Small Business Basics

Last week I was invited to speak to a class of seniors at a local privat school in my town. The Careers teacher had a segment to cover on Entrepreneurship. Not a surprise, but half the class came from homes where one or both parents had their own business. Let me rephrase that…the parents of these students were “self-employed.”

One of the emphasis I placed on the topic is the difference between business owner and self employed. Using Robert Kiyosaki’s book Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money–That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! as an explanation the basic concept I pointed out that self-employed individuals are still “employees” of the business; they just might like their boss better. The business owner does not usually participate in the day to day operations. A business owner hires people to do the daily operations. The owners job is to oversee the management of the operation. I think perhaps this was a concept that most of these students hadn’t previously given much thought to.

The two books that affected me the most on this particular topic of owning the business versus being employed by yourself were first of all Michael Gerber’s book The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It and E-Myth Mastery. It took a while for the “working ON your business not IN your business” to finally sink in.

If you don’t have these books you should add them to your library.

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A Cluttered Mind is not Creative

Whenever I work with small business owners one on one, whether new business owners, or those that have been active in their business for a time, one of the first things I look at with them is the systems they use to operate their business.

For my own business, GiveAways Plus, I absolutely must have a well defined system for operating my business. I have a system for each order that comes in that I follow precisely so tht I am sure nothing goes wrong with a customer’s order. I follow up on each order with the factory to be sure that they have all the information needed to produce the customized product exactly as the customer has requested it and the finished goods will be delivered on the date required.

I have a system for how all of the paperwork, order acknowledgements, art proofs, and any  correspondence with the vendor or customer (usually fax or emails) are filed for easy retreival on a future date.

As I confirm that an order has been shipped I request faxed copy of the invoice from the factory so that I can immediately bill the customer and vouch the invoice to be paid to my vendor in my accounts payable.

You might be reading this and saying , "Well, of course." But I have found that many of small business owners actually conduct their business sort of randomly. These are the business owners that don’t last long, or are extremely frustrated because of the lack of progress in their business.

I can honestly say that if I neglect any of my operational systems because I get lazy or too busy, I find that the random procedures create physical and mental clutter that clog my business works and stifle my creativity.

I make it a regular practice to pay attention to anything that is nagging at my mind to get done that I may be procrastinating. I do procrastinate on those things that seem too complicated, or that seem unpleasant. I know better. I know that those things I don’t take care of eventually cause me bigger problems than if I had addressed them early on.

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