The Entitlements of a Small Business Owner

by Dr Greg Chapman, MBA

It can be intimidating for a small business owner visiting their corporate clients. They take the lift to the 41st floor and in a marble clad reception, they ask to speak with the executive with whom they have an appointment. They wait in a plush chair in a reception lounge with a magnificent view where they are served a cappuccino in a fine china cup. Finally, the executive assistant ushers them into the executive suite in a corner office, beautifully furnished with expensive artwork on the walls.

This is not the office of a small business owner, as they know they have a choice. They can have their own executive suite, or they can re-invest in their business to increase profits or increase their own dividends.

An executive on the other hand sees these trappings as perks. Along with first class travel and a luxury car. After all, they believe they are entitled to be treated this way. It is proof of their importance and authority. Besides which all the other executives at their level are getting the same perks and the company should provide them to demonstrate its strength and position in the business world.

Most executives don’t own the business, although they may hold some stock. They did not build the corporation from infancy. They are opportunity takers, and if things don’t work out, they will take another opportunity. The opportunity creators are the entrepreneurs.

So what are small business owners entitled to? Apart form hard work, long hours, stress about meeting their commitments to their customers, staff and suppliers?

They are entitled to keep their customers happy and see them return time after time. They are entitled to the referrals their customers give when they send their friends and colleagues to their business. They are entitled to the recognition and support they receive from their business owner colleagues who understand them better than anyone else.

They are entitled to decide who they will work with and who they won’t. They don’t have to justify their actions to others who just want their job. They are entitled to the rewards of their efforts – without someone else claiming the credit and getting the bonus. They can take satisfaction in seeing their business grow and prosper as they do watching their children grow.

When business owners understand this, they no longer need to feel in awe of their executive clients. In many cases the have risked more and done more than many of the high flyers. They don’t have the arrogance of the corporate executive. Arrogance doesn’t sell. They have created a valuable asset with their own mind and hands. Of that, they are entitled to feel very proud.

May Your Business Be - As You Plan It.

Over to You. What do You Think? Post Your Comments Below.

Dr Greg Chapman is the Director of Empower Business Solutions and The Australian Business Coaching Club and is Australia's Leading Advisor on Emerging Businesses and provides Coaching and Consulting advice to Australian Small Business Owners in Marketing & Business Strategies Planning & Systems. He is also the author of The Five Pillars of Guaranteed Business Success.

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The Australian Small Business Blog

The Value of Knowledge

by Dr Greg Chapman, MBA

When scouring the internet for articles, what we tend to find is half answers. They say the Truth is out there, but it sure isn’t easy to find.

The power of the internet is that it is a huge resource of human knowledge, but it is very disconnected and often highly unreliable. While we may become frustrated at this, we all know it is difficult to complain to anyone, especially when we are seeking free information. While there are good resources out there, the trouble is they tend not to be tailored for your specific needs, even if you can find them.

We have a choice-

We can continue to spend time scouring the internet to find that gem that is going to transform our business, for Free!

Or

We can put our hands in our pocket to acquire information we are confident that will provide us the information we need.

While the first choice may appear lower cost, it is not if you value your time. Particularly if you can’t find the gem you were seeking. Like the people who spend their weekends with a metal detector hoping to find gold in the outback, they are depending on luck, but luck won’t help if you are in the wrong place to start looking. They could consult a geologist on the best place to look, but they would prefer to “save money” and hope for a lucky strike.

Knowledge has a value. The price you pay may be your time to find it, it could be the cost associated through the purchase of a book, a course or seminar or paying for advice from business coaches. There is still a price you pay through the school of trial and error if you “save money” by ignoring all of the previous resources. Its the cost of blind alleys and time and opportunities missed. These costs are very real.

What would it be worth to you to achieve your two year goals in one? That’s how you value knowledge.

For those who are serious, and value knowledge, there is a new resource (that is not free- but not expensive either) that will provide you many of the answers you are seeking. This resource is the Small Business Achiever where you can find, in bite sized chunks, the small business advice you are seeking. The Small Business Achiever puts the “HOW TO” into how to.

Whatever the resource you choose is, decide this year to invest in yourself and your education. Create a budget for this and put aside 5% of your turnover. This is not an expense, it is an investment which you would expect to pay dividends many times the cost.

Define your knowledge gaps and seek out advice or education to bridge them, and don’t be afraid to draw on your budget to pay for it. That is what it is there for!

May Your Business in 2008 be as You Plan It!

Dr Greg Chapman

Over to You. What do You Think? Post Your Comments Below.

Dr Greg Chapman is the Director of Empower Business Solutions and The Australian Business Coaching Club and is Australia's Leading Advisor on Emerging Businesses and provides Coaching and Consulting advice to Australian Small Business Owners in Marketing & Business Strategies Planning & Systems. He is also the author of The Five Pillars of Guaranteed Business Success.

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The Australian Small Business Blog

Small's not so beautiful

by Tony Kaye in The Australian

AUSTRALIAN small business, in many respects, is recognised as the backbone of the economy. According to government statistics, there are more than 1.88 million small businesses, employing 3.6 million people. Their combined capitalised worth is $4.3 trillion -- more than four times that of the Australian Securities Exchange.

Yet the statistics mask the reality that most small businesses are very small, with many being home-based, and most of these micro-businesses never manage move to the next level, if they survive beyond the first few years.

"Running a business is a challenge: it's an emotional, financial and mental merry-go-round and it has become even harder with red tape, tax and professional standards being so much more complex," says Tony Steven, chief executive of the Council of Small Business of Australia. "However, the basics remain the same."

Getting back to the basics of business is one of the key themes explored by business coach Dr Greg Chapman, in a book he has just released, The Five Pillars of Guaranteed Business Success.

Chapman, who is also a Telstra Business Awards judge, says a high percentage of businesses stay small because their owners lack the vision, passion and skills to take them ahead. "What happens to most small businesses is nothing. They just stay small," he says. "Up to 98 per cent of small businesses are effectively 'micro-stayers', trapped inside a microbubble with little prospect of escaping, because they don't know how to grow."

Chapman says there are basically five reasons why micro-businesses don't move to the next level, with a lack of vision by the owner as to where the business is going to be in the future being top of the list.

"Without any direction, you really don't have any strategy, and strategy is the lever that lifts you from where you are today to where you want to be in the future," he says.

A second key reason is a lack of passion in their business, with many owners not having the commitment to take their business to a higher level. "You need the right vision to give you the passion, the commitment to stay the course and overcome the obstacles that do appear," Chapman says.

He says another reason why businesses stay small is that they don't plan, and therefore don't have the confidence to take the risks they need to take to achieve better results.

"It's not enough to have a vision and a passion; you actually need a plan to take you there. It's the roadmap; without a plan, all you really have is a dream, and we know how often they come true."

Chapman says the fourth reason why businesses stay small is that business owners don't value their time and are often working in their business rather than on their business, by performing tasks that can be delegated or outsourced.

Lastly, Chapman says business owners who fail to invest in education are also greatly limiting their growth potential. "When you value your time, you will also understand the value of knowledge," he says. "If an owner is not willing to invest in their own education and sees that as a cost instead, they have just resigned themselves to the school of hard knocks."

If business owners don't address these key factors, Chapman says, "they will be unable to grow beyond a certain level. The owner becomes frustrated and ultimately resigned to being a micro-stayer."

He says owners need to be open and honest that they are caught in a trap. "It's as if you've got a medical problem; you've got to diagnose the problem before you can do anything about it. Business owners have to be committed to really addressing their problems and doing something about it".

Over to You. What do You Think? Post Your Comments Below.

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The Australian Small Business Blog

Where to Start?

by Dr Greg Chapman, MBA

When looking at your business, is it like looking at one of those houses that real estate agents love to call: “a renovator’s delight”? You know, it is basically sound structurally, but the paint is peeling, cracks are showing and the garden is a mess. It does not need a huge amount of effort, just a bit of love and attention, some elbow grease and a bit of know-how. Or is it like a sapling with shoots growing everywhere but with no clear growth direction and shallow roots?

Whatever your business looks like, when seeking to renovate or prune it into shape, the question is where to start? Should it be on your marketing or your systems, or perhaps your website or sales? The correct answer is to re-look at your goals so that every effort you make is taking your business in the direction you want it to go. Otherwise you will waste considerable time and money with unfocused strategies- scarce resources in small business. This is the difference between a light bulb and a laser beam which can cut through steel.

A systematic approach to renovating or pruning your business into shape is provided in the NEW book:

The Five Pillars of Guaranteed Business Success

This book, which has a forward from Tony Steven, the CEO of COSBOA, the peak small business organisation in Australia, comes with a $100 of business tools, and provides an easy to understand, step-by-step approach on how to improve your business, starting with your goals, right through to systems and sales.

When you truly understand where your business is going, the job of defining a marketing strategy and putting in place systems becomes much simpler. Without this understanding, every day is a battle for survival, a hand to mouth existence. With it, every strategy you implement is about creating an unassailable position for your business in the marketplace.

Please visit Five Pillars for more information on “The Five Pillars of Guaranteed Business Success”

May Your Business be as You Plan It!

Dr Greg Chapman

Over to You. What do You Think? Post Your Comments Below.

Dr Greg Chapman is the Director of Empower Business Solutions and The Australian Business Coaching Club and is Australia's Leading Advisor on Emerging Businesses and provides Coaching and Consulting advice to Australian Small Business Owners in Marketing & Business Strategies Planning & Systems.

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The Australian Small Business Blog

Is Yours an Emerging Business?

by Dr Greg Chapman, MBA

There is a bubble growing in Australian Small Business. Are you part of it?

The ABS defines Small Business as those with less than 20 employees. These businesses provide over 40% of the jobs in the country. It also reports that the average annual growth in active, employing businesses over the last 3 years as 9%. Which is an incredible statistic. But this hides an even more astonishing statistic. That fuelling this growth are, what is somewhat dismissively referred to as, micro businesses. That is businesses with less than 5 employees. This sector has had an average growth of 11% over the same period and makes up an amazing 61% of all businesses.

What is happening here? A bubble is forming in the under 5 employee range. While there were exits and transfers to larger categories, this sector is growing faster than any other. Most micro businesses seem to be trapped within the bubble. With only a few emerging. Actually, the numbers look like this:

New Micro Businesses each Year: 17%
Annual Micro Business Failure Rate: 5%
Net Annual Micro-Business Growth Rate: 11%
Micro Businesses Emerging from the Bubble: 2%

(Note: These numbers are approximate and contain rounding errors)

So within the group defined as micro-business, there is another group that I refer to as Emerging Businesses. These businesses differentiate themselves from all the other micro businesses as the movers. The action takers. The Emerging Businesses are leaving their fellow micro businesses behind. I call those, the Micro-stayers.

The Micro-stayers can be defined as those who remain as micro-businesses, don’t fail, but don’t emerge from the micro-group. This may be as a result of a number of factors. It maybe lifestyle choice. Work-Life balance is becoming more and more important to many people. It maybe because they don’t have the knowledge to take their business to the next level, and become frustrated Micro-stayers. Or they may have progressed from frustrated to resigned Micro-stayers and have adjusted lifestyle and ambition in recognition of this.

The Emerging Businesses, on the other hand, retain their ambition, and where they have found they are lacking in skill or knowledge, have sought out advice. No-one knows it all, and everyone at some point requires help. This may be in the form of education through a course or reading, or it may be with a mentor or a professional advisor or coach. The choice here is a matter of personal style, and how quickly the owners want to achieve their ambitions. But as you see from the statistics, very few people know this and do it!

To become an Emerging Business just requires a determination to do so. The alternative is to become a Micro-stayer within the micro-bubble.

Where will you be when the bubble bursts?

Dr Greg Chapman is the Director of Empower Business Solutions and The Australian Business Coaching Club and is Australia's Leading Advisor on Emerging Businesses and provides Coaching and Consulting advice to Australian Small Business Owners in Marketing & Business Strategies Planning & Systems.

The Australian Small Business Blog

Wanna-be's vs Entrepreneurs

Twelve differences between those who dream and those who act:

1-Wanna-be's obsess about ideas. Entrepreneurs obsess about implementation.

2-Wanna-be's want more web traffic. Entrepreneurs focus on sales conversion.

3-Wanna-be's focus on positive thinking. Entrepreneurs plan for multiple contingencies.

4-Wanna-be's want to get on TV and get "famous." Entrepreneurs build their list.

5-Wanna-be's seek a perfect plan. Entrepreneurs execute and adjust the plan later.

6-Wanna-be's wait for their lucky break. Entrepreneurs engineer four, five, six plans and execute them in tandem, wagering that at least one plan will get traction.

7-Wanna-be's fear looking stupid in front of their friends. Entrepreneurs willingly risk making fools of themselves, knowing that long-term success is a good trade for short-term loss of dignity.

8-Wanna-be's shield their precious ideas from harsh reality, postponing the verdict of success or failure until 'someday.' Entrepreneurs expose their ideas to cold reality as soon as reasonably possible.

9-Wanna-be's put off practicing basketball until they've got Air Jordan’s. Entrepreneurs practice barefoot behind the garage.

10-Wanna-be's believe what they're told, believe their own assumptions. Entrepreneurs do original research and determine what paths have been already trod.

11-Wanna-be's believe they can do anything. Entrepreneurs do what they're gifted for and delegate the rest.

12-Wanna-be's think about the world in terms of COULD and SHOULD. Entrepreneurs think in terms of IS and CAN BE.

How do you score?

This article was written by Perry Marshall- apart from last question. No link available.

The Australian Small Business Blog