Survival Strategies
Filed Under: Articles of Interest
Tags: Business Tips, Entrepreneurs
Jeff Cornwall from The Entreprenurial Mind blog has an interesting article discussing survival strategies for entrepreneurs. Here is an excerpt:
Every small-business owner should continue to run his or her business cautiously and prudently. There will be more tough times ahead. Look for growth opportunity.
Over the coming months, more of your competitors will probably fail, and that presents an opportunity to attract new customers to your shop.
This can be an excellent time to expand and take advantage of a larger market share. If you do expand, continue to bootstrap and try to keep your use of debt to a minimum.
This is no time for excessive leverage because of the uncertainty of the economic outlook.
Whether you are a new entrepreneur or a seasoned business owner, more than ever before remember, cash is king. Given the uncertainty of the economy, entrepreneurs should try to keep enough cash on hand to cover at least 30 days of monthly expenses — and up to 90 days of cash on hand is not a bad idea, either.
Read the full article HERE.
Pay Yourself First
Filed Under: Books of Interest
Tags: Books, Business Tips
Pay yourself first. This is a statement that we have all heard at least one time or another. In the book, The Automatic Millionaire, David Bach describes this as a requirement for anyone who would like to be financially successful. He goes on to explain the why, the how, and even show you how to make it automatic. He states, “People should take every opportunity they can to save money because it really adds up, and the best way I know to do that is to make your savings automatic.”
Paying yourself first allows the average person to save money, that they normally would not be able to save. This money can be used to start a business, retirement, a vacation, for college, for a rainy day, or whatever your goals are. Typically, a person allocates their money in this order. Pay bills, have fun, and then save. The problem with this order is that there is never any money left over to save. People excuse this with “I don’t have enough money leftover”, or “I don’t make enough.” Bach quotes, “Change is a funny thing. Although most people say they want to change — so they can have a better life, with more love, more dreams, and more fun — the fact is that many of us are afraid of change.” Paying yourself first allows you to save money, without even knowing that you are missing it. Per Bach, the easiest way is to make it automatic. Automatic means have your employer deduct a percentage of your paycheck to go into a savings account before you even get a chance to see it.
Paying yourself first means to save, pay bills, and then have fun. Paying yourself first means to take out a percentage of your check before you do anything else. It means that you are making a personal commitment that saving is important to you and that you will save a percentage of your income no matter what. How much should you save? Bach answers the question this way. To be poor, don’t save anything. To be middle class, save at least 15% of your income, and to be rich, save at least 25%. To visit David Bach’s website, click HERE.
Tips to Manage Change and Stress at Work
We all respond differently to stress and change. Most of us develop how we respond to these factors through specific life changing experiences that have occurred in our lives previously. Some may see a major event of change as a burden; yet others may see it as an exciting challenge and find inspiration. There are no set rules for dealing with stress and change. Effective stress management is not easy and it usually takes time and practice. Through examination of stress management challenges, we can develop some useful tips to help ease the effects of these factors. Hopefully, once you think about your own situation and your own tendencies toward stress; you can apply the best strategies offered.
1.) Set Realistic Goals and Allocate Time Effectively: Realistic Goals should be achievable and should offer a clear route toward success. Goals that are not attainable will bring the most stress and cause frustration and the feelings of failure. Setting realistic goals will keep you in control and offer direction. Also, scheduling more than you can handle is a great stress producer. Saying “NO” to issues that will stretch your capacity beyond reality is an effective way to avoid the stress of spreading yourself too thin. Proper allocation of your time toward each realistic goal will create a more manageable work plan.
2.) Validate Meetings: Validate and reconsider all meetings. That may seem like a strong statement – but if you consider that a study by The Wall Street Journal revealed that managers wasted 80% of their time due to meetings which either did not begin or end on schedule. Think of all the useful applications of that time. This is a personal pet peeve of mine. I used to attend daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly meetings on a never ending basis and found very few of those meetings to be useful. Far too often, meetings become a stage for egos to perform and seldom do they offer useful resolutions. With all the technical advances we have achieved such as email and teleconferencing….are all these meetings really necessary? Not to mention the expense of travel and logistics applied to offsite meetings.
3.) Analyze… Before You Make Time Decisions: When you focus on the tasks at hand; do you handle the minimal tasks first or later? Most of us do exactly that. The sense of accomplishment we get from dealing with easy issues make us feel good – it is only natural. But when we do this we create a delay in focusing on the more important matters and this causes stress. Analyze the importance of each task and categorize them and allocate your time according to level of importance. Many business people use the following categories to help them organize:
A.) Not Urgent – Not Important
B.) Urgent but Not Important
C.) Not Urgent but Important
D.) Urgent and Important
4.) Stop Procrastinating – Easier said than done! We all put off till tomorrow what should and can be done today. This creates a great deal of stress as well. There are three basic reasons why most business people procrastinate: 1.) They don’t know how to do the task. 2.) They don’t like to do the task. 3.) They feel indecisive about how to approach the task. Procrastination may be alleviated by taking a large task and breaking it up into smaller more manageable tasks. Make a list of every task and update and prioritize them daily. Fight the urge to put things off and your day will be less stressful.
Research Your Competition
Filed Under: INC Knowledge
Tags: Business Tips, INC Knowledge
How can you keep up with the competition if you don’t know what they’re doing? To compete in today’s marketplace, your business needs the competitive edge, and one way to do this is by gathering information about competitors in order to acquire an advantage, or to protect an existing one. It’s easy for new entrepreneurs to be so focused on the progress of their own company that they don’t take time to look up and around!
“Learning everything you can about your competition is time-consuming, but the return on investment is enormous, “says Sally Wright, president of Alliance Consulting Group in New Brunswick, N.J. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of competitors, as well as how they are viewed, what attracts customers to them, and how their quality of service compares to yours will help business owners know what they are up against.
One of the best ways to gather information from competitors is to visit their business and buy from them. If you perceive a weakness, capitalize on that by improving your own products and services. Keeping files on the competition can be beneficial in identifying habits and trends. Keep copies of promotional material to model their success, while adding your own creative strategies to put yourself in a better position. Always look for ways to differentiate yourself from others.
Visiting trade shows and using the internet are excellent ways to keep up with competition. The web is a wealth of information which can be used to your advantage. Monitoring all information, including job postings on a rival’s website or other industry job boards can help detect a company that is introducing a new initiative, and also find competitors looking to lure your talent away. Making phone calls on a regular basis with specific questions is an easy way to do research on the competition in order to learn what they are doing and what changes they are making. You can’t afford to be complacent in today’s marketplace, but keep in mind that the competition is probably checking on you also.
Travisa
Are you a businessman who travels frequently to locations that require a passport/visa? This can be a huge hassle and take up a lot of time. Recently, I needed to obtain a China visa for an upcoming business trip. For a while I was under the impression the only way to get a China visa was by physically going to the Chinese Consulate in New York, which was an inconvenience to me. Little did I know that the answer was right online, it is called Travisa and their motto “When You Need It Fast” is exactly what you get, fast and efficient service! Since, 1981 Travisa has been helping individuals, travel agents and corporate travel departments to expedite passports and visas. What makes this service so convenient is not only do they have locations all over the world, but everything is done over the Internet and by mail. So the next time you’re in need of a passport/visa let Travisa help you.
