I met with a potential client that was referred by the local bank who was looking to have their business plan assessed before submitting it to the bank for a small business loan. They had found a company online that only developed business plans and sent me a copy. The client had already spent over $1K on the plan and owed $1K more. The plan was poorly written and did not even include the required sections a bank will look at in order to determine credibility of the business. The numbers i... Continue reading ...
This will be a little different than my usual small business blog article. I hope the content is as inspirational for the reader as the person that inspired me to write it. The focus of this article is about a small business success story in my local area. This is about a company that has been in business for almost 40 years and was started from the bottom up that had less than 20 employees which proves you do not have to be large to be successful.
I had the distinct pleasure of attending a... Continue reading ...
I do find that questions that I see posed on social network sites or asked by clients are usually where I tend to get my inspiration to share lessons learned and today is no different. Someone posed a question on LinkedIn on whether it would be more beneficial to spend time on a Marketing Plan or a Business Plan and I cringed when I started reading where some readers said they would definitely spend time first on a Marketing Plan. I am not sure why so many small business owners choose not to ... Continue reading ...
If you are looking for
a quick fix to increasing your sales funnel, then networking is not for
you. When most people think of
networking, they automatically think the focus is to go and “sell” themselves
and their business. If this is you, then
you need to rethink.
The goal of networking
is to build trusting and long lasting relationships which over time will
definitely will increase sales for your business, but probably not in the way
you first thought. If you watch someone
at their ... Continue reading ...
15 Questions to Ask
Yourself
This is a question
that has come up quite a bit lately with several of my clients. The business has grown to a point where the
business owners need to focus working on the business instead of in the
business making sales. They now feel that they should grow their business and
hiring feet on the street will get them there. The real answer to the
question of when are you ready to hire is that usually when you have to ask you
are not ready. It is primarily because
... Continue reading ...
Search Engine Optimization is written a lot about, but seems to be greatly misunderstood by most of how it works and what has to be done to make it work for your small business web site. Though I had search engine optimization in my website from the beginning, I couldn’t understand why my rankings were not improving. As a small business owner myself, I looked at the different tools and I couldn’t understand why they cost so much and why SEO professionals charged so much. It was not unt... Continue reading ...
You have decided that you need a website for your small business and now you have everyone who can spell web approaching you to develop your website. Some are graphic designers, others are IT developers, and are even others picked this up as a hobby and turned it into a business. As you weed through the fog, you find some that are truly full service web development houses. The problem is that the average small business owner will go for door number one or two because the price appears to ... Continue reading ...
Many times within a life of a small business, the owner will wonder why they are not receiving the growth they expect or the business is just not running the way they expected. The owner may want to look for additional financing, but they know in order to secure the funding, they are going to need to improve the bottom line. It also could be that they know change needs to take place in the business to be more in line with the times, but are not sure where to start, or the owner could be l... Continue reading ...
It is estimated that approximately 60% of
the small businesses in Canada today are owned by baby-boomers. Over the next
15 years these business will need to be transitioned to ownership. Estimates
are that only 10 to 15% will be transferred successfully. The other 85 to 90%
will die and leave room for new market entrants. These are not good odds if you
are thinking that your current small business is material in funding your
retirement.
Whether you are transferring, selling,
adding or buying... Continue reading ...
I recently saw a statement on a question/answer board from a consultant outlining why so many start-up businesses fail and have to admit I was not surprised by what was said. An example given was an internet business that failed because they did not have the funding to support the pull marketing that is required for the business. What was listed was the symptom of why the business failed, but not the reason of actually why. Another example was a technology company that the “reason” for...
Though both my business partner and I have worked for several small businesses over the years, in various phases from start-up to established small businesses and have even been a General Manager for one, it was not until we started my own business that I had a true appreciation of what being an executive was versus the business owner. As a business owner, the buck stops with you and are responsible for the overall direction and financial profitability of the company. I had written many busin... Continue reading ...
Be sure when you engage someone to write your business plan that you are going to receive a full business plan and not just a financial plan. A financial plan is key to the overall business plan but is not something that can really be done accurately until you have done due diligence on your overall business plan which includes: market analysis, company direction and history, have an understanding of your products/services, product strategy, pricing strategy, promotional strategy, sales st... Continue reading ...
There is so much more to a business plan than the right template or format. A template is nothing more than an outline but together by those who understand what is needed in a business plan and they provide the headings and few sentences on each section. It is actually the content itself that is most important along with understanding what the bank, grant provider, or investor is looking for in a business plan. Many entrepreneurs are able to articulate the overall premise of their business... Continue reading ...
A problem within your business can be very much like diagnosing a cold. There are symptoms like a cough, sore throat, low grade fever, runny nose, and congestion. The difficulty lies in that those are symptoms of several illnesses like the flu or even early onset pneumonia. If misdiagnosed, you could treat for the wrong illness and could get worse instead of better. The same is true in business. A problem can be seen as or manifest itself in one way, but could be a symptom of a completely ... Continue reading ...
Have you had an idea in your head of what you believe your company is worth and tried to raise money or sell your business recently and been surprised at the results? Sometimes it is hard to realize that a business that you have given your sweat and tears to is not a viable business to someone else or to others who you have asked to invest. There are many reasons why this could be the case. A very basic reason that a business is sometimes rejected is because of the lack of ability to truly ... Continue reading ...
Have you ever been approached by someone saying they can develop a website or a marketing brochure for you for what you truly believe is a reasonable price. You then have them develop the site or brochure and then you still wonder why people are not visiting your site and you have 5000 brochures in the closet that your sales force or channels never use? So many businesses feel that having a strategy is for “big business” and is not important to them, but the truth is not having a strate... Continue reading ...
Strategy for most small business owners is seen a “bad word”. In many cases, rightly so as theyhave been visited by many a consultant that has told them they need a strategy document. They then engage the consultant who spends a few hours in their business and then writes a four hundred page document that is used as a paper weight or sits in a drawer collecting dust. In many instances afterreading the document, they are not even sure this document was written for their business. They of... Continue reading ...
I found myself a few years ago landing in a position which in the beginning looked like a complete disaster and ended up being the greatest management learning experience of my life. I found myself working for a small business that was acquired by a large corporation. If anyone has been on the acquired side of this, I am sure you will understand and can relate to the challenges. The day I walked in the door it wasn’t the question of what was going well, but if anything was going well. The fi... Continue reading ...
When you started your business and determined you needed a lawyer for a particular reason, did you find yourself calling someone you knew or someone a friend recommended and didn't really look to see if they were really the person or firm to provide you the best counsel on what you needed? So many times this is the case and can be such a mistake and end up costing you more than you really need. Just because someone charges $500.00 an hour and is on Bay Street in Toronto, this does not mean th... Continue reading ...
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