Startup and small business clients are notorious for taking two different and equally lousy approaches to three key parts of creating a business: the idea, the financing, and the business plan. So what’s more important in this business version of “chicken or the egg ,” the idea, the financing or the business plan? The real answer is YES!!!
Watch this video to learn more.
Startup business expert, Bert Shlensky, helps break down how entrepreneurs and startup businesses need to harness their passion when running their business, all the while tempering it with a healthy dose of reality. Passion and reality in startup businesses is frequently overlooked and misunderstood by entrepreneurs.
Watch this video to learn more.
Some of the axioms of business don’t ring true anymore. Oh, there is passed down wisdom that never goes out of style: “the customer is always right,” and “if you’ve made a mistake in business, own up to it and make it right.”
But as businesses start and grow, the tendency becomes to “expand,” or open more stores, or aim to hire more people. If a business announced that due to a rise in sales, more employees were hired, and another warehouse was purchased, that was instantly viewed as success.
Now, business owner should be wary of even considering to expand at all. [Read more…]
I’ll get right to it: an understanding of the kind of people your business needs and the willingness to do whatever it takes to bring out the best in them.
Despite all the factors required for successful business management, including product marketing, operations and finance, if you don’t have the right people in place, it’s like a new captain in charge of a ship with a sketchy crew. Doomed to failure? Not necessarily, but there will be a lot of scary near-misses, and a high risk of sailing into a disastrous storm that could’ve been avoided. [Read more…]
A writer friend of mind told me that when she is considering her next novel, she starts with one question: “What if?” What if a Southern Belle played flirty with a handsome Southern gentleman during the Civil War? Or, what if a widower found a letter in a bottle from his long lost love? And, from that, classics are born.
Asking simple questions can lead to big things. [Read more…]
I’m about to say something extremely controversial, which may go against every business guru’s advice, but here goes: you know when you’re told to create a business plan? Well, my best advice is… don’t.
Don’t feel compelled to write up a long detailed business plan that is designed for a third party like an investor, a plan that typically has no flexibility and simply ends up on a shelf.
(Don’t make your business plan like the Great Wall of China. It’s pretty, but has no flexibility) [Read more…]