What keeps small-business owners up at night?
By Barry Moltz
“As a small-business owner, I sleep like a baby. I go to bed at 8 p.m. and wake up at midnight screaming my head off.” — Unknown
The latest Small Business Barometer from Western Union Payments reveals what keeps owners up at night. There are no surprises here.
1. Revenue generation: Most businesses never have enough customers. Their dreams are full of ways to keep the ones they have and get new prospects for their sales pipeline. The cure: Implement a systematic method that always has the company creating relationships with future prospects.
2. Positive cash flow. Cash flow is king. Remember that sales are vanity, cash flow is sanity. Companies go out of business simply because they run out of cash. It adds up to many sleepless nights. The cure: Understand how to read a cash flow statement. Is there more cash at the end of the month than the beginning? What items affect the company’s cash flow?
3. Forgetting to invoice a customer. The work was done, but you forgot to bill the customer (and you are surprised they haven’t paid?). The cure: Have a method to regularly bill customers either biweekly or monthly. Better yet, get paid when the product or service is delivered!
What keeps you up at night?
Barry Moltz is a Chicago-based serial entrepreneur, business consultant, marketing expert, mediator, speaker and author of several books on small-business success. Look for his advice on Crain’s blog for entrepreneurs every Monday. Barry is also a regular contributor to the American Express Open Forum.
Follow Barry on Twitter: @BarryMoltz.
Listen to podcasts of Barry’s “Business Insanity” radio show here.
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Crain’s small-business editor Ann Dwyer is on Google+.
Why your business still needs a lawyer
By Barry Moltz
“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers” – William Shakespeare
There are days when small-business owners feel this way. Whether it’s all the legal complexities of running a business boiling over or being sued by a customer, dealing with lawyers can be frustrating. But lawyers serve many valuable purposes for entrepreneurs. Even with all the valuable resources on the web, there are five key areas where lawyers still need to be included in your management mix:
1. Incorporating a company. This can be done online through Incorporate (www.incorporate.com) or Legal Zoom (www.legalzoom.com) if something very simple is required. Multiple classes of stock will require an attorney.
2. Shareholder, partnership and employment agreements. It is critical to understand that good fences (agreements) make good neighbors (partners). When the company becomes valuable, these will be referred to often.
3. Seeking investors. This is a complicated area with many trap doors. Employ an excellent attorney for this type of work.
4. Valuable adviser. Lawyers work with a lot of businesses. They can be an important source of advice with their ability to make connections.
5. Selling the company. Lawyers need to construct a contract that provides an insurance policy for the business owner when things go right and wrong with the transaction.
In fact, the Entrepreneurship Law Center at Northwestern University helps to educate entrepreneurs and wannabe-entrepreneurs about the legal challenges that business owners and lawyers face while running their businesses. The center is holding a special seminar on March 3 that will cover the key areas.
How have you effectively used your attorney?
Barry Moltz is a Chicago-based serial entrepreneur, business consultant, marketing expert, mediator, speaker and author of several books on small-business success. Look for his advice on Crain’s blog for entrepreneurs every Monday. Barry is also a regular contributor to the American Express Open Forum.
Follow Barry on Twitter: @BarryMoltz.
Listen to podcasts of Barry’s “Business Insanity” radio show here.
Join Crain’s LinkedIn group for Chicago entrepreneurs. And stay on top of Chicago business with Crain’s free daily e-newsletters.
How to build a network one business card at a time
By Barry Moltz
Most business people realize that it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. What you know may get you invited to an opportunity, but who you know will get you the business every time. Just think what you could do if you had a network of 50,000 contacts in Chicago.
Mary McFarlin, founder of Linked N Chicago, has built such a network over the last five years. In 2005, she returned from Europe to look for work and realized that she did not have a network to help navigate the business landscape and connect with people that could help in her search for a job. Mary decided to start her own network on Yahoo as a Listserv group with 150 of her own contacts. In 2007, when LinkedIn developed the “groups” functionality, she migrated her network to this social-media tool. In the past five years, it has evolved, as Mary says, into almost 50,000 members “one business card at a time.” She attributes her success to a basic philosophy of “Be the gift first. Receive second.”
Linked N Chicago’s monthly networking events for members takes this online community and brings it offline in a comfortable atmosphere to make connections and grow companies. Her plans include a new business website to be launched in March. It will enhance the group experience and provide new opportunities to the membership. These will include additional workshops,webcasts and special offers.
Check out videos from Linked N Chicago’s YouTube channel, including this interview with Ms. McFarlin, uploaded in June:
What do you think are the best networking groups in Chicago?
Barry Moltz is a Chicago-based serial entrepreneur, business consultant, marketing expert, mediator, speaker and author of several books on small-business success. Look for his advice on Crain’s blog for entrepreneurs every Monday. Barry is also a regular contributor to the American Express Open Forum.
Follow Barry on Twitter: @BarryMoltz.
Listen to podcasts of Barry’s “Business Insanity” radio show here.
We welcome your comments, but to comment, you have to register! Registration is free – click here to get started.
The marketing destination for 2012? Going mobile and social
By Barry Moltz
According to the Ad-ology 2012 Small Business Marketing Forecast, one in five small businesses plan to invest more resources in mobile applications and advertising in 2012. As a result of their own experience with smartphones, the companies see mobile as a way to deliver a new ad message quickly. This is in stark contrast to 2009, when only 2% of small businesses surveyed planned increased resources for mobile.
Only 10% say they will not use social media in 2012, which is down from 39% just two years ago. For the first time, “improving the customer experience” was ranked at the top of the social-media benefits list. In fact, the preferred way many consumers now communicate their concerns with a company is through social media.
Other key findings from the study for 2012:
* 29% of small business owners plan to increase budgets for direct mail.
* Newspapers, with their new emphasis on digital, as well as broadcast TV, cable TV and radio are also expected to see increases.
* Nearly 25% plan to increase their budget for daily deals.
* 45% plan to increase their overall advertising spending in 2012, with just 4% percent planning a decrease.
How will your business be using social media and mobile in 2012?
Barry Moltz is a Chicago-based serial entrepreneur, business consultant, marketing expert, mediator, speaker and author of several books on small-business success. Look for his advice on Crain’s blog for entrepreneurs every Monday. Barry is also a regular contributor to the American Express Open Forum.
Follow Barry on Twitter: @BarryMoltz.
Listen to podcasts of Barry’s “Business Insanity” radio show here.
We welcome your comments, but to comment, you have to register! Registration is free – click here to get started.
Barry Moltz: What your Facebook statistics mean
By Barry Moltz
For most business people, Facebook is either a source of entertainment or a critical sales tool for their companies. On a weekly basis, Facebook will send the administrator rudimentary statistics: fans that were added this week as well as number of posts, comments, likes and visitors.But what does this information really tell the company about the results of their Facebook marketing efforts? Of course, large businesses can hire social media research companies to find this out for them or install expensive software tools to analyze their campaigns.
A tool released last week for small-business owners can help. Evanston-based Fathom Research’s new web-based product answers the marketing questions every small business has on Facebook. This tool helps:
• Evaluate success using a more sophisticated relationship score
• Compare how well the company is doing with a customized group of competitors
• Compare how well the company is doing vs. the best companies in the business
• Learn new ways to increase the “depth” of the relationship with customers
• Explore what activity on Facebook is most or the least successful
• Monitor the success of their programs over time
Other products that offer Facebook analytical tools include PageLever and Social Bakers.
It’s great to post and comment on Facebook, but wouldn’t it be better if you knew what it meant for your company’s marketing effort?
(Disclosure: I serve on the board of Motivequest, which provides the technology for Fathom.)
Barry Moltz is a Chicago-based serial entrepreneur, business consultant, marketing expert, mediator, speaker and author of several books on small-business success. Look for his advice on Crain’s blog for entrepreneurs every Monday. Barry is also a regular contributor to the American Express Open Forum.
Follow Barry on Twitter: @BarryMoltz.
Listen to podcasts of Barry’s “Business Insanity” radio show here.
We welcome your comments, but to comment, you have to register! Registration is free – click here to get started.
