Top 5 Leadership Problems in Small Business

• Posted: August 11, 2010 by Stacey Abler

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The leader of a small business is the person that the other employees look to for guidance and motivation. A weak leader can cause an entire business to collapse regardless of how strong the employees of the business are. Problems with leadership in a small business should be addressed as soon as possible. Leaders should not assume they are infallible and without weakness simply because they have been chosen as the leader of the organization. All employees should strive to grow, learn and change to stay on top of their game – leaders included.

Inability to Adapt
In an ever-changing business world, leaders must always be willing to make changes to adapt the business. Change in the regulatory environment or simple changes in market preference can undermine the success of a business quickly if the leader is not willing to make simple steps to institute change. Business plans should be followed but a good business leader knows that the plan is a guide and is not set in stone. All leaders must be willing to make changes and adapt when the situation calls for it.

Lack of Team Building Skills
A leader is only as strong as his team. If a small business leader is unable to motivate his team to success, the business will be doomed. A good business leader is able to build a team and encourage them to work together by leading by example. A strong team can be a competitive advantage over the competition and should be leveraged. Leaders should always be striving to increase the strengths of the team while addressing any areas of weakness in a supportive, learning environment.

Ignoring Competition
Some business leaders believe that their business or product is the best on the market and cannot be touched. While it may be the best, if the competition is ignored, then the coveted top spot can quickly be lost. Leaders should not ignore what the competition is doing or discount its tactics. A smart leader will evaluate the competition on a consistent basis to maintain its competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Employing “Yes Men”
All leaders should encourage employees, customers and vendors to bring concerns and dissenting opinions to the attention of management and leaders of the small business. These opinions can alert management to underlying issues that may eventually damage the operations of the small business. Just because the opinion is the opposite of the leader does not mean it should be ignored. A good leader is able to look at an issue from all sides and this includes welcoming others to bring to light the other sides of an issue.

Knee Jerk Reactions
While leaders need to be able to adapt to changing business environments, they should not be too quick to react to the situation. Proper research should be conducted to ensure that the right changes are being made. When cash flow problems present, it is generally a knee jerk reaction to cut the most expensive parts of the business. However, if these parts of the business are the ones producing income, this can be a mistake. Do not react hastily and ensure all the facts are present before acting.

Small Business Equipment Necessities

• Posted: August 4, 2010 by Stacey Abler

When setting up a small office, business owners must choose the equipment that will be necessary for the office to run efficiently. When the small business is new, it is important not to go overboard in buying every piece of equipment or the most expensive equipment that is on the market. Small business owners should start with the bare minimum and add additional equipment as the business dictates the need for it. This can control the start-up costs for the business and avoid having unnecessary equipment in the office.

Phone System
A phone system is a necessity for just about every type of small business. If the office has multiple employees, consider leasing a multi-line phone system. This can be a cheaper alternative than purchasing and often includes installation and maintenance. Most offices will want to have several phone lines, voicemail capabilities and other features such as placing calls on hold, transferring calls and voice conferencing. If budget is a concern, start with a basic phone system and upgrade at a later date.

Computer
Buying computers for the office can be one of the most expensive equipment investments for the small business owner. Nearly every employee in the office will need a computer in order to be able to complete daily tasks in the office. If the business employees sales people, consider investing in laptops that can travel with them and only have a docking station for it at the office. If purchasing computers is too expensive, consider a leasing option. Computer software is another expense. Check into multi-use licenses for popular programs such as Microsoft Office to save over purchasing individual copies for each computer.

Printer
If the small business owner is working with a limited budget, consider buying a larger printer with faster printing speeds for the entire office to use. All of the computers in the office can be networked to this printer and every person in the office can print documents on the same printer. Unless color is necessary for documents, consider only printing in black and white. Adding color cartridges and printing in color is considerably more expensive than printing only in black and white.

Fax
Many businesses will need a fax machine to operate. The fax machine will be needed to send documents to clients and vendors as well as receive documents quickly. With electronic signatures and emails, fax machines are becoming less of a necessity but in most cases, a fax machine is rather a small investment, particularly compared to other equipment in the office. Ensure your long distance plan will cover faxes as well otherwise this can become a very expensive piece of office equipment.

Copier/Scanner
A copier and scanner may be necessary for some small businesses while just an added expense for others. If very little copying and scanning will be done, consider buying a printer that includes all three functions. If hundreds or thousands of copies will be needed each month, consider leasing a machine. It is much less expensive than buying and generally based on the usage of the machine. Lease the most basic machine needed for your office needs. Adding bells and whistles that won’t be used often, if at all, will only increase the monthly leasing cost.

How to Write a Business Plan: Financial Statements

• Posted: July 29, 2010 by Stacey Abler

We’re wrapping up the series on how to write a business plan. This last installment covers the financial statements part of the business plan.

If your business is brand new, this section of the business plan will include projections for the business. While these projections should be based on as much fact as possible, most people understand that projections are an educated guess and should be taken with a grain of salt. Projections generally cover either the next three years or the next five years. If your business is after funding, discuss with your lending institution or VC about how far out your projections should go.

If your business is existing, you will include the past three years (or what you have if you’ve been in business less than three years) with your business plan. If the business is still relatively new, the financial statement part of the plan may include actual statements as well as projections.

Let’s cover the three types of financial statements.

Income Statement

This is also known as the profit and loss statement of the business. The income statement lists all of the sources of revenue as well as all expenses that are associated with the business. This statement will result in net income (hopefully!) or possibly a net loss. Remember that it generally takes several years for a business to be profitable so don’t try to fudge to make your business show a net income in the first year. You do want to show progress though in turning that loss into a profit.

Balance Sheet

The balance sheet of the business showcases the total assets, total liabilities and equity. If the business has large holdings of assets and liabilities, it may be helpful to break down each section into current and long-term with current assets and liabilities being easily converted within one year.

Cash Flow Statement

The cash flow statement of the business shows the actual cash inflows and outflows for the business. This should balance with the accounts of the business.

All three statements should be included in the financial section of the business plan. If possible, have a certified accountant prepare these statements for the business.

How to Write a Business Plan: Marketing Strategy

• Posted: July 21, 2010 by Stacey Abler

The marketing strategy part of the business plan covers how the business will sell its products and services to its target markets. The marketing strategy should be well defined keeping in mind the overall marketing budget that the company has allotted towards the sales process.

Larger businesses may need to write a completely separate marketing plan for their business. For most small business owners, a business plan that incorporates marketing strategy will be enough to give the business direction.

Master the 4 P’s: Product, Promotion, Place and Price

The 4 P’s of marketing are very popular as they cover the basics of the marketing plan.

Product: Describe the products and services that will be sold by the company. If the plan is being given to investors, this part of the plan will include pictures and mock-ups of the products to adequately describe the product offerings.

Promotion: The second P is promotion. This section describes how the business plans to promote the products and services of the business. This may include a combination of public relations, traditional advertising, social media and event marketing such as trade shows.

Place: This refers to the distribution strategy of the business. How will the business get the products from their suppliers to their customers? Will the business utilize a sales force? A website? Storefronts? All three? Specifics should be given about each sales channel that will be utilized by the business.

Price: The price refers to the pricing of the products and services as well as the profit margin that will be achieved. If the company is utilizing distributors to sell the product, it will include any guidelines on minimum prices and sales prices.

Make Marketing Goals SMART

All business goals, including marketing goals, should be SMART goals. This means that the goals will be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely.

Specific: Goals should always be specific. Instead of saying “Increase company sales”, a specific goal would be “Increase sales of product line XYZ by 25% by year-end.”

Measurable: Goals should always be measurable. If there is no way to measure the goal, it is impossible to know if the goal has been achieved. Stating that sales should increase by 30% is a measurable goal as management can easily calculate sales to determine if the goal was reached.

Attainable: Goals should be attainable by the company given its resources. Setting a goal to overtake Dell is probably not attainable for a mom and pop shop. Goals can be ambitious but make sure they can also be attained.

Realistic: Working hand in hand with attainable is realistic. All goals should be realistic. Many managers make the mistake of setting goals that are not realistic. If sales last year increased by 10% to $200,000, aiming to increase to $800,000 this year is likely not a realistic goal.

Timely: All goals should have a timeline attached to them. You must know when to measure the goal to determine if it has been met. With our first goal, we set to increase sales by 30% by year-end. This gives us a time to see if the goal has been met.

Create Marketing Action Plan

Now that we have our goals and know what promotional methods we want to use, we can create a marketing action plan. This is the part of the plan that directs the staff in exactly what needs to be done to accomplish the goals that have been set.

For instance, if a promotional strategy is to advertise in ABC Magazine to increase sales of XYZ product line by 10%, then our marketing action plan would include who will create the ad (internal or external) as well as when it will be created. Next will be when it has to be delivered to the magazine. The ad will also need to include a special code to track sales that originated from the magazine advertisement.

Many companies will create a marketing calendar for their action plan that will break-down when things need to be done in order to meet the marketing goals of the company. This can also be color-coded to identify the responsible employee or department for each part of the action plan.

Laying out the action plan can also help to develop the marketing budget as well as it is easily identifiable as far as which parts of the plan will require funds to implement.

This leads us directly to the financial statement part of the business plan which will be covered in the next segment.

How to Write a Business Plan: Market Analysis

• Posted: July 13, 2010 by Stacey Abler

The market analysis part of the business plan is one of the most time consuming parts of writing a business plan. This is because much of the information for this section of the plan is found outside of the company rather than inside. It requires research into your competitors and searching for information that may not be easily accessible.

SWOT Analysis

First, this part of the plan starts with a SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for:

– Strengths
– Weaknesses
– Opportunities
– Threats

Many people confuse strengths with opportunities and weaknesses with threats. An easy way to remember the difference is that strengths and weaknesses are internals influences whereas opportunities and threats are external influences.

Strengths are the parts of your business that give you a competitive advantage over the competition. These are areas where the business excels.

Weaknesses are classified as areas of improvement for the business. This could be an area where you are weak that could enable a competitor to take advantage of it and gain an edge in the marketplace.

Opportunities and threats may be summed up by outside influences that can impact your business in a positive or negative way. This includes economic climate, new laws and regulations, barriers to entry and competitor patents that could hinder product innovation.

Brainstorming SWOT Analysis

A great way to foster teamwork among employees is to bring them together for a brainstorming session for the SWOT analysis of the business plan. Employees from different departments may have perspectives that those in management do not possess. Working together to brainstorm may also spark new ideas and areas for expansion and improvement.

Competitor Analysis

One very important element of market analysis is analyzing the main competitors of the business. Some businesses have a tendency to either name every business in the market that exists or operate under the misguided belief that their product or service is so different that they don’t have any competitors. All businesses have competitors. This part of the business plan should identify your main competitors in the market. If your product or service wasn’t available, what business is the most likely one your customers would go to in order to fulfill their needs? That is your competitor list.

Detail these facts in your competitor analysis:
– Names of competitors and demographic date (location(s), age of company, executive management)
– Summary of product and service offerings (type of product, how they market it, how it is distributed, pricing and how it is different from your offerings)
– Strengths and weaknesses (the weaknesses could identify areas of opportunity for your business to overtake the competition)
– Competitive advantage

To complete the competitor analysis, access the company website and any marketing materials. If the company publishes an annual report, this can contain a goldmine of information detailing company strengths as well as where they have failed. It may also outline future goals and plans. If it is possible to speak to their customers and suppliers, they can also offer great insight into the company and areas where a competitive advantage can be established.

Next up is the product and service descriptions for all that your company offers. If all of this seems overwhelming, consider hiring a business plan writer to write your business plan. Contact me for more details on getting started on your business plan.
Opportunities

How to Write a Business Plan: Company Description

• Posted: July 1, 2010 by Stacey Abler

When you are writing a business plan, it is important to be able to accurately describe your company. This may also be an excellent place to develop a twenty to thirty second elevator pitch for your business. In an elevator pitch, you describe what your business does and how it out scores the competition in less than thirty seconds. After completing this section, you should also be able to develop your business elevator pitch.

Business Plan Company Description Outline

In this next part of how to write a business plan, we will outline the questions that should be answered in the company description section of the business plan. Remember that this is not the place to get into product specs or service specifics; this is still an overview type section.

– What does your business do? What products or services do you provide?

– Which market needs are you meeting? What problem are you solving for your potential customers?

– How are you meeting those needs or solving those problems better than the competition? What is your competitive advantage?

– Who is in your market? Demographics? Buying habits?

What You Shouldn’t Say

One of the biggest mistakes people make when writing a business plan is in identifying the market. Online business, especially, tend to make this mistake.

“Our market is all people ages 18 – 54.”

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

Your market cannot be this broad. Not every single person within that age group can possibly be within your target market for all of your product or service offerings. You must break it down to smaller groups. This shows that you have done your research and you know what you are talking about as far as marketing your business.

Think about the main group that is most likely to consume your products and services. If you had very limited funds and could only go after potential customers who you were 95% certain would buy, who would those customers be? That is your primary target market.

Words That Shouldn’t Be In Your Business Plan

Which sounds better to you?

We hope to reach out to the 18-54 age target market through our website to sell our XYZ gadget.

or

Through a targeted social media strategy, we will reach mothers aged 21 to 35. These women have at least some college education but have chosen to stay home to raise their children. They spend an average of three hours per day online and are heavily involved in social media including Twitter and Facebook with more than 58% possessing an account.

The first is wimpy, quite frankly, with using the term “hope”. It also is incredibly broad and does not give any real strategy. In addition, it shows a lack of market research and know-how about your business.

The second statement is direct, targeted and decisive. It backs up the strategy with numbers and shows that you truly know your target market.

The verdict? Your company description should be direct and to the point. It should say what you will do and how you will do it. Do not leave the reader guessing about your strategy or your research. Let them walk away knowing that you are the top business expert within your niche.

In the next how to write a business plan installment, we will cover the market analysis part of writing the business plan. This will go more in-depth into developing your target market and establishing your business marketing strategy.

How to Write a Business Plan: Executive Summary

• Posted: June 30, 2010 by Stacey Abler

The business plan executive summary may be the first section of the plan but you should actually write it last. This is because it is a business plan summary and you can’t summarize what you haven’t written yet, now can you?

The business executive summary gives the reader a brief overview of the entire business plan. If the reader only read the executive summary, he should be able to adequately and accurately explain your business to someone else.

How to Write a Business Plan Executive Summary

Let’s take a look at how to write an executive summary. As with the rest of the business plan, we can also break this down into sections. These are the questions you will want to answer.

- When was the business founded? Who founded it? Who is on the management team? Who serves on the Board of Directors or Advisory Board?

- Where is the business located? What is the main function of the business? What are the main product categories or service offerings?

- How is your business different? What is your competitive advantage?

- Where has the company been and where is it going? Provide examples of how the company has grown since its inception. If the business is new, focus on future goals and what you will accomplish.

Thoughts on Mission Statements

Many business plan writers will also suggest that you include a mission statement or purpose statement in your executive summary. I personally find most mission statements and purpose statements just to be a warm fuzzy to be framed and hung on the wall. If you truly have an outstanding one that your company stands behind fully, include it. If it is just more marketing speak, leave it out.

Executive Summary Length

In almost all cases, your executive summary should no exceed one page, single-spaced. Remember, this is not the in-depth analysis of your business. That is the purpose behind the other sections of your business plan. This is to provide the reader a very general and brief overview. They should be able to explain your business after reading the executive summary, not run it on their own.

In the next installment, we will cover the business description part of the business plan.

How to Write a Business Plan

• Posted: June 28, 2010 by Stacey Abler

A business plan or business marketing plan gives you guidance for your business. However, many business owners are overwhelmed when it comes to learning how to write a business plan. It is often helpful to break down it down into business plan sections.

In this first blog post about how to write a business plan, we are going to cover the basics of what you should include with your business strategy. Basically, this is what will be your business plan outline. Over the next few weeks, we will look at each section of the business plan in depth.

The type of start-up business you will be involved in determines the type of business plan you need to create. A small online website may not need a comprehensive business plan and business marketing plan. Whereas, a brick and mortar retail storefront may need a business plan that borders on becoming a business book.

Business Plan Outline

The business plan outline includes these major sections:

- Executive Summary: The business plan executive summary is written last.

- Business Description: Exactly what it sounds like

- Market Analysis: Includes a SWOT analysis and competition

- Product and Service Descriptions: What you are selling and why it is needed (this section may not be needed depending on how in-depth your business description section is)

- Marketing Plan: Goals, strategies, timelines, budget and contingencies

- Financial Statements: Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow. For a new business, these statements will be projections (i.e. educated guess)

- Appendices: This could include more information about your product lines, in depth competitor analysis, management biographies, etc.

Internal vs. External Business Plan

If you are developing a business plan for internal use, it will look much different than if you are developing it to obtain a small business loan or venture capital funding. If you are writing the business plan for an internal strategy plan of attack, you can obviously skip some of the sections such as company description as you know what you do. However, if you are submitting this for VC funding or for a bank business loan, you will need to include all sections.

In the next installment, we will begin to break down the business plan and I will provide business plan examples and business plan templates.

If you are interested in hiring a business plan writer, please contact me for a custom quote.

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Optimizing Your Website for Search Engines

• Posted: June 24, 2010 by Stacey Abler

In addition to using keywords in your articles, there are other areas of your website where you need to concentrate on inserting keywords. Follow these tips to make the search engines happy!

How to Use Meta Tags in SEO Articles

Make sure you are using the meta title, meta description and meta keywords for each page on your site. Depending on how your site is set up, you may have to manually insert this into the header of the html code. If this is over your head, consider hiring a professional writer and blogger who understands how to accomplish this. If you are using Wordpress, you can use the All in One SEO pack plug-in to accomplish this.

The All in One SEO pack will create fields at the bottom of your “add new” post window that allow you to enter the meta title, description and keywords. Follow the maximum character guidelines when entering this information:

~ Title should be less than 60 characters

~ Description should be less than 160 characters

~ Keywords should be less than 20 total words or phrases

Title: This should be your keyword optimized title of your article or blog post.

Description: Google no longer uses this as a metric. However, this is the blurb that will appear under your listing in search listings. Use this to draw people into your website and make them want to click your link.

Keywords: Use your main keywords used in your article. Separate each one with a comma and be sure to use phrases as well as individual words.

How to Use Alt Tags for Search Engine Optimized Content

When search engines crawl your website to index it (make the contents available for visitors in a search), the robot can only read actual words on the site. If you have pictures or other flashy elements on your site, the robot does not recognize these elements. If you have a page that only has a picture for instance, the robot may not recognize that there is anything at all on the page, therefore ignoring its existence.

You can use alt tags on images that appear on your site to point out to search engines what it is and that it is important. Alt tags show up when you roll your cursor over the picture showing a description. Let’s try this below:

Roll your cursor over the image above. When you do a little box will appear that says “Professional Business Writer”. This is what the search engine will read when it crawls that image.

To add an alt tag to your image, add alt=”your keyword phrase”

If you are using Wordpress, when you upload the image, simply add the description to the “alternate text” box.

Alt tags should be added to every image on your site including any navigation buttons. Be sure you use keywords for your alt tag. For instance, instead of using a description of the image such as “notebook and pen”, I used “professional business writer” because it speaks about what my page is about and uses my keywords.

These tips should get you started on SEO for your website. Also be sure to check out my previous SEO articles:

Performing Keyword Research for your Website

How to Write SEO Articles

How to Write Search Engine Optimized (SEO) Articles

• Posted: June 22, 2010 by Stacey Abler

In the last post about conducting keyword research, we identified two major keywords that we wanted to use for an article.

1. army wife

2. army information

In addition to this two keyword phrases, we should also include several other similar words. In this case, it may be “army wives”, “army spouses”, “army resources”, etc. Of course, you don’t want to choose those keywords blindly either. Rely on your keyword research as well as your own search engine tendencies.

Constructing the SEO Article Title

We want to use the keywords that we want to rank for the most in the title with as few other filler words as possible. Possible titles for these our main keyword phrases may be:

Army Information for Army Wives

Army Information for New Army Wives

Army Wives: Army Information for the Army Wife

The title should be enclosed within header tags such as < h2 >.

Opening Paragraph for Search Engine Optimized Articles

Add emphasis to your opening paragraph by using header tags such as < h3 > (without the spaces).  This shows the search engine that it is an important part of the content on that page.

Include your main keywords within the opening paragraph for the article. Make sure these words flow naturally. This is where a professional writer can assist you in developing site content. Readable content is more important than SEO. No one wants to read an article that has awkwardly placed keywords. This is an example of an opening paragraph.

New Army wives are in need of a wide variety of Army information when their soldier enlists in the military. The necessary Army information for the new Army wife includes pay and benefits, housing information and basic training overview.

Body of the SEO Article

Throughout the rest of the article, the keywords should be scattered throughout the content. If there are going to be links going out to other content on your site or on a different site, make sure that the navigational link is utilizing your keyword phrase. For example:

DO:

Learn more about my professional writing services.

DON’T:

Learn more about my professional writing services here.

The link is known as your anchor text and again shows the importance of those words.

There are many recommendations about how often you should utilize your keywords and keyword phrases in the article. Some aim for 2-3% while others say each should appear at least twice. As long as you write naturally (or hire a professional SEO writer to do it for you), the density will most likely be acceptable. Writing with the reader in mind should be the top priority with SEO a close second.

In the next post, we will cover other SEO techniques that can be used throughout your site and content to improve rankings.