Post #500, a milestone: 50 ways to succeed….what works.

There are approximately 30,000,000. small businesses in this country representing approximately 70% of the jobs. It is what we do. We are a nation of small business owners and employees working in the small business arena. Big business may get the spotlight, but small business is the heartbeat of this country.

What does this mean and what can we learn from this?

Men are born to compete. Small business is were we do it. Unfortunately men tend to do it by themselves, alone without help, guidance, or support, isolated, committed and focused on your daily tasks.

I therefore offer you these guidelines, what I have learned from other business owners as they figure out what works and what doesn’t work.

Here are some of  those ideas  that works that I have learned from my clients.

50 ways to run you business more effectively:

1. Get guidance and direction from other men, your own board of directors. You will do better if you do. You cannot do it as well alone.

2. Numbers are the language of business, learn to use them and understand them, enough with the excuses.

3. Flat management is better then pyramidal organization, divest authority, grant responsibility and nurture leadership. Inspect but delegate.

4. Teams work best, far better then individual efforts, create teams, support them and let them succeed.

5. Key indicators are crucial to tracking, monitoring and thus managing your business succesfully. Use them.

6. Systems are critical for success at every level.  Create them, write them down, use them…No oral legacies.

7. Training is critical, accept this mandate and never stop training your employees. Create a career path based on training.

8. Have a business plan before you start up a new business or buy an existing business and make certain you have a cash flow proforma. If you have not raised enough capital to launch your business, do not launch. Wait, raise more, change your plan or cease the effort.

9. Incentive based reward systems work  very well and increase productivity and success.

10. Quality is king.

11. Be careful not to waste money on ineffective advertising. Test before a full launch.

12. Use a web site and a blog, create relationships. Web 2.0   blogging, video, facebook, tweeter, YouTube. etc.

13. Productivity is the key to profit, monitor it and make certain it is maintained at a very high level. Too much employment is self defeating. Forget the concept of overtime, increase productivity first.

14. Profit over gross revenue.

15. Do not continue in business if you cannot figure out how to earn a profit as well as  take home a paycheck both are necessary.

16. Avoid personal guaranties at all costs.

17. Never allow your wife to sign anything.

18. Protect your home from business debt, there are many ways but the best is to not be in title on your home, or organize your assets effectively.

19. Make certain you always pay your payroll taxes, use a payroll service to force compliance. Cease operations or make drastic changes if you cannot pay them.

20. Repeat business is incredibly important and very valuable.

21. Word of mouth promotion and marketing is the best form of advertising. References and testimonials are supreme.

22. Salespeople should always be compensated by commission.

23. Manage through action, set examples by doing.

24. Appreciate your employees, thank them for their effort and loyalty, support  their mistakes, errors and failed risks, it will pay you back many fold.

25. Quickbooks is most often the answer to effective accounting management systems.

26. Define your market niche and capitalize on it.

27. Ask your employees, customers and vendors how you are doing, take their advice seriously.

28. Leave your ego out of your business decisions.

29. Accept responsibility for your own errors, and reward and recognize the success and achievement of your employees.

30. Successful business is built around high quality employees, find them, keep them, train them,  build around them.

31. Take vacations often.

32. Keep your word…always.

33. Be generous.

34. Have a sales and marketing plan. review it often and make changes when necessary.

35. A successful business is successful because the owner knows how to run a successful business, not because of how good the product or service offered is.

36. Enjoy yourself, laugh, do not take yourself too seriously.

37. Give back, pay forward for those that dug the well for you to drink out of.

38. Debt can be dangerous, manage it effectively.

39. Do  not allow debt to upend your business or personal life, do a workout.

40. As soon as you believe your debt will eventually bury you, do a pre-emptive workout.

41. Any debt can be worked out…any!

42. Always pay your payroll taxes but if you fail to, it too can be worked out.

43. If your revenues have declined, downsize your operation immediately. Excess payroll will kill you quickly and everyone will be out of work.

44. Your banker is the opposition when in default, do not listen to his demands or instructions. Get help.

45. Do not invade your IRA or 401k to pay down debt, no matter what your banker insists you do.

46. Do not hesitate to do a workout because of fear of credit blemishes, it can be rehabilitated.

47. Renegotiate everything, leases, vendor pricing, everything, this recession will last a long long time. Make adjustments now.

48. Re-define your business equation, the economy has changed you must change as well.

49. There are no employee issues, train your employees to be as good as you want them to be.

50. Enjoy your business life, you made the decision to be a small business owner, it can and should be very rewarding. Remember entrepreneurs  are unemployable, you had best make it work.

This is part of what I have learned  from my clients, I expect to learn much more. I thank all my clients for showing me the way to succeed.

Fee structure must be redesigned to adjust for todays economic and business conditions.

Recently many small business owners are finding that a  more creative approach to billing fees works far better then a static  traditional one way fits all approach.

I have found that a flat fee works very well, even in a traditional hourly billing relationship. This allows the client to know exactly what the price will be. Then once established you can finance the fee over time with weekly, monthly or whatever time period makes sense. This is the best of both worlds a fixed price paid over time.

In other situations, when success is measurable a fee can be determined by the degree of success. This is hard to generalize about as different businesses have different metrics and determining your value added service is sometimes a challenge but sometimes clear and obvious. If you can determine the effect of your effort in bottom line dollars bill accordingly, it will work for everyone.

I am not a big fan of hourly fees. but if you must then sell in small units, bite size sections, all adding up to a larger number but with small commitments along the way, affordable and it works for all involved.

Here is another approach, if your fee is a larger fee, and the job is done in a short time, finance your fee split it up over a number of months, as many as required to ease the cash flow burden and get the deal done.

Discounting of course is the bane of all business men these days, as it is very common for tradespeople and other businesses to bill so low there is little or no profit at all, but it gets the job  and the extras ,the change orders, earn the profit. Low ball to get the bid get the job and then live off  the extras it pays for the men… and provides some profit on the extras.

Loss leaders can also do the same. Bringing in the client with unusual offers that are possible even below cost and then earning  repeat business or expanded business.

Give aways and gifts also successful tools for bringing in business and retaining clients. Bartering works under specific circumstances. It is true that under the current economy people are spending less, want quality not quantity and want a good deal. This is a challenging time for every small business owner but with challenge comes opportunity. Figure out how to bill effectively and beat your competition to the punch.

Managers manage systems, systems manage employees.

We say many things about systems. The line I like the best is …managers manage systems, systems manage employees. This really sums it up.

Systems are a guideline telling you how to do the various parts of your job. It is the path to overall success. Presumably if the business plan is on point and if you follow all your systems you will succeed. It is the variations from the theme that destroy success. Not having financial reports because the bookkeeper did  not follow the system to create such reports is fatal. You will find out your broke after the fact.

Not having a comprehensive sales and marketing system destroys a sales program as it gets out of control and the proper procedures are not being done in the proper time.

Not having guidelines for operations prevents orderly production and destroys productivity. These are the barriers that prevent us from reaching our goals and systems are the tools to overcome these barriers.

If you were to break down your company procedures  every business has a financial department, a sales and marketing department and an operations department.

Each department has many tasks to do. In the sales department there are sales calls, sales reports, call backs, new prospecting, new proposals, sales orders, sale service, and on it goes.

If you were to analyze each sub section, each procedure and draft out exactly how you want it done step by step, and provide tracking forms and information storage tools, we would be building a book of systems. The more systems the better. Why?  Business is not about reinventing the wheel each time. It is not about improvising, doing it differently every day, just because. It is about doing it consistently every time the right way. It is about training the employee how you want it done every time. It is about not making things up,   and not doing it incorrectly because you just did  not know how to do it the right way, no one showed you. There was no system in place.

If the systems are written and not dependent upon oral tradition and one employee showing another. You will have the basis of a training manual.

If someone is out or a new person is hired you can make certain the job is done correctly because you have a system to look at.

People get lazy. They skip steps, they fail to keep important information, they take the easier path and you only find this out when something goes wrong  because you either had no system or it was not written down and thus not followed accurately.

You are frequently adding systems as you go when you develop a new business. But do you design the system carefully and draft it out step by step, infrequently?

This is not about removing creativity or innovation, were it does not belong. Systems support innovation and creativity in the proper place at the proper time, adjustments to the system can be made based on experience and trial and error, as long as you have a foundation to grow upon successfully and innovate productively, a system.

Systems also allow managers to manage successfully by tracking the systems. You have common benchmarks, reports and procedures so you can tell what your employees are doing and if they are doing it correctly, systems manage people… managers manage systems. How true.

So how can you get the right reports as often as we should, it is a system in place. Your salespeople call your customers on time and as dictated  by the system. They of course can vary from the theme as long as they follow the system at a minimum.

Evaluate your business and start having your employees draft out the systems they follow, you will learn an enormous amount about how your business is being run, and most likely it will not be as you want it as a business without systems is a free for all, a gang of people going in different directions doing the best they can the best they think they should be doing. It is as if they were walking through the woods without a compass or a map. You will never get to your destination…on time or as successfully as you could..there is no map.

This will increase productivity, make employees happier as then they will no what is expected and how to do their job.

Boring, hell no, exciting…finally you will gain control over your business and employees and sop being a baby sitter.

Systems, the real difference between victory and failure.

Small Business Owners are not talking about their financial problems. It is time to come out of the closet and get debt forgiveness help.

I have often wondered why business owners are so reluctant to admit they are in financial difficulty.  We at Second Wind do a remarkable job and literally save hundreds of businesses, the business owners homes and possibly even their family structure as the stress of total economic wipe out results in many destroyed families. Yet they take their bullet quietly and go down with hardly a whimper, alone. It is unnecessary.

We are winning the war…one business at a time…but far too many businesses are failing, losing their war and we could help them.

We looked into this and found out that business men would prefer to talk about their impotence then disclose their business failures and economic meltdown. No one wants to discuss this matter even with their best friends, thus few know their best friends  business issues or their financial decay that they are experiencing as men keep a stiff upper lip, face their battles alone and fight their wars with little fanfare, help or discussion, especially with their friends and quietly face self destruction. Not that this economy is anyone’s fault, it isn’t, but the resolution is your own responsibility, survival is your own responsibility, your family and your employees are depending upon you to figure it out.

You must ask for help. You cannot do it alone. You must talk to your friends and show them the way…to us.

It’s time to come out of the closet. It’s time to spread the word, it’s time to help those who do not know. There is a small business bail out plan that works as well as handing out billions of dollars to business owners who are upside down…debt relief, our plan. But you must step forward ask for help and accept the answers we can provide as we offer a second chance without the bone crushing debt you are trying to absorb and will ultimately fail trying. No bankruptcies, no legal process, simple business strategies that work very well.

This  silent suffering and failure must stop. It’s not about being a bleeding heart, it’s more about helping another businessman survive or helping yourself survive. We are a unique resource, one of a very few businesses who aim their services at the small business market and we can only help those that step forward and identify their issues. Our track record is incredible, our strategies are unique and work extremely well. We have saved hundreds of businesses from failure and liquidation.

Tell your friends our story,  tell us your story. You or your friends may need our help and no one is talking about this as everyone want to remain private and appear to be successful.

I get it, men do not complain, and do not share their financial condition with others, but now is not the time for this, talk to us, talk to each other  let us help you get the help you need.

Bankers are demanding defaulting borrowers liquidate their IRA’s and 401K’s to pay down debt?? Outrageous!

Are there no limits at all? Is it really only all about collecting… no matter what, no matter how? Is it ok for a bank to demand that a borrower empty his protected IRA or 401K to pay down the debt owed to a bank? NO it is not OK. It is dead wrong!

I am hearing this more and more, bankers making demands that borrowers do just that empty their protected retirement accounts to pay down bank debt with the bank demanding this occur or will not support an offer in compromise for SBA guaranteed loans.

Does the SBA know this is happening?

Are they supporting this outrageous over reaching? I say they must know as the bank is their agent and the banks disclose most every collection effort they make to the SBA and thus I believe the SBA is quietly condoning this excessive practice all in the name of collecting a few more dollars.

Congress put these accounts out of reach of the collection agencies and the legal process. They cannot be penetrated for debt collection.  Congress deemed these account more important to protect then the creditors claims for repayment are and thus these accounts are PROTECTED.

Or are they?

If banks are permitted to demand that borrowers liquidate these accounts for the benefit of the bank and refuse to cooperate with restructuring, modifying or refuse to process an SBA Offer in Compromise unless the borrower unloads the protected retirement  account, I say this is outrageous and tantamount to breaking the law Congress prescribed to protect these accounts. The bankers have too much power for borrowers to resist their demands. It is not fair or right.

DEMANDING LIQUIDATION OF PROTECTED RETIREMENT ACCOUNTS, WHILE NOT ENFORCEABLE, CARRIES SO MUCH WEIGHT WITH THE DEFAULTING BORROWER THAT IT MUST BE CONSIDERED AN ILLEGAL TAKING OF PROTECTED PROPERTY.

Denying the borrower access to an Offer in Compromise procedure unless the borrower first empties his IRA is not a requirement of the SBA and is an example of  unacceptable behavior of a banker gone amok…but it happens and I see it more and more as bankers get more and more desperate to collect from defaulting borrowers.

Does a banker believe his defaulting borrowers IRA is exempt from this congressional protection? Jut because a borrower has the right to say No yet succumbs to the bank pressure and “voluntarily” liquidates his or her retirement account in order to satisfy a bank demand is a reasonable interpretation of protected property?

This is wrong wrong wrong. People are intimidated by their banks demands. They are powerless to resist such orders, and bankers must not use their power to circumvent the law and pretend it was a voluntary act by the borrower. No where does it say it is OK for a banker to demand liquidation of an IRA before he will permit a submission to the SBA for consideration.

What ever happened to the banks fiduciary responsibility to the borrower? Did that go out the window when the loan was defaulted?

Shame on the SBA for allowing this to happen

Shame on the baker for being such a scoundrel.

Stop this bad behavior. There are limits as to what is acceptable standards, or do banks simply have no standards at all.