Small Business Management

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Apr

18

Spotting Megatrends While They’re Still Minitrends

Posted by Mitchell York under Small Business Management

You know what a megatrend is — one of those sea changes in science, culture or business that will affect everyone on the planet. The emergence of the Internet is a megatrend. But if you want to get an entrepreneurial jump on competition, you may do well to focus not on the megatrend, but rather on the minitrend. John Vanston of Technology Futures Inc., says there are trends all around us that are not yet appreciated by the general public but that will be ripe in a relatively short time. Read more…

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Mar

20

More Entrepreneurs Going it Alone

Posted by Mitchell York under Small Business Management

While more Americans are turning to entrepreneurship due to economic restructuring,  most of them are going the solopreneur route and not building companies with employees.

According to the “Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity,” 0.34 percent of American adults created a business per month in 2010, or 565,000 new businesses, a rate that remained consistent with 2009 and represents the highest level of entrepreneurship over the past decade and a half. In contrast, however, the quarterly rate for employer firms dropped from 0.13 percent in 2007 to 0.10 percent in 2010. Read more…

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Feb

19

Want to Improve Time Management? Call the Border Patrol

Posted by Mitchell York under Small Business Management

Three of my coaching clients all are having the same big issue. It’s an old issue and most entrepreneurs have it: how to deal with overload and better manage their time. All three had symptoms that will sound very familiar to you. Faces full of tension and fatigue, desks barely visible beneath mounds of paper, and most importantly, closed doors that never stay closed for long. Ever try to create a four-slide Powerpoint that should take you 20 minutes and it’s now six hours later and you’re only half-way done? Yeah, you know all about it.

There must be a system. Something you can buy that will make it stop. There is! Read more…

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Feb

06

The Invisible Customer

Posted by Mitchell York under Small Business Management

A client of mine  has a very important customer who had never visited his office before. They’d always met at the customer’s headquarters.

My client’s company has two floors in an office building, and reception is on the 3rd floor. His customer decided she’d like to see where her millions of dollars in purchases are going, so she made an appointment to visit. She went directly to the floor my client is on, the 2nd floor. When she arrived,  there was no receptionist, because she was on the wrong floor (even though my client instructed her to go to reception on the 3rd floor. ) She roamed the halls and cubicles.  No one got up from their desk to say, “May I help you?” It wasn’t their job. Needless to say, this million-dollar customer wasn’t very happy when she finally tracked down my client.

Remember:  whether your company is large or small, every one of your employees is selling, all the time. Do you train your people on the 2nd floor  to welcome guests, even if they should have been on the 3rd floor? Do they realize they are always selling? Have a similar story? Leave a comment. And read some valuable customer service tips.

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Jan

12

With the Economy Slightly Better, is it Time to Look at a Franchise?

Posted by Mitchell York under Small Business Management

Wednesday January 12, 2011

It’s the question that gets asked in every economic environment: Is now a good time to start a business? And the answer is always: Maybe. On the plus side, banks are said to be loosening up small business lending, and the strong 2010 finish on Wall Street, coupled with better-than-expected holiday retail sales, seems to have bolstered the economic mood. Would-be and serial entrepreneurs who have been on the sidelines may be firing up their spreadsheets once again.

One path entrepreneurs may decide to take is franchising. After all, when you buy a franchise, you have the opportunity to accelerate your market entry through an already-created brand and operational system. Read more...

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Dec

27

Tips for Making Sure Your Online Reputation is Under Control

Posted by Mitchell York under Small Business Management

It’s the nightmare of every small business: one unfair online review on Yelp!, Citysearch, TripAdvisor or some other site that tarnishes your reputation. The scariest part? You will never know how much business you may have lost as a result of people reading that bad review.

Consumers don’t buy so much as a toothbrush anymore without Googling the brand online. Therefore, it’s become essential for businesses of all types to manage their online reputations. Michael Fertik, president and founder of ReputationDefender, an online reputation management company, offers these tips to help keep your business’s online search presence as positive as possible. Read more…

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Nov

22

Gen Y: Burn Your Resumes!

Posted by Mitchell York under Small Business Management

death to resume

In the Sixties, women burned their bras. In 2011, Scott Gerber wants young people to burn their resumes.

Gerber, Gen Y entrepreneur and author of Never Get a Real Job (Wiley, 2010)  is starting what he calls the “Death to the Resume” movement, which will kick off with a competition in which Gen-Yers send Gerber a video of themselves burning their resume (be careful with matches, kids) and then pitching their new business idea. Read more…

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Oct

22

Four Years to Launch a Product You Can’t See

Posted by Mitchell York under Small Business Management

Kathy Kramer has a small waist and slightly larger hips and always needed a belt or clothing alterations because there was extra room in the back of her pants. She sounds like tens of millions of other women, right? But unlike most women, in 2003 Kathy decided to do something about her fashion problem by creating a product. Now she’s like a few hundred thousand women who plan to start a business. She invented the Invisibelt — a flat, undetectable belt women wear under fitted tops. The result? No belt buckle bulge, fitted tops lie flat, no more “back gap” and no need to pull and tug pants that stretch. Read more…

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Oct

10

How to Create Wealth with a Simple, Effective Home-Based Business

Posted by Mitchell York under Small Business Management

bumper sticker

If you think it takes lots of start-up capital to be an entrepreneur, you haven’t met Jennifer Slater, founder of EightyEightPercent.com. Her home-based business prints and sells bumper stickers with a religious theme. Here are some key success factors Jennifer has put to work in her business.

  • High gross margins + just-in-time manufacturing: “You can have bumper stickers printed for about half the cost that they normally sell for. Mine sell for $7 each and I offer quantity discounts, which is something I also receive from my printer. If you sell them through your website you receive payment before mailing the product so you don’t need money to produce the product upfront.” Read more…

Do you have a successful home-based business? What are your key success factors? Please share them with a comment.

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Oct

04

Motivating Entrepreneurs: There’s More to it than Money

Posted by Mitchell York under Small Business Management

I was on a panel at the New York Times Small Business Summit last week and I learned a lot about entrepreneurship. The biggest thing I learned from my fellow panelists is that definitions of successful entrepreneurship are wildly divergent and often don’t hinge on the degree of financial success entrepreneurs achieve. Entrepreneurial success has mostly to do with what drives the individual to succeed. If your business serves and fulfills you, that’s the primary indication that you are successful.

Here’s a bit about the interesting and diverse entrepreneurs whom I got to observe. Read more…

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