a solution.

In working on this hurdle, examine the marketplace. What solutions already exist? You might be surprised. What changes are these companies making to better serve the customer? Finally, what can you find about new ideas and new players coming out with even more potential solutions?

Just working through this first step of market analysis for your idea creates the setting for a second hurdle for many business owners. This second hurdle is knowing your own passion or determination to see your idea through every step of the process. Are you committed to spending a great deal of time and some money, and enduring lots of frustrations in moving your idea forward?

The dream of moving from an idea to making millions overnight is just a myth. Think instead in terms of years, and temper your idea of riches into being able to go out to lunch.

‘Build it and they will come’ is just another myth. Marketing is not easy, and your idea is just one of many trying to get the consumer’s attention.

Finally, be prepared to change and modify the idea as you get feedback. Plan on developing several prototypes before going to market.

Also be prepared for changing who might be the target market for your idea, and be ready to pivot as the world around you changes. Finally, be willing to drop the idea if things just don’t work out or you see a better idea coming your way.

Getting an idea is the first step. Now get ready to take more as you work to open the doors of your new business.

Small Business or Entrepreneurs

If you look back through various writings, these two terms, entrepreneur and small business owner, were once considered the same thing. Yet today business schools and economic/community developers often view them differently. More often the focus is on entrepreneurial development with fewer programs having “small business” in the title.

Yet one often wonders are they different and, if so, do they indeed provide different returns to a community?

Entrepreneurs, by definition, are viewed more as planners and innovators with a higher achievement motivation and a greater tolerance for risk. Small business owners, on the other hand, are viewed as focused more on life-style and oriented towards slower growth. So from that basic outline, one might argue that indeed entrepreneurship growth should be a goal for economic development.

Looking at what has been written about the topic does not clear up the picture. At one time everyone was considered a small business owner. Consider the U.S. Small Business Administration or look at census data. The number of entrepreneurs aren’t counted; instead it is the number of small businesses. There are many reasons for that with trying to distinguish the two just one of the issues. Yet recent writings show a definite growth in interest in entrepreneurship development.

Yet it usually isn’t just an either/or situation. For example, where each business is in its growth pattern must be considered. Few businesses begin with what we have come to view as the entrepreneurial model – rapid growth in terms of employees, revenue (but not always), and visibility. Instead, those measures happen somewhere after launch but often in the somewhat early stages. But not all businesses, actually most of them, will not ever hit that period. They may grow but often it is in a slower, steady pattern versus the explosive growth period.

But back to the question of what type of business development programs should a community looking towards the future have in place?

Based on some preliminary work a colleague and I have done, we might suggest a community needs to support both equally. Our work looked at the same businesses over a 10-year period.

Our work noted that it is possible to distinguish between the two groups. And, at the beginning, entrepreneurs had greater revenue and more employees. Yet, our study just happened to coincide with the beginning of the recent recession, at the end of ten years small business owners were substantially less affected than were those we labeled entrepreneurs. Revenue grew slightly and the number of people employed remained stable.

So what does this mean in terms of a community’s economic development activities?

My basic recommendation would be to leave no one out. I say that for two reasons. First as already noted, nothing can predict who the next rapid growth firm, or gazelle, will be. Second, small businesses provide stability to the economy meaning a smoother growth pattern overall.

There are lots of other reasons why supporting all business growth just makes sense for a community. The key though is that communities get programs in place and ensure the programs keep going.

Growing a business does not happen with only one infusion of information. Businesses happen with constant learning, mentorship, and community support.