When we start off in business, we often do so because we have a great strength. Whether, you’re a terrific salesperson or an intrepid designer, your strength is the vehicle to make you money. Unfortunately, it only takes about a week into your business when you realize what you do poorly. This can be customer relations, accounting, or…well, practically anything and everything that can go wrong when it comes to running a bootstrapped business. So what do you do? You only have so much time and effort, so do you build on strengths or fix weaknesses?
A little perspective: Almost everybody will always focus on their weaknesses instead of their strengths. This is true on a large scale too. There are 40,000 clinical studies on depression, but less than 400 on joy. Think back to being a kid—did your parents give you as much praise for your A+ in school as they did scolding for your C-? Probably not. Overall, weaknesses are seen not as areas we are lacking, but as Achilles Heels that are bound to destroy us and our business in the future.
But this isn’t the case. In fact, our weaknesses are areas where we need to work with over time. Just because we don’t do something well at this very moment, doesn’t mean we can’t become very skilled at it in the future. Instead of looking at these spots as weaknesses, plan for more time or do a little more reading in these areas, but most importantly accept that you are going to need do some extra work as a matter of course. Many weak areas can also be aided by special learning software and assistance from others in order to bolster your business until you can get up to the appropriate standards. But remember—a weakness worked at doesn’t become a strength.
Moreover, your weaknesses don’t generate income, your strengths do. So accept your weaknesses—outsource the work, find tools to help you, or spend a little more time on these areas—but build on your strengths because they are what will make or break your business in the long run. As your business becomes more successful because of these strengths, you’ll be able to hand off more of your weaknesses to other people. Thus, the damages your weaknesses do may only be short term, but the benefits of your strengths will define your future success.
Let’s face it—the economy is doing really bad right now. It may not require soup lines, but everyone is feeling the pressure weigh down on them. Wages are going down while expenses are going up, and worst of all as the value of cash lowers, bills start to pile up. This has meant a huge increase in the number of bills being left unpaid. With everything so tight to begin with, creditors and businesses are in a tough spot. They need their bills paid on time because they themselves don’t have much spare cash lying around. This has led to repossessions and canceled accounts for many people because of the apparent necessity to keep payers in line.
However, this isn’t the only choice businesses have. Yes, of course, bills need to be paid just for your business to stay alive, but a single paid bill isn’t as valuable as a customer that will keep returning to you again and again. Even in an economy where businesses may be hanging on from month to month, companies still need to look down the road and think about ways to maintain a strong customer base even in rough times. Moreover, as the economy will eventually begin to turn, the few customers you do have will be ready to spend more once the financial situation improves.
Does this mean not having your customers pay bills? Naturally, this will make them very happy, but it will put you out of business. No, customers still have to pay bills, but leniency should be exercised when it comes to late payments. Severely penalizing customers when they are delinquent for a couple months only trims them of extra cash they might have spent at your business. Now it may appear to be money either way, but it’s probably a definite that your customers won’t be coming back if you give them huge late fees for delinquent payments.
In a slow economy customers are always looking for the best deal. One way to still maintain your prices and offer a competitive edge is to offer a more lenient pay schedule. Doing so keeps your position exactly the same as before the down turn without doing much more than improving your customer relations. Additionally, consider that your customers are often in the same position as your business is—they have income and expenses that don’t always time up exactly. So, just because a customer can’t pay immediately, doesn’t mean they won’t have the money in the future.
Word of mouth is very important—good customer relations spreads the word about your business and can draw other customers from other businesses. You may take a wash for a couple months, but if this turns around and puts more people at your door, it will definitely pay off just like any investment.
Simply put—putting your customers out of business puts you out of business. Remember, your customers are not ATMs, simply distributing cash as you need it. Instead, they are people with memories and will develop loyalty to a company that shows them leniency; especially in a tough time. They may miss a bill every once and a while, but if you let it slide in this tough climate, your customers will be paying your bills for years to come.
Most successful entrepreneurs have a list of mentors and books that they have on hand acting as mantra for how we conduct and innovate our businesses. By being lucky enough to be one of those crazy work from home guys I find the discussions that I get going in my head from a good article or a book is needed to keep me sharp and often takes on the role of those old debates I used to get into with co-workers (Well that is the crazy shit I tell myself so I don’t attract attention to when I wander around my house in my robe yelling at myself).
Here is Part 1 of the books that always keep me challenged and pushing forward in my life and business even while wandering in my robe.
Trust your gut, the research is done and proven!
The Kolbe Concept and Kathy Kolbe’s work are both mind bending and life altering. These three books are a bit older now but they make no less of an impact now then they did when they were released.
When I was still working in a corporate environment doing marketing for a recruiting and coaching company I was introduced to the Kolbe A index. A test that validates our instincts and studies the Conative part of our brain. Kolbe Wisdom says that if we are free to be ourselves and faced with a task each of us will use a path of least resistance perfectly matched for ourselves to get to an outcome.
When I took the Kolbe A index and got my results it was one of the most liberating days of my entire life and gave permission to be who I am. I have long been branded on the ADD and ADHD scale but I and many other entrepreneurs will be happy to know that Kathy’s work attacks that the whole notion of this head on.
The impact of this work has been so great that I headed to Phoenix a few years ago to become a Kolbe Certified Consultant so I would be able to share this knowledge and coach people and businesses about it’s impact. So shameless plug time, if you have any questions about Kolbe don’t hesitate to contact me.
I have a lot more to say on the subject but I will do it in an upcoming series of articles, in the mean time if your are on twitter you need to be following @kathykolbe. At our growth seminar we were bugging Kolbe Corp that they need to be doing more in social media and now we have Kathy addicted to Twitter. Her tweets are always informative and will help to shed light on the tool.
Powered by Instinct: 5 Rules for Trusting Your Guts is a simple read done much like a conversation between two people. It might be to informal and lacking a bit of meat for some readers but it can be consumed in a few stress free hours.
The Conative Connection: Uncovering the Link Between Who You Are and How You Perform is Kathy’s first book and goes into a lot of the research, It was written in the 90’s so some of the research has changed but it is still very valuable information.
Pure Instinct: Business’ Untapped Resource This book goes into a lot of detail for how the Kolbe tools are used in a business group setting. I would suggest that you leave this one until you have a better understanding of the concept or if you like to read deep into a subject.
The “Secret” but built for Business without all the “When I wish Upon a Star” and still sit on my ass all this free money will come to me.
When I was on the road to getting the hell out of the corporate world and was looking for guidance for how I could take my small side evening business and make it more then just a hobby I got caught up in the whole “The Secret” movie explosion.
Do I regret it, not a chance. I credit myself with taking the time to study and listen to what the teachers from the movie were actually saying. In my opinion that 90 min movie will go down as one of the best pieces of marketing ever. Most of all it opened a dialogue to make it acceptable to say things like you are a business person who meditates.
If you take the time to look at the other coaching the teachers do you will understand that the Law of Attraction is only one law and a starting point. During the movie John Assaraf was the person in the movie that resonated most with me, I think because he came to it from a business perspective. I was on a conference call with him and his OneCoach partner Murray Smith when he said we all need to remember the next most important universal law, The Law of “GOYA” or GET OFF YOUR ASS. If you just sit on your couch and ask the universe to give you everything eventually they will come and take your house from around you and your seat out from under you.
From that I joined the OneCoach’s Business Mastery Program that taught me how to put the right things in the right order to create a successful business.
John and Murray took the process they were teaching clients with great success and published The Answer: Grow Any Business, Achieve Financial Freedom, and Live an Extraordinary Life It is a great read and provides a very good framework to help make sure as a business owner you doing the highest income producing activities that are right for your specific business.
I will be back with part two of my book list very soon. I also want to hear about your great reads and resources. I am an avid business, marketing and personal development reader so I am always on the look out for new concepts.
Again here are the books I talked about in this post:
Powered by Instinct: 5 Rules for Trusting Your Guts by Kathy Kolbe
The Conative Connection: by Kathy Kolbe
Pure Instinct: Business’ Untapped Resource by Kathy Kolbe
and The Answer by John Assaraf and Murray Smith
This is a difficult question for any small business owner to answer as incorporating a business has plenty of legal and tax-based advantages, but can also be a potential minefield, a massive expense, and ultimately not worth the hassle for the gains and returns made.
So, before we go any further, let’s take a quick look at the major advantages of incorporating your business. First up, there’s limited liability—probably the single most attractive benefit of incorporation. As a sole trader or partnership, if the business incurs debts then you personally may be forced to liquidate or turn over assets to pay for them. This can include homes, property, vehicles—fortunately, your dog will remain safe from these legal actions. As a corporation, the corporate entity takes on the financial responsibility of guaranteeing any loans made, meaning that investors and shareholders are only responsible for what they put in to the company.
Secondly, incorporation grants a much greater degree of income control to the shareholders and executives. By incorporating your small business, you give yourself the option of determining precisely when you, as a shareholder, receive income, which can definitely work in your favor tax-wise. Instead of getting your income when it’s received, being incorporated allows you to receive a dividend based on your share value at a time when the taxation environment is more to your advantage.
Another advantage of this is that anybody can be a shareholder—your spouse, your kids, heck, even old Uncle Albert, if needs be—meaning that income can be divided among family members in different taxation brackets. This is a nifty little benefit if you want the taxman to keep his grubby little paws off your family’s hard-earned cash!
Unlike sole traders, who can tail off if the owner dies or retires, corporations exist in perpetuity which allows the ownership to change through whatever reason and still carry on existing as a legal and commercial entity long after the esteemed founder has shuffled off this mortal coil (or earned a stack of cash and run off to Honolulu to spend their retirement drinking piña colada and debating the merits of the grass skirt.)
Lastly, there’s the fact that people are more likely to do business with a company with Inc., Llc., Ltd. or Corp. after the name. Contractors may find, for example, that certain companies will only deal with incorporated companies as it gives them an air of legitimacy and helps reduce the risk of becoming associated with a rogue or fly-by-night outfit.
However, despite all the great-sounding benefits, incorporation does have its drawbacks. For example, be prepared for you paperwork to go through the roof. You may find yourself needing to hire a lawyer or accountant to help yourself through the arcane process of incorporation, and to deal with the red tape to come afterwards. It is an expensive process to begin with, so make sure that the potential tax pitfalls are not more than you stand to gain from the process. Have an accountant look at your finances and give you proper, personalized advice before you decide to take the plunge.
Whether it’s a matter of making the most out of your marketing campaign and improving your ROI or capitalizing on word-of-mouth referrals, never let a lead slip through the crack—they could be your next diamond in the rough. Every single lead you receive through your business should be considered that one magic client who can help you elevate your business, taking it from where it is now to where you want it to be. The power of follow-up is immense and should be considered one of the best friends of bootstrapped budgeters.
First, it should be noted that trends indicate positive results when business owners verbalize their follow-up efforts with their prospective clients as “reconnecting” instead of “following up;” it’s much more personal and will help you achieve a better business relationship. For example, “Hello, this is Derek Heck from Bootstrapping Blog and I’m reconnecting with you in regards to our last conversation.” Pretty simple right? Yet countless business owners fail to do this on a daily basis. It’s similar to neglecting to insulate your pipes or letting a leaky faucet go unchecked—it seems minor at the time, but you eventually end up losing a lot of money through this type of negligence.
Or perhaps you do have good intentions and plan to follow up, but just haven’t had the time. Well, I’m sincerely asking you to burn your Procrastinator’s Creed contract and jump into action. If not, then your lead goes from blazing hot, to lukewarm, to somebody else’s client! Plus, by following up promptly, you will be telling your prospect volumes about how you’ll treat them as a client, meeting deadlines on time and providing a close watch over their account. Remember, clients don’t just want to know that they’ll get the service or product they’re buying, they want to know that they will be comprehensively taken care of.
So what’s a good timeframe for following up? Probably about a week later. You don’t want to come off as a telemarketer selling jewelry cleaner and calling back the next day. Let them breathe a little and have time to look over your proposal. And make sure you set a solid date and time, indicating when you’ll be reconnecting—call them exactly when you say you will! And make sure they actually write your appointment down when you plan it. Don’t be afraid to specifically ask them to get their planner out and write it down. If you don’t, you’ll end up getting more flakes than a bowl of Wheaties.
And how about a “blind” follow-up? You won’t always have the opportunity to speak with your prospect in the initial phase. For example, you may receive a lead through your website—if someone signs up for your newsletter. In this case, you should develop a standard follow-up template or autoresponder. Remember, the Web is faceless and without emotion—you need to constantly think of ways to reach out to people and remind them that there’s an actual human behind your website
Here’s an example a website lead follow-up:
I see that you visited my blog at www.bootstrappingblog.com recently. I hope you’ve been enjoying our content and have been able to apply some of what you’ve read to your own business.
Call-to-Action Paragraph.
And in case you missed it, I thought I’d pass this article along:
“It’s nothing personal.” Bullspit! There’s no such thing as nothing being personal in the business world. No matter who’s involved in a business equation, people are either spending money they worked hard to earn, or are looking to earn the other person’s money through hard work. Unless you’ve won the lottery, any blood, sweat and tears poured into your business makes the scenario very personal. Read Full Article
Please feel free to contact me and let me know how I can help you with your business. I eagerly welcome all inquiries.
Now go get ‘em tiger!