Two Minute Business Wisdom: Recent Episodes
J Cleveland Payne
Independent business analyst and small business owner J Cleveland Payne offers success tips for business owners and professionals every week in a quick and concise format.
Much of our uccess in business, and in life in general, comes from a coin flip that just happened to come up in your favor at just the right time.
Businesses will grow at their own rates, and that growth is mostly out of the control of the business owner.
Every potential business partner you encounter is not looking to leave you high and dry. But it happens. That is why it is important to have rules to follow to keep you from signing on to potentially bad partnerships.
Learn how to highlight key features and usage tips for all your inventory and service products on your sales sheet.
Introducing new products or services is a great way to attract customers you previously had no access to and retain customers with a shift in needs. Even if creating a new product or service isn't apparent, find a way to define and make them regularly.
The importance of flexibility and adaptability in business can not be understated. From knowing how to pivot to a new strategy in the face of market changes or when just to give up a product or service that is not working, the market will force change upon you, and you must react accordingly.
Highlights of significant achievements or milestones you have witnessed from previous customers are incredible tools to add to a sales pitch. If you think you lack the skill to be a compelling storyteller, plenty of coaches are waiting to sell you with some stores of their successful clients.
Keep informed on the news and innovations going on in your industry, and if you have the talent, contribute personally with the writing and presentation of that information to your customers and other curious people.
Just as important as your mission and values, it highlights team activities, values, and work environment. However, a person in power with nefarious reasons can also use these as a tool 'to protect' company culture.
Understand what your business stands for, and learn to express your business's core principles and goals with simplicity.
Your physical and mental health are the most important aspects of your business because you cannot maintain a business without proper maintenance.
Unless you are wealthy and can cover the cost of paying it back, have investors who can cover it for you, or have massive cashflow to cover it through salary, I don’t recommend taking out loans at the offset of launch your small business.
This episode offers five strategies to help small business owners establish effective time management. SPOILER ALERT: You will never achieve genuinely effective time management, but don’t let that stop you from the attempt.
The importance of networking, partnerships, and collaborations in driving small business growth cannot be understated. Despite the potential frustrations and exhaustion, remember that these connections can provide invaluable support and encouragement for your business.
Small businesses have no choice but to try and leverage technology to improve customer satisfaction. However, in this age where it is hard to get someone on the phone, you have the advantage of providing a personal touch, making your customers feel valued and your business feel more human.
Creating a solid brand identity and value proposition for small businesses can be daunting. But the best you can do out of the gate will help you immensely, even if your initial ideas need to catch on for the masses.
You may only need a little paper or minimum time with a lawyer on retention to get down to business. But you need to know this from the first day of offering your products and services for sale to the public.
Stories of people who could start and grow a business with minimal external funding are great. These stories also convince many people who can’t bootstrap their business to give it a shot when they should not.
Digital marketing comes with a cost, so use cost and time-effective strategies for your small business.
Managing your finances, including budgeting strategies, cash flow management, and cost reduction techniques, will make the difference in you being a long-standing success or a quick financial failure.
Following some basic initial steps for launching a small business will save you time, frustration, and money in the long run. This involves choosing a business structure, properly registering the company, and being honest about your initial market analysis.
Build a foundation from the beginning that reflects your values and how you want to be seen. That makes it easy to run a company that maintains your values.
If you’re just looking for something to do, especially if you have a large amount of money burning a hole in your vault, taking on a business opportunity is typically a terrible path to take to alienate that boredom.
Polish up your business plan and get to work. Find seller financing. Raise funds from investors. Use different types of loans. Ask friends and family who understand how investing in a business works. The financial risks of getting a new business off the ground are well known. Save yourself some of the headaches by looking for funding in the initial stages.
Things will go wrong in your business. Don’t attempt to survive on sheer will. Have understood and ready to implement plans in case of multiple downside scenarios.
Knowing how long and how much fiscal damage it will take to sell a business if you want (or need) to should be known before you receive the keys to the building. A business that doesn’t align with your exit plan may be a business you need to pass on.
If you have never worked in an industry, you should avoid taking on the responsibility of a troubled business. A turnaround story on an unprofitable business is excellent to tell but hard to write if you have never done it before.
A crucial key to business success is organization. Proper organization will help you complete tasks and stay on top of things to be done.
Before making any significant changes at a company you are taking over, take as much time as you need to understand how everything functions and who the key players are. Your genius changes to the process may have been attempted before with disastrous results, and just you being you may not be the secret to its new success in this attempt.
When an applicant interviews for the job of a lifetime and you are just trying to fill a spot with any able body, both sides will find the process frustrating.
Are you an 'elite expert' or the 'just as bad as you' guy when it comes to the Guru Game? Understand what game you intend to play, and play that game well when you deal with how you work with mentors.
Always show you can walk away from a deal not going your way. Especially if you are desperate to make that deal come through.
There is a lot of pre-launch effort that goes into launch day for your business. This counts for the business entity of your choice, you, and the people who will lose time with you as you pursue your business success.
Providing exemplary service to your customers is crucial to gaining their loyalty and retaining their business.
Prepare to make sacrifices in your personal life when establishing your business. In turn, prepare yourself to understand the need for these sacrifices will mostly come from those who work for you who are unwilling to make the same sacrifices (and justifiably so).
It's essential to be aware of who (or what) your business competition is and both the appropriate and inappropriate tactics that someone can deploy in defending your business against them in the marketplace.
The very long, poor SEO'ed title for this episode offers three simple truths for preparing yourself mentally for a business launch.
My thoughts on wearing uniforms for your business, and my thoughts almost always 'yes.' Dressing for success is necessary, even without a formal dress policy.
A recent posting from Seth Godin emphasized your final destination on your entrepreneurial journey and just how final it really is (or is meant to be).
See the post at https://seths.blog/2023/06/when-we-get-to-where-were-going/.
You've figured out what entrepreneurship really is and don't want that. That doesn't disqualify you from starting a small business or signing up for a side gig to bring more money in. Just know the reasoning behind what you try to pursue and the realities of the needs both require.
Understanding your personal finances means knowing the difference between not wanting to spend over $200 and only having $200 to spend. Understanding your business finances means knowing the impact of what money you can bring in and what money you must ensure always goes out.
Deciding that you have binged too many Gary Vee videos a few years back and the entrepreneur's life may not be all it's cracked up to be is an epiphany. This doesn't stop you from using your entrepreneurial mindset to help other businesses grow and thrive. But you don't have to put yourself and your assets on the line.
Handshake deals have been made and lived by since the dawn of time. But this is the 21st Century, and we humans have repeatedly proven that we should not be such a trusting lot. Get all the essential terms and conditions of your deal in ink or in pixels, and make sure it is readily available to all viable parties as soon as the contract is drafted.
Hiring the help you need to succeed as a business is crucial. Paying those who help a fair wage is key. And if you can't afford to pay, that's where the real problems creep in.
The human mind has a hard time distinguishing a lived experience from one you would read, which is why the power of suggestion and 'fake it til you make it' can happen. But to be a top-level entrepreneur, you must know the difference and ensure you are doing more.
Make a list of things that make you happy to review when you need a boost. Put on it the things like walking outside with your dog, having a little dance party, going to the gym, going to the sauna, or reading a book you like.
There are aspects of every job that have undesirable elements. This is even true if you have found 'work you love.' But you are not doomed to do all the work that tends to suck your life out.
When a person steals your idea and takes the glory and the credit, sit back and watch the show. They stole your idea because they have no ideas. You have plenty of ideas.
Just because you have some knowledge does not mean you're competent. The best business people are not the smartest people in the room, but they are smart enough to know they don't have to be and find partners or hired hands to fill in the missing gaps.
Rational exceptions lead people to ask for not rational exceptions being aked for because you made way for others. Without being cruel, write into policy that exceptions are for extreme and extra special cases and must be reviewed in detail for each instance.
Other than putting a Johnnie Taylor earworm in your head, the story of the old lady at the casino makes a great cautionary tale for a business in the need to hear some down home blues to battle the stress of running low on funds.
Hire talented people to work for you at your convenience. Stop asking people who don't work for you to do tasks for them at their inconvenience.
My new book, Simple Tips For Business Success: Solid Business Insights Inspired By The Two Minute Business Wisdom Podcast, is available now!
https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Tips-Business-Success-Insights-ebook/dp/B0C8F4231C/ref=sr_1_1?crid=8PW9M76JUVF9&keywords=j+cleveland+payne&qid=1689290293&s=books&sprefix=j+cleveland+payne%2Cstripbooks%2C87&sr=1-1
Another do as a say, not as I currently do very well tip: keep a handle on your business expenses by logging each one daily, then following up wit ha weekly or bi-weekly reconciliation session. Give your accountant a gift as tax season approaches by having less of a headache dealing with your expenses.
My new book, Simple Tips For Business Success: Solid Business Insights Inspired By The Two Minute Business Wisdom Podcast, is available now!
https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Tips-Business-Success-Insights-ebook/dp/B0C8F4231C/ref=sr_1_1?crid=8PW9M76JUVF9&keywords=j+cleveland+payne&qid=1689290293&s=books&sprefix=j+cleveland+payne%2Cstripbooks%2C87&sr=1-1
A job is a relationship where the power dynamic is not meant to be equal. But a job is hugely comparable with a personal relationship in the way that they have their seasons, and there are plenty of ways to fall into toxicity if you are not careful.
There are times when as an employer or an employee, you will not be able to generate a compliment necessary to have a feedback conversation using a compliment sandwich. Prepare yourself for very uncomfortable conversations. And by preparing yourself, I mean get ready to call in a lawyer.
Everyone has great ideas that, with time, could prove fruitful as a business. But starting a business requires more than just a great idea. Without resources and capital now, that idea could quickly fade away.
Consistency is a crucial component to making money in business. You have to keep doing what is necessary to be successful day in and day out. This will create long-term positive habits that will help you make money in the long run.
Consider trying a software-as-a-service (SaaS) tool to increase the efficiency of our organization. Or at least a simple online spreadsheet.
Your ability to maintain a successful and profitable business is a superpower a typical human does not possess. And with your ‘great power’ comes the great responsibility to maintain a high level of service for your customers. Your actions can ‘save’ the days for many of your customers and inspire those businesses you share customers with to up their service game.
Inspired by the quote from Kevin Rose, “Don’t let others convince you that the idea is good when your gut tells you it’s bad.” When you know your business has no need to jump on a trend, but people think otherwise as they see instant dollars now, fight the urge to succumb to the crowd.
There are way too many factors to take into account when starting a business and then maintaining that business to some level of success. But a key factor that have the greatest impact in your start come for the answer to the question, “Is this idea even any good?”
Taking calculated risks will help your business grow. Taking risks for your love of gambling will catch up to you sooner rather than later. Know that the risk of being smart about the timing of starting your business is just the first reward you can claim.
Celebrating both my love for business analysis and the classic tabletop RPG Dungeons & Dragons, I’m asking you to take a look at your Business Alignment System and roll the dice on doing Chaotic Good.
You must study and learn from your competitors. What they may be doing right or wrong, or in line with the market and contrary, makes a difference, and figuring out what may or may not work for you based on the lessons learned from others, even direct competitors, is always helpful.
Successful business people can only reach a level of achievement by putting in the blood, sweat, and tears (plus plenty of time, money, and crushing defeats) it takes as your 'down payment.' How much sacrifice you will make early to reap any benefits later makes a real difference.
Just because you have the skills to do a job and may need the work, it doesn't mean you will be inspired to finish the jobs you will have to work to find if you start a business around them.
The difference between an amateur and a professional is easy to distinguish in the world of sports, and it is just as easy to see in the world of business when you compare full-time work to side-hustle gigs. Don't rush to advance if you are not ready to give up your 'amateur' business status.
A successful business keeps detailed records, making it much easier to pull information from the past to answer questions you don't know will be asked in the future. Get in the habit of keeping good records from the initial kick-off of your business.
Your limited time, energy, and resources matter when you give them up to bring more customers to your business. You need to keep an eye on waste and ensure you are advertising to the right crowd to get you the maximum number of new and repeat customers.
This will be good for you as an employer for what they can accomplish while working for you and for goodwill as they find new places to shine beyond your storefront.
Unless your aim is to deal with antiquities and fine art, you want your customers to come through your doors as frequently ass possible. You’re not trying to sell exquisite or unique things. Your inventory should be ‘good enough’ to differentiate from the completion and become a top choices for your customers when they are needing a similar item or quick fix.
Do you want to dominate conversation in your niche or passively advertise and just be able to tap into the stream every so often? Its all about how you want to play the social media game, not how many hours your social media manger can try to bill you for.
The key to being a great salesperson is understanding what problems the goods or services you sell can solve for a potential customer. And to not sell to a customer that will get no utility from your goods or services.
The flip side of your staffing success is firing workers that are not a good fit. It is a little ironic that this is easier if you hire workers who don’t mind eventually being fired.
How you promote and market yourself to get more valuable customers should corelate with how you attract competent new hires to work for you.
Remember, they are you competitors and want to beat you whenever possible, but you total failure is a sign of the market crashing, so they don’t wont you to go out of business. But they don’t want you to clear more money than they do.
The best way to learn how to run a business is very simple and non-controversial. Start and run a business.
Stolen from the internet but so true nonetheless. The four key components of success in business (and life in general) come down to how you manage you skill level, how hard you are willing to work, plus the duration of you time in the business, all supercharged by good old-fashioned luck.
You might be surprised how many ‘work skills’ you acquire can be transferred to your everyday life.
A business exists to make money, and a non-profit exists to support a cause. Refrain from letting overproduced marketing and bad financial governance confuse the issue.
Taxes may be due until April 18, but you should carve out regular time throughout the year to organize your paperwork and pull essential data to save yourself some stress come April 1.
Helping others on their paths to personal development is helping you on your path to personal development. Assuming you are actually helping and not pushing or prodding.
A generous return policy will make your committed customers happy. Take care to stay vigilant for abusers, but seal the deal with loyal customers by taking care of their grievances with your products or services.
It is more than okay to have ambitious standards. But if you can not find employees to meet them, then you have no choice but to adjust them and evaluate your need for unattainable standards.
If you have an unhappy customer or see negative reviews online about your business, you need to address the customer immediately. They may or may not have a legitimate point, but they always deserve acknowledgment.
If you have an unhappy customer or see negative reviews online about your business, you need to address the customer immediately. They may or may not have a legitimate point, but they always deserve acknowledgment.
This episode will examine the good and the bad in following a quote about business and success from Steve Jobs.
Your employees need you to be away to see (and prove) they can perform without you. It would help if you found a hobby to focus on while you are away from work to ensure you stay out of it.
Determine how many one-and-done, short-time loyal, and lifer-type customers you need to maintain healthy profits and business success.
This episode will examine the good and the bad in following a quote about business and success from Warren Buffett.
Show your security to be in charge without being overbearing and cruel. You will find your authority questioned less when those under it are given little reason to doubt it.
This is another reminder to be slow to hire and quick to fire, as the wrong employee can quickly take down your organization and force you to put way to much work into restating basic protocols and operating procedures.
This episode will examine the good and the bad in following a quote about business and success from Oprah Winfrey.
Because you just can't. Take the focus of your side hustle seriously if you want it to be a real business that will eventually pay the bills.
A talented employee with options on who to work for is a problem for mediocre workplaces. You need to pick your game up as an employer.
Watch how your employees act after they had met with you and compare to how eager they seemed before the formal interview process began.
The hype can easily be justified, assuming you go home and put in work and integrate the idea from your motivation party.
Who needs a resilience expert or social media ninja? Maybe that is what you say you are, but your title is asinine.
You cannot put your full focus on growing new things if you are stuck managing all of the old things.
If your not-independent-business-side-hustle seems to be working for you, it might be time to consider working for a boss that offers a product you can sell without having to purchase it first.
That thing you enjoy doing that can generate money may be just a hobby, but if it can pay for itself and lows you some room for growth, there is a possible path to it growing into a sustainable side business, or even a full time business.
A firm simple but functional structure may not be exciting, but will lead to less burnout and turnover from the main staff.
If you producing a solid lever of revenue from your current leads and conversion policy, doubling your efforts is the simplest way to double your revenue.
One of the best way to show your master of business is the mastery of knowing what is actually in the contracts and terms of agreement you sign and agree to. Time to make use of another skilled you have already mastered, reading, and read the fine print of your contracts and terms of service.
If you keep a person from advancing in your organization because of your need for them to do the thing they are already doing, in enough time, they will find that position with another employer.
One of the fundamental pieces of a product life cycle is the end, as in, what do I do with all this inventory that I didn't sell now that the company has failed.
People buy when they find themselves resonating with your story. Make sure that story is a good one, with as little embellishment as possible.
Being a generalist may not bring in whale clients, but if you’re getting plenty of fish, does that matter?
Business sense is a combination of the senses working together, not just a preference over one.
Do you feel threatened by competent employees? How is this affecting your hiring and retention? How is this affecting your new customer acquisition?
Business success has a lot to do with your skill, but much more to do with the conditions of the market and the inability of your competition to be successful than most want to admit.
Slotting in tasks as you 'find' free moments is great. Don't confuse person time with unscheduled activities as 'found' time for work activities.
Lemonade stands are always profitable because the operators (children) don't have to pay for the supplies and the customers can't refuse the product (because they are children), even in spite of its terrible quality.
From well-measured samples to full services on the house, offering up a taste of what you can get as an enticement to bring in clients is a well-established business tactic. But just how much free stuff will weigh out to a level where it is hard to maintain a good profit margin?
If you are blessed to have a mentor to help you navigate the world of business, do everything in your power to maintain that mentorship for as long as possible.
Goals will ensure you are paying attention to the progress you are making (or not) in your journey as a business owner. Milestone will creep up on you as that journey soldiers on and need to be addressed and celebrated when reached.
What your expedient mobility really does is leave a wake of destruction that may never be fixed that you will never get the blame for as you leave for your next destination.
Is it legal to make a person wait for an hour past their scheduled interview time to start the interview? Yes, it is legal, and yes, it paints a terrible picture of your company.
Premium prices are a fair cost to pay (and charge) for premium services. There has to be a financial angle for providing more than adequate support.
The formula is simple. Acquire an object or skill worth something. Find someone willing to purchase the object or skill for a value more than what you took to acquire. Complete the transaction. Do this repeatedly.
Lessons are learned in losses, and a stable business can usually only claim success after a good strong of significant losses.
Finding sustainable work on sites like Fiverr and Upwork is hard. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise.
It is hard to turn down a once in a lifetime opportunity, even when you know that opportunity is more likely to end the life of your business.
Best-of lists are not the simple celebrations they are laid to be. They are a path to almost guaranteed paid advertising and a low-level example of manipulative targeting to the mass.
You don’t have to force expansion on you business it it doesn’t feel right for it. Or you.
You created the contract to lock in your employee to your will. But those same employees are probably working for you 'at will.'
There is a time to invest, a time to splurge, and a time to save from the returns from your business. Know when the time is right, and don't let other 'entrepreneurs' try to shame you into not putting money away into savings.
It's time to declutter your business. Whether it's a bloated menu, overflow of inventory, or just too many services you are willing to offer, if it does not bring you 'joy' (or significant profit), you should stop offering it.
Finding a mentor is challenging. Finding a good mentor is exceptionally challenging. Don’t let the fact this is hard work keep you from looking, and if you can’t find that right person in the flesh, there are plenty of people who wrote books and produced videos that can help you along the way.
Marketing is essential to the life of your business. And using free tools to assist in your marketing is very good.
This is not about work-life balance exactly. This is about a personal balance quest that will help you develop the mythical work-life balance.
In the quest to have a thriving organization, you have to plan from the start with what it takes to make it happen.
Growing is key to staying in and ahead in business. Education is a simple way to see the fruits of growth.
Being frugal is a key in ‘buy low, sell high,’ so do the best you can start on a frugal plan. And if you can maintain that plan well into business maturity, even better.
Blocking off time is a great way to isolate yourself to get things done, but you have to be sure you can be available in that blocked time.
People will stick with a company longer and spend more money with them to reach the next milestone in a loyalty program. It makes people willingly play vanity against consumer business sense.
It is not about finding shortcuts or corners to cut. You should look for as many advantages to promote your business that will give you an edge that is ethical.
Know the difference between a gift given to you to put towards your business and a loan that must be paid based on defined terms and conditions.
As a history buff, I know a lot about things that happened before I was born because someone took the time to document the events in hopes future generations can learn and grow. As a business person, be a student of others’ history of progress so that you too can learn from the past to help you progress toward a more lucrative future.
When you're not working on your business, you're not working on your business. But there are times when the best thing you can do for yourself and your business is to not work on your business and be unreachable for a while.
Getting a new business off the ground is hard. Keeping an existing company going is hard. If the company you call your own is not taking care of you as you would like, you should consider going out to get a job working for someone else.
All job seekers know that a typical job description as written is supposed to disqualify as many applicants as possible. All employees also know that 'other duties as assigned' is a back door for abuse through piling on unrelated work as any boss can declare as 'necessary.'
When you go shopping, ever notice that the prices seldom end in zero? Why do prices end in 5, 7, 88, or 9?
If you are just getting started in business and are unsure of what to focus on as a product or service, find the intersection of these three concepts: what you can do or produce, what people will pay money for, and what you don't mind having to do. In that order of importance.
Want some insight into an industry? Be a customer and get to know a few of the guys' workings from the other side of the counter.
Don't get in the way of your workers getting their work done. If your 'assistance' is more like nagging and meddling, stop it.
Getting off to a great start with a business venture does not necessarily equate to extended success.
Stress and metal health are issues we all have to live with. Knowing your employees need assistance with this can make you a hero to them. Knowing you need assistance with this will make you a better employer all around.
Diversity and inclusion are not just buzz words or nice statements to post on the company’s website. They require intentional planning and consistent effort to properly implement and maintain.
The sky is honestly the limit, but there may be limits to your earning power based on what you love to sell.
Any person in the organization can be seen as a cog in the wheel of production. even the boss and founder. This is a good thing, as it means you are not beholden to any particular person for the company’s success.
Marketing, advertising, and branding are key to bringing in customers. They are also smoke and mirrors used to make the competition think they are doing better than you probably are.
Unlike fitness and exercise, working hard on single points of failure can quickly fortify business and get in in better shape.
If given a billion years to work with, you could tear down a mountain. But you cannot observe and catalog the culture that lives there while tearing down that mountain.
If you own the shares of publicly traded stocks, take ownership of you right to contribute to how the company is run. Make sure you are reading your company’s reports and turning in your proxy votes.
A Russian saying recited by Gary Vaynerchuk is the inspiration for this week’s lesson, as in the person fitting the bill should get exactly what they asked for if they so insist.
You cannot motivate your employees to care as much about you’re the business as you do. There vested interest do not go past paychecks and benefits unless they own tangible stakes in the company.
The big boys know that the little guys cannot withstand a prolonged legal battle, and can force settlements below value fairly easily. If you think you have a fight, you must be willing to fight for the long haul, and pay the costs necessary to win.
Be willing to walk away from a deal, especially if it is a change to fix a previously negotiation deal that did you no favors. Never be so desperate for work that you must take on bad deals to survive, or you will always take on bad deals to survive.
Stop trying to gather freebies. If you want to succeed at a high level of business, pay the entry fees the professional pay to play as they play. This is the way to garner the respect of the moguls you want to call peers.
People generally fear loss more than they appreciate gain. When you know what people fear is the downside of doing a deal with you, you can target people more willing to say yes to your offers.
The key to your eventual achievements of greatness is getting started. From there, it takes patience, perseverance, and faith to keep going as you rack up more wins and milestones.
A basic lesson that is hard for many to accept is that your target audience is never, ‘Anyone with a pulse and money in their pockets.’
Unless you are in the magic business, you should not be impressed with your ability to mask the processes and successes of your business.
Long episode title, totally true statement. Your business’s worth is based on cash flow and its standing in the community. Your community standing and your worth are not a byproduct of your business’ success.
If you are blessed to have your workplace running on fairly good levels of consistency, you can take time to schedule more downtown for your employees, and for yourself, to maintain the highest level of productivity possible.
An entrepreneur is not a job title, and few people who are true entrepreneurs are the ultra-rich standouts that 'success' coaches try to sell you is possible. Working for someone else and getting a steady paycheck does not disqualify you from being an entrepreneur on your own time with your own endeavors.
Hiding the unsubscribe options for digital offerings is bad. Making unsubscribing a hassle is also bad. Giving dissatisfied customers an easy out of their obligation is good and might make them think twice about leaving your service.
Not having enough time in your business is a sign of two possible problems, one a good one to have that is easily managed, the other a harbinger of doom that could be a major clue to personal burnout.
Lack of sales and interest for your product can come from a bevy of factors, but a simple one to rule out is on the look of your product. Is the marketing, packaging, or the product itself not appealing, or is there actually something wrong with the product itself.
The key to higher profit margins it not to buy extremely low quality supplies to keep your costs artificially low. You should look for peace of mind and steady profits, and that means paying what it takes to ensure quality of your product.
The simpler you make your processes and procedures, the better the chance your employees will follow them.
It’s a hard fact to come to terms with, but if you are now making sales you are failing at a simple formula. Whenever you present your sales pitch to the right audience in the right form on the right platform, you will make a sale.
Adding paperwork to any process slows it down, allowing you to get a handle on orders that need delivery and making customers with a habit of skipping out on the bill think twice before creating a paper trail to find them.
Running your online presence on social media platforms like Facebook is akin to choosing to do physical business at a flea market as opposed to leasing space in a strip mall, figuratively raising a building you own outright on someone else’s private land.
What happens to workers who receive little feedback on the work they produce? You foster an extremely unmotivated workforce.
The greatest strategy in the world is useless if you do not have the manpower to pull it off.
Your sales team is at a disadvantage if they don’t understand the value (and the final deliverables) of the items that are on your company’s menu.
Use the most basic and simple language possible to explain yourself and what your business does.
Running a business is better when you don’t have to do everything in the business all by yourself.
Your value is what people will pay for you, but how much is that? How do you determine the prices you can (and should) charge your customers?
It is not a path to business specialization, but a plan for sanity and stability for maintaining your business.
You can get lucky once but a business needs a consistent effort. If you can’t repeat your process for delivering a product or service, you can't sustain a business.
It is not old school. A business card is still a great way to promo yourself and your business.
This is not a trick question. Some people have the ability to tune out the world and let their business run completely on autopilot (and the hard work of properly trained employees) for a while. Many do not.
Be a little selfish and ask yourself why you creating your own business or choosing to help someone operate theirs is beneficial to the world around you. Study your answers. If your answers seem dull and mundane, then you are getting the right answers.
Working for a specific specialization does eliminate many from your pool of potential customers. by design. Having a well-established specialty will attract those in need of your specific services and will make up for any unqualified potential customer that could wander by in theory.
Many busy business people get most of their 'mentorships' from books and videos. The real lessons you learn, and a surprising amount of lessons you will teach, come from live interactions with people, whether titans of industry or interns learning the ropes of the business.
You started your business or non-profit to achieve some sort of goal. It might be along the lines of making a dent in the universe or carving out a piece of the prosperity pie for your personal use. If you are doing well and working towards your goal, there is no need to apologize to anyone. If you are being a jerk about it, then you do need to apologize and change your ways now.
While your goal to succeed in business is to sell you goods at a higher price than your acquisition expenses, there is some merit to using loss-leader pricing. That assumes you have a real loss leader strategy and are not just lowballing to make up for lack of customers.
You can take your business to great heights. But in the beginning, you need to temper your expectations to more realistic--and really basic--goals.
Give all your business expenses a test and give them a letter grade. Then, just like college, figure out whether the failing expenses are worth extra credit work to improve, or if you should just drop them.
Before you work hard to overdo the options you want to make available to your customers, make sure your customers have a need, or at least a general want, for the items in the first place.
Too many people throw themselves into business because of a feeling. But too many get trapped in their business because they never learn how to handle the truth. Understanding a Profit & Loss Statement is how you get to the truth in your business.
The kids at the counter of your favorite fast-food restaurant are marketing geniuses. Until you come to terms with upselling, you will not master business sales.
You pay your employees to do stuff for you instead of other people. You pay your new hires specifically for impact (maybe even instant impact). You pay your current employees to stay with you because you need continuity.
Multi-Level Marketing is big right now. They are easy ways to make supplement income and become a ‘business owner.’ And they are quick ways to get hopes dash and scammed out of your hard-earned money for the investment. It’s just a matter of doing your research before you join that upline.
Jargon becomes the official language of a business entity easier than you think. But want those working on the businesses tend to forget is your customers and the general population does not know how to translate your jargon into plain speak.
Drug dealers have a product that people will stop at nothing to find a way to pay for. I am not suggesting you add trafficking to your menu of services, but that mentality that your best customers can afford whatever you charge.
You started your business as a means of financial and professional freedom. Making it so that you are the only person to complete all the critical jobs is not a path to freedom.
It is possible to obtain valuable wisdom from advice that cost you little or nothing to obtain. It is possible that some free advice you receive is not worth the time it takes to process it. Know the worth of the advice you get for free before you install it or consider paying the source for advanced knowledge.
Your relationships with potential clients work just like your relationships with potential lovers, and you can usually see the crazy and dysfunction early in the courting process.
Worry less about sparking a revolution with your product and more about using proven methods (and seeing things that already work) to earn money in your business.
A great way to juice your recruiting efforts is to cultivate a culture where being a member of your team has greater benefits than just a paycheck and maybe free snacks.
You can offer up your services for 'free' to those who can give you exposure or who need you but can not pay your full rates, but even this action requires you to know the true worth of your time.
The echo chamber that is your normal life can become a prison of thought that holds you back in business and in life.
Take the time to do a deep-dive into the core of your business to understand what you really do, and learn to communicate that to your customers.
Even if you operate a business in an industry with historically high turnover, it is essential to do what you can to retain trained talent, especially top-level talent.
Who is your customer not going to buy from when they start buying from you? Answering this question will help you in finding new customers and fight off losses of other customers.
In case of an emergency, you want the most competent personnel you can find to handle the problem at a cost that is not obscene. You don’t have to like them, and they don’t have to like you.
Your packaging matters. Your promotional materials matter. Your product and performance will make the ultimate difference, but what they see on the way in matters a lot.
You may observe a business relationship that is akin to a marriage where one person ‘married up.’ These relations are more equal with respect to what each partner gets than you think.
The inability to manage credit is a quick way to lose control of your business. Credit is not given in order to buy expensive things, it is given for making delayed payments on things you can afford.
In order to have a successful business, you've got to get business done. If you are a one-person operation, then it is all up to you to get all the business done.
It really does take access to cash to make a business run. But how you spend that cash makes a difference in your real success.
You are always told to charge what you are worth, but how do you determine what that is?
The dark side of internet marketing is tempting. Do not be seduced by it. Unless you really want to.
Is the nature of your business built on strong personal connections or just a pure cash value per transaction.
Every entrepreneur does not have the privilege of seed rounds of funding to get their idea off the ground. If you are not so fortunate and want to have as much available cash to fund your growing company, these are a few tips to help you reduce your personal expenses.
Don't just tell people you do a certain task for so many dollars to make a living. Give details to potential customers (just about anyone you meet at the outset) on what the task entails and how it will offer value for the price point you set.
Having your own business and being self-employed are two dreams coveted by those who have seen the abuse of working for sup-par implores. But they are two different dreams. Don't get confused and believe they represent the same thing.
While it is true that people without jobs should be more amenable to wanting to work for you, job candidates who are currently employed usually carry less professional baggage, even if you have to negotiate them leaving the old job.
Is the nature of your business built on strong personal relationships or just a pure cash value per transaction?
Don't make the feel foolish for not knowing better. Make them feel empowered for being newly informed, and find out they become better customers.
People who are successful in business learn early to play up their strengths and worry little about their weaknesses. They can afford to do so because they know they can't afford not to pay the right people to make up for their weaknesses.
No need to fake it. make it so. It is not about a long resume. It is about getting the job done.
When a selfie is no longer going to cut it for your branding, you have to step up your game. If you can’t pay a photographer you’re definitely struggling in business. If you can’t ask a person to hold your phone you are lacking in confidence in your business.
Props to Gary Vee for offering up his counterintuitive plan for making his Wine Library TV videos viable. Teach people how to manage stuff and they will come to you ready to spend serious money on the advanced stuff.
You may not want to believe you are being judged, negatively or positively, by the exterior characteristics of your business, but you are.
A fateful event led to the creation of this podcast. and a fateful event may be the catalyst to give you the ‘yes' you've been looking for to make a fresh start.
A fateful event led to the creation of this podcast. and a fateful event may be the catalyst to give you the 'yes' you've been looking for to make a fresh start.
Every business coach has their own idea of what the best way to ruin your reputation as an employer is. But most will agree that angering a person conducting your job interviewer is a strong second.
Are you a better figurehead or administrator? Are you supposed to be the boss or a cog somewhere lower down the line? Does your leadership style match the position you own and the roles you take?
My favorite children's story that is meant to tell a story of the virtues of hard work and sacrifice is also a cautionary tale of the life of an entrepreneur.
Answering this question at the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey can help you see just how tough a row to hoe you are setting yourself up for, and how to ultimately manage it.
It's a controversial thought, but some of the best partnerships don't offer a pure cash return on investment to all of the shareholders involved. And this is a good thing.
Getting your products seen by a larger audience is a good thing. Using a celebrity endorser can be a good thing, as long as the endorser you choose actually likes your product and they show the product to people likely to buy it from you.
If you have a pricey service, and you can give your customers enough knowledge to handle their basic maintenance for free, they will have little hesitation paying top dollar for your services when it is necessary.
It's one of the easiest and effective ways to gain intel on the inner workings of your competitor's product. It's not cheating.
The search for great employees to back up your work is serious work. But the work your hires are meant to perform is not necessarily better just because you pay the price for a rock star.
October is the unofficial start of 'Holiday Season,' where you have the natural tendency to slack off until the new year. It is actually the first month of the fourth quarter of the current year, and there is plenty more work to do to keep your business viable. And now is the perfect time to think about your taxes.
Bringing a new business into the world and keeping it alive is one of the toughest gambles a person can take on. The odds of business failure is high. Don't make the game any worse for you by taking on very unnecessary gambles around your business.
Your desire to save everyone will take you to a very dark place personally, and keep your bank account low professionally if you spend too much time trying to help clients not ready to help themselves.
Much of the advice you receive sounds like common wisdom. For a reason. But despite the how common on specialized the advice you receive is, if you can't use it, you can’t use it.
Having someone who can help you navigate your business can help you avoid the problems they occur within their first steps. But your first steps are still your first steps.
You don’t have the be a slave to your singular target audience. You do have to craft custom messages for each target you would like to reach and cannot send multiple message at the same time.
Regardless of the rezone you are letting them go, make the separation look like freeing them to do greater things.
It’s not just about pitching to investors in elevator rides. It’s really about selling you and your business to as many potential customers as possible.
Older workers have the availability, experience, and desire to serve that can fill your business' needs.
There is plenty of old standards given to aspiring business people that are completely outdated and useless. 'Buy low, sell high' doesn't count in that batch of bad advice.
If you are side hustling, taking a little business here and there from your competitors often goes unnoticed. If you are still small enough that this is the case, you should use it to your advantage.
When making hiring decisions, there are three important things to consider to ensure a solid hire: the candidate's general attractiveness, competence at their role, and passion for the job and company.
All books are judged by their covers, and products are judged by their packaging. Until the books or packages are opened to see if the over-hype was lived up to, or if the under-hype was a clue to a letdown.
Advertising is not otherworldly sorcery. An advertising campaign does a good job if it brings in more customers but transactions must be completed and payment collected to be ultimately successful.
‘Fairness’ is a relative concept that gets lost in comparisons to others. What is a fair cost for some is an outrageous ask for others, not necessarily because of the value of service but from the ability to pay. So, charge those with the ability to pay more a little more, so you can offer quality service to those who can use it but cannot quite afford a premium price for it. Yet.
A business works on the exchange of cash or other valuable items for a service or item of perceived value. And the people who work in and on your business are there because of a similar exchange based on the sense of the value of the tasks they are given and the other things they could do with their time.
In order to have a business, you must have it on paper. If you are starting off your business with no documentation, you are just creating a very labor-intensive hobby.
Define the roles of everyone involved with your business early, and their escape clauses if necessary and needed. Assume both, especially if you are working with friends and family.