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We hope you find this arcthve useful. A subscription to The Small Business Advisor Newsletter is free. Subscribe now - it's easy! The Small Business Advisor Newsletter for March, 1997 CONTENTSNotes, tips, etc Working with Employees Praising the Unsung Hero Get it for Free Selecting an Attorney The "Robin Hood" in Reverse Syndrome Small Business Resolutions ++++++++++++++++++++++++
NOTES/TIPS/etc THE LIBRARY. Don't forget your local library as a source of business information. For example, your reference section most likely contains the following items that, if purchased, cost hundreds of dollars: Magazine Advertising
Source (SRDS). A giant volume containing listings Tax guides Periodicals covering dozens of different disciplines. The Standard Periodical Directory
(Oxford). Every print publication in Purchasing by mail can save you money. But, as always, price compare! Also various suppliers will have periodic product specific sales. Request catalogs from a few suppliers which will get you on their mailing lists to receive their "sale" flyers. Here are a few to get you started: Consolidated Plastics Company
1 800 362 1000 <META http-equiv="refresh" content="3;URL=nextpage.htm"> The "3" is the delay in seconds
and don't forget the <META> tag goes within the <head> tags.
++++++++++++++++++++++++ WORKING WITH EMPLOYEES
Dealing with employees (contracted
or yours) is always challenging and will tax your best management and
leadership skills. The following listing, based on a good deal of experience,
are items to consider that will help keep you out of trouble when dealing
with your employees: ++++++++++++++++++++++++ PRAISING THE UNSUNG HERO
Being a married entrepreneur has its downside. If your business falters,you risk not only your well-being, but the stability of your family. You're forced to juggle multiple conflicting demands on your time and you may have to placate your spouse when you are absent from home too often. Urgent family needs draw energy and resources away from your business. Sometimes, you wish you had only you to answer to. At least then, if the chips fall, you're the only one who suffers. If you are happily married and self-employed, more often, resentment about being accountable to your family takes a back seat to the gratitude you feel for your spouse's support. My husband Stephen works a corporate job that pulls in benefits and a regular paycheck, allowing us, with four children to support, to handle my irregular income. This column doesn't leave the house without passing by my husband's editing eye. When coaching a small-business owner, I'll often ask for Stephen's financial expertise. When I travel from home, it's my husband who changes diapers, gets the kids off to daycare, and reads them bedtime stories. On one of my infrequent "quitting days," my husband is often the one to help me rebound. Though I am a sole proprietor, my husband is really a partner in my business. Too often, the spouse of an entrepreneur is an unsung hero, tolerating the difficulties of self-employment without hearing praise from customers, or experiencing the satisfaction of meaningful work. In my book, "Honey, I Want to Start my Own Business", a woman complains about spending her days filing in a basement with two toddlers underfoot, while her husband enjoyed lunches out with clients and doing creative work. Her resentment was compounded by a husband who neglected to thank her for her daily efforts. A client, call her Lois, is the spouse of a struggling entrepreneur. She hired me to help her cope with the seething anger and resentment she is feeling toward her husband and his home-based business. Her complaints about their dwindling bank account and her husband's long working hours were moderate compared to her primary resentment: "After all I've sacrificed to help him with his business, he never says "thank-you", or "I love you," or shows me any affection. He doesn't appreciate how hard I work to take care of the home, the kids, the bills, the pets, you name it, while he devotes all of his energy to his business." Resist taking your spouse for granted. Here are six creative ways to acknowledge your spouse's contribution to your business success: 1) Say Thank-You! Send a bouquet of flowers, or a mail order gift with a card that says, "Thank-you for your help - I couldn't have done this without you." 2) Go Public! Tell your customers or clients about your spouse's contribution with your spouse in the room. Throw a party in honor of your spouse and invite your clients and customers. 3) Give them a break! Surprise your spouse with a mini-vacation. Do they take care of your children? Hire a babysitter for a day. Do they help you in your business part-time? Give them the day off and schedule them for a massage or a ball-game instead. 4) Share your success! Bring home your financials and show your spouse exactly how their effort contributes to your sales. Cut them a check from your profits and encourage them to spend it on themselves. Tell them your favorite customer success story and point out how they helped make it possible. 5) Romance! Create a romantic evening or weekend for the two of you. You don't even have to spend any money - leave them an affectionate note on their pillow or on their dashboard. And remember - hugs are free and take only a moment. 6) Nominate your spouse for a national award! I have created a NEW national holiday, "Acknowledge your Supportive Spouse Week", celebrated the first week of May, 1997. Write to me at P.O. Box 209, Bausman, PA 17504, with an SASE, addressed to your spouse and a one-two page description of how your spouse (or intimate life-partner) has supported your entrepreneurial dreams. Your husband or wife will be eligible to win a national Supportive Spouse Award, receive a valuable prize, and will be touched by your public acknowledgment of their contribution. Deadline: May 15, 1997. Even the most supportive of spouses will grow unsupportive over time if you neglect the basics of recognizing their partnership in your venture. Perhaps Mother Teresa doesn't need to be thanked for her work. But most of us regular human beings thrive when we know we are appreciated, loved, and acknowledged. Pick up the phone and call your spouse - A loving marriage can never have too many thank-you's. (We're looking for sponsors to donate a prize of up to $75.00 in value that would contribute to the supportive spouse's or couple's personal health and enjoyment. Your business will receive free publicity for your participation. Call Azriela Jaffe at (717) 872-1890 (9-5 EST) or email AzJaffe@aol.com or jaffe@lancnews.infi.net with your interest. Azriela Jaffe is the author of "Honey, I Want to Start my Own Business, A Planning Guide for Couples" (HarperBusiness '96). ++++++++++++++++++++++++ WHY PAY FOR IT IF YOU CAN
GET IT FREE? 1) MORE FREE ADS - Anytime you have an opportunity to "Get 4 Ads for the Price of Three" .. do it, because those ads are costing you no more than what you'd normally have paid anyway, but, it's an incentive from a Publisher, as it insures that he gets the money up front for the next three issues, and by paying for 3 ads at the same time, they're happy to give you the 4th one FREE! 2) FREE SAMPLE COPIES - Many Publishers are willing to send you a Free Sample Copy, or even a "Free Trial Subscription" because they want to get their magazine out into the hands of new people; you may eventually send them a subscription or place an ad in their magazine! To them it's part of the cost of being in business, and by sending out Free copies, they may get MORE business! Write to Publishers (on your letterhead) and request a Free Sample Copy! 3) A FREE DIRECTORY - "The Freebie Directory" (Updated Regularly) is yours for just 5 First Class Stamps from: Bob-C, 1700 Duncan Way, Carrollton, TX 75006! 4) FREE COPYRIGHT PROTECTION - You can pay the copyright office in Washington, DC. a fee, to get a copyright on what you have produced, OR just put a sample into a package & send it through the mails to yourself! Don't open it when it comes; Put it in a safe place! If anyone tries to steal what you have produced, take them to court and take along your sealed package! If yours is the earlier postmark, you win! It's a simple way to protect what you've created! 5) FREE ADVICE, is available from your Suppliers! They are good sources for free assistance; advice; for answers to questions you have, etc. Write and ask for their help! They will help you, if they want you to succeed! 6) FREE DEALERSHIPS - Many Suppliers will send you their Dealer Package for little or no "up front fee!" As a dealer, you will be obtaining orders and moving more product and making more money for them! They should be willing to help you get started! Avoid Suppliers that want a large up-front fee! Maybe that is where they make most of their money, from the fees paid by new people! 7) FREE MONEY - This is available from "Investors & others with money!" Why use YOUR OWN Money to start a business? Use "O.P.M." (Other People's Money) to get your business off the ground. Keep your own money in reserve! 8) FREE TYPESETTING - Most Local Phone Companies will do all the Typesetting of business ads in their Yellow Pages, when you pay for an ad! Always check to see if Newspapers & Magazines charge extra for Typesetting, or if it's included as a Free Service to all their advertisers! Use first those Publications that offer it Free! Many Publishers Re-Set all of the Ads & Articles in every issue anyway, so why Pay for the Typesetting first, if it's provided Free? 9) FREE ARTWORK - Contact some local Art Schools or Universities; See if an Art Student would like to get some experience by designing YOUR company Letterhead or Business card. You won't have to pay them much, if anything at all, to get very professional Art Work! Ask around, check with Art Instructors; Ask their advice for students who do quality work! 10) FREE ADS AS SPACE FILLERS - Contact Publishers and send them some copies of your ads. Instruct them to use them as "space fillers." When deadlines approach, and if they have un-sold space available, let them know they can print your ads to fill those un-sold spaces! (Some Publishers may only need 50% of the rates, to print your ads in un-sold or "remnant" spaces! 11) FREE LISTINGS - Many Yearly Directories will place YOUR listing FREE (the first couple lines, or first 10 words) and want YOU to place ads in their directories, too. "Book Dealers World" is one, and "Worldwide Trade Services" is another that issue yearly directories! 12) FREE OR HALF-PRICE PRINTING - When you get ready to print more of your brochures, contact another business person. Maybe YOU and One Other can "go in together" and share the printing costs - getting your two (one-sided) brochures printed back-to-back! Each of you pays HALF the costs & get HALF of the quantity printed! Or, maybe a Printer would be willing to print YOUR brochure on ONE side, with HIS printing prices on the back! As you distribute them, his flyer rides along on the back of each one you mail! He pays for the printing; You do the distribution! 13) FREE DISTRIBUTION - Have your brochures mailed Free, by first contacting some "Professional Mailers" - Many will provide YOU with their ads & flyers! You pay for the printing & send them the flyers! (YOUR ads on one side, theirs on the back!) YOU pay for the Printing; They will do the distribution! 14) FREE POSTAGE - We get MOST of our Postage & Mailing Costs FREE! One way is to "Request a Stamped Envelope" in all your ads! Customers will send along an envelope already addressed & stamped! Presto: Free Postage! Our "Free Postage Secrets" lists 5 ways that work for us! 15) FREE NAMES - Several companies we work with offer "Free Sample Names" for the postage to send them to you! Many provide 90 Free Names for 2 stamps! Get some from 10 companies, and you have enough for a good sized mailing! Why will they provide you with Free Names? They're willing to send you a sample batch, and hopefully you will try them, be satisfied and come back, with a payment for MORE names! (This Report written by Gary Christensen, a freelance writer of Home-Based Business Articles, who has Self-Published 9 Books and 86 Original Reports, like this one! Contact Gary at: 999 NW Sycamore Ave., Corvallis, OR 97330 or on the WWW at: http://www.nemaine.com/ homebiz/ mail-order/GChrist95w.htm) ++++++++++++++++++++++++ SELECTING AN ATTORNEY
One professional you will need to deal with in your small business is an attorney. The best time to search and find an attorney is BEFORE you need one! There are many ways to find an acceptable attorney among which are personal referrals and recommendations from your banker, accountant, and other owners of small businesses. Do not use an attorney referral service … these are simply "name brokers." In the process of selecting an attorney, you will be interviewing and you will have to ask relevant questions. Raymond M. Klein's book, "Putting a Lid on Legal Fees (How to deal effectively with lawyers)" includes a listing of questions you may use during these interviews. It is reproduced below with permission of the author. Questions for your interview of a prospective lawyer: Conflict Experience Staffing Billing and Cost
If you are not COMPLETELY happy with any of the answers, keep looking! [ed] (These questions were excerpted from "Putting a Lid on Legal Fees" by Raymond M. Klein. The book may be ordered toll-free by calling 1 (800) 445 6429) ++++++++++++++++++++++++ THE "ROBIN HOOD" IN REVERSE
SYNDROME The average American has three plus credit cards and charges more than $2,000 per year. A couple has five different credit cards and charges $3,000 to $4,000 per year and many millions charge a lot more. 70% of credit card users don't pay their bills in full each month and the average payment is 14% of the outstanding balance. Credit cards are a good example of how the poor pay the rich. Large banks at the top of the money heap borrow from their depositors and others at extremely low interest rates, lately around 3 to 4%. Then lend this money at higher interest rates, making their profit on the spread between the cost of borrowing and the income from lending. Major corporations and wealthy people with lots of assets who are sophisticated in money matters, borrow from the bank at an interest rate that is only a couple of percent points over what the bank must pay it's customers. Let's assume 6 to 7% interest. Smaller business with decent credit but not as much clout, must pay a little more .... perhaps 8 to 10%. But of course, they can deduct all the interest they pay as a business deduction off their federal and state income tax returns. After you go through several more categories of customers that pay increasingly higher rates of interest, we finally reach the average working stiff who uses a credit card and does not pay the outstanding balance in full each month. On the average, this customer pays about 18% interest (usual range is 12 to 24%) and is not tax deductible. In short, banks have found a large group of customers so unsophisticated and gullible that they will cheerfully pay the bank over 4 times what it costs the bank to borrow the money in the first place. As you might guess, this is extremely profitable. In 1994, after all costs were considered, including lost and stolen cards, credit card issuers made a profit of $4.7 BILLION dollars. The problem with money is that it does not come with an instruction book. Too many well-meaning financial decisions you make including buying, borrowing, and investing end up eroding your personal and potential wealth. You are already smart enough to spot cheats, thieves and con artists .... those who, with out conscience, play mental games with you in order to steal your money. But, unfortunately, you have been losing an automatic $9,000 to $20,000 per year, every year of your life to perfectly legal schemes dreamed up by bankers, mortgage companies, car dealers, insurance companies and bureaucracies like our government. The techniques we Americans need to learn are simple ones. These are the building blocks to create real wealth, but in order to build wealth you need to understand where your money is going. I do not mean how much of your monthly check goes to groceries or your car payment. I mean where your WEALTH that you will make over your working career goes. You need to understand how much money we Americans GIVE away without a second thought. You have probably heard the saying, "They don't build casinos with winners money." Out of 100 gamblers, 95 walk away losers. The same scenario repeats itself every time you purchase a home or car, borrow money, or buy insurance; the biggest expenditures of your financial life. These techniques will help you reverse the odds and put you in control, transforming you from victim to victor each paycheck. Knowledge is your first and best defense. What happens to you financially, is based totally on what you know and do. Or, by default, what you don't know and therefore cannot do. Americans work an average of 90,000 hours over their working careers, but only spend about 24 hours planning and preparing their financial futures. With knowledge, commitment and control, anyone can become a magnet for financial opportunity instead of a victim of continual financial crisis. The financial techniques we Americans need to learn are completely logical to the financially successful but are often illogical to the financially illiterate. That's what makes getting out of the financial rut seem so difficult. The approach of the financially illiterate is to do more of what doesn't work. But success is never accomplished by doing more of what doesn't work. If something doesn't work the first time, I promise you it won't work any better no matter how many times you try it. You can create far more wealth by how you are using the money you already earn than you can from earning more. It's not how much money you make that counts but how much you get to keep. Being rich is not measured in the number of millions you have accumulated. Being rich is having the money to do what you want to do when you want to do it, and having the attitude to enjoy every minute of the journey. (David Sailors is a writer of wealth building articles and books. This article is a excerpt from a book called " Creating Wealth With What You Earn Now." Contact David at, 1207 SE 104th Avenue., Vancouver, Wa. 98664-4739. Phone 360.896.2089 or E-Mail him at: dsailors@ix.netcom.com) ++++++++++++++++++++++++ SMALL BUSINESS RESOLUTIONS
Traditionally, New Year's Day is the time of year to make resolutions. But, history demonstrates that the resolutions that we make on that date are usually the very same resolutions that we break within the first few months (weeks?) of the New Year. There are indeed some resolutions that are absolutely critical to make any day of the year, and to keep if we want to our small business venture to be successful as it deserves to be. Resolution # 1 - Get organized. Start by sorting through all those yellow "stickies", and scraps of paper on your desk. Keep only those notes/documentation that you really need. Toss the rest. Transcribe the remaining notes/documentation onto 3x5 cards with appropriate headers. Create those files that you've been promising to create for the last year. Purchase that file cabinet which will house all your business files. Maybe, just maybe, that old chestnut " a place for everything, and everything in its place" is true. Resolution # 2 - Manage time effectively. People have built entire careers revolving around time management. My seminars on time management were always well attended. There are myriad books, videos, and seminars on the subject. Surf the Net for information on time management. I do know that when you boil down all the advice, it basically consists of : · Write it down
Remember, not everything can be a "1A" priority! Resolution # 3 - Don't rest on your laurels. You did a great job on your last project. Your customer gave you great reviews. Now, how are you going to top yourself on your next project? There's lots of competition out there. What can you do to differentiate your business/service/product from the competition? Maybe I'm just a wee bit prejudiced, but I believe "The Small Business Advisor" to be a shining example of an outstanding product. Just look at the creative graphics and the quality of the contents. Check out the various catalogues, and notice the superior ad copy in the successful ones. Constantly challenge yourself to up the ante. Resolution # 4 - Keep your promises. Aren't I a terrible nag? Aren't you getting tired of my mentioning keep your promises in all my articles? That's because I believe so strongly that the best way to get customers, and to keep customers is to be a business person who always keeps his word. Do you know a single airline that brags about never landing on time? Of course not! The airlines are ecstatic when they can announce that they are #1 in on-time takeoffs and landings. Your customer needs to know that you are consistently on time, and within budget. If you choose to make only one resolution , this is the one to make. Resolution # 5 - Be a friend. Just as attorneys perform pro bono work, we should be performing/supporting other small businesses. Life can't always be quid pro quo. But, I can assure you that you will always get back more than you give. Can you provide mentoring or tutoring to another small business just starting out? Just pass along those hard earned lessons you learned along the way. You'll make a life long friend in the process. Resolve to attend networking groups. But, don't sit there like a "lump". Contribute! You'll truly have fun, make friends, and learn some additions lessons, while you're sharing your business experiences. Resolution # 6 - Create a professional environment. This is a pop quiz. Look around your current work environment and answer the following questions: 1. Do you have a special area
set aside for your home office? The final question in this pop quiz is; don't you deserve to work in a professional environment? If the answer is a sheepish "no", resolve to create that professional environment for yourself this very month. Resolution # 7 - Keep the customer satisfied. There is nothing more important than your current customer base. This is where you get your references from. Don't be so busy looking toward the future customer that you neglect your current customer. For example, in the past, I've had to communicate with what will be an unnamed Internet service. When you call the sales department of the Internet service, you receive an immediate response. Should you have occasion to call tech support group(and I hope you don't) you're kept on "hold" forever. What message is this company sending its current customers when it staffs the sales department with more folks than the tech support group? Resolution # 8 - Don't give up on your slow months. We all have slow months, no matter what our business is. Be creative, and turn it around. For example, a local deli/café in my neighborhood had very few dine-in customers on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evening. They started offering half price sandwiches to the dine-in customers on those evenings. Now I'm mad because I have a problem finding a table on those nights! Just kidding. I'm truly glad that they're experiencing the success they so richly deserve. Be creative and resolve to find solutions that will keep you going through those slow times. The best resolutions are the ones that only you can make, that you believe can be accomplished, and that are measurable and quantifiable. Please share with me the resolutions that you've made for your small business, and I will print them in my next column. And may all your resolutions lead to great success! (Phyllis Sheerin Ross is a Consultant and writer, with over 20 years experience in project management, training, and business development for Federal Government and commercial organizations. She can be reached at 301-384-0769 or by e-mail at Bronx1@erols.com) Return to top of page - Back to Home Page - Back to Archive Index |