Mine Your Own Business

Tips to Shift into New Markets

There was a recent article in USA Today that began with a question on small businesses and new markets. The response was that small businesses are much more flexible than large corporations (think speedboat vs. container ship) and then provided some reasons and examples for the difference. There are also some great links to some online tools for trying out how a new market for our business might work out.

Probably the best part of the article though was the four tips near the end; such as considering line extensions for your current line of products and some pitfalls to avoid such as always keeping your brand in mind. All in all there was a lot of good information in the article and you can read the whole thing here.

Rain Rain Go Away....

We've all experienced vacations, graduations, sporting events, or any outdoor activity where the weather makes all the difference between a great day and a miserable day. But here's an article that takes a look at how the weather can have a big effect on businesses. It describes how several businesses are impacted by the weather, some would obviously be affected such as a restaurant with outdoor seating. Some of the others examples are surprising.

One really interesting part of the article is the extremely clever way some of the businesses have come up with lessening the impact of the bad weather and sometimes even turning it to their advantage. The questions today are if your business is impacted by bad weather and if so, have you come up with a way to lessen the impact or even increase business?

How to Cut Business Debt

Small businesses frequently need to incur some debt in order to get started or to grow an already established business. Maybe you would like to move to a larger or better located store, or you'd like to bring on new products or expand your current product lines. There are lots of good reasons for outside financing and good management of your debt can actually help with establishing a good credit rating.

So now that we've established a little debt may be a good thing, how do you manage it or reduce it if you have incurred a little to much in our current economy? Here's a short article that provides some further information and proposes two main ways to control debt, make sure to develop and follow a reasonable budget and carefully watch staffing expenses. Do you have any other suggestions for managing business debt effectively or do you feel that business debt should be avoided if at all possible?

Could Playing Favorites be Good for your Business?

We post fairly often on employees since they are so vital to any business (large or small) and employee management can frequently be challenging. In our current politically correct society, equal treatment of employees is the norm. Now comes a challenge to that idea in a thought provoking article that recommends playing favorites with your employees.

The article begins by describing the current situation in most businesses and the reasons for beginning to play favorites instead. It then goes on to describe how to start playing favorites if you agree with the writer's premise and also gives some pitfalls to avoid. So what do you think after reading the article, as the title questions, could playing favorites be good for your business?

Are You Cutting Pay?

Times are sill tough for almost everyone and most small businesses are no exception. One way that many small businesses are surviving is by cutting the pay of their employees. After all, if your business is making less money, there is less money to pay employees. Here's an article that describes how in just one year salaries across the US have dropped more than five percent. It also goes on to describe how lay-offs, furloughs,and other methods have been used to stay afloat.

One idea that may work for some small businesses that the article mentions is the use of independent contracting to reduce the number of full time employees. There is no permanent commitment and the business doesn't have to pay taxes. So have you had to take any  of these measures in your business or do you have any other suggestions?

Customer Service Tips

It has been some time since we did a posting on customer service and since good customer service is so important to any small business we thought it was time to revisit this important topic again. Here's an article that provides four tips for dealing with angry customers. Much of the article is aimed at small businesses who actually have customer service call-centers, but the four tips would work for any small business.

Who knows, if you follow the tips in the article it might save you from losing some customers in the future (there's a pun in there, but you'll only get it if you read the article).

Sales and Great Quotations

Here's a good article with twelve great quotes that Dave Stein has used over the years in sales, writing, speaking, and coaching. Here are a few to entice you to read the whole article and see how these quotes relate to business: "Opportunity may knock only once, but temptation leans on the doorbell." (Unattributed) Or how about this gem: "Some people are so far behind in the race, they believe they are leading. (Uncle Junior on "The Sopranos")

These are just a few really of the great quotes in the article.  Here is a classic from Tom Bridges (now retired from Tacony Corporation) that he used frequently "If it was easy, anybody could do it". He would use that line when facing challenges. Now add your favorite quote that you use in your work.

Happiness and Age

We did a posting last week about how to do a Happiness Project. Now come several new studies with some very interesting results, that in general happiness seems to increase with age for most people. The article describes how mental health tends to improve with age (except for those with age dementia) and that older adults have fewer negative emotional experiences and greater emotional control.

There is a lot more information about happiness and aging in the article, including some great links to other articles on the topic, and even a quiz on healthy aging. You can read the whole article here. Maybe one reason older people tend to be happier is many of them have more choice over what they do as they age. After retirement, you can play golf or tennis or do anything else you're interested in instead of going to work. If it's a nasty day outside (rain, snow, hot, etc.) you can stay inside instead of having to face the elements (just make sure you have enough milk and bread before the snow flies). Anyone else have any thought on happiness and aging?

Why Should I Care?

We have been doing a lot of posts on the economy in the past several months, after all it is a very hot topic with a huge impact on small businesses. We thought maybe it might be a good time to post something providing a few key tips to make any sales pitch or presentation more effective. A great deal of the article focuses on presentations, but the same ideas are relevant to sales pitches as well.

The main idea of the article is the importance of using the pronouns you or your frequently and very early in any presentation or sales pitch and he provides some very interesting links to back up this idea. The article provides many more detail and examples of incorporating this idea and we thought the tips would be very helpful in developing your future sales pitches.

Optimistic Small Business Owners

BusinessWeek has an interesting article out that describes how surveys of owners of small companies think the long recession is finally staring to turn. Probably the best way to describe how they feel is guarded optimism. The article describes two indexes that show that while many small business owners still think the economy is sliding, the percentage of those who are optimistic is finally beginning to increase.

The article then goes on to describe how some small business owners think the customers are starting to be more optimistic about the economy as well resulting in increased traffic and sales. You can read the entire article here. What do you think, are things finally improving or is this article about increased optimism too optimistic itself?