Making Money is Killing Your Business

I am a huge fan of the German approach to business. The mittlestand, family businesses that are homegrown, anchored in the locality, with a long term multi generational perspective, focused on creating wealth. Particularly “Hidden champions” opened my eyes.

So I was very taken with “Making money is killing your business”.

Time to grow up

It is time for a lot of business owners to grow up. It is time for businesses to grow up. Chuck Blakeman has an interesting perspective on start ups and small business. Too many do not grow up and you have created your own job, not your own business.

The tyranny of the urgent

He refers to it as the tyranny of the urgent versus the priority of the important.

Urgent is reactive, short term and defensive and is the treadmill of making money. Important is proactive and long term. It is about making money versus building a business.

Wealth

It comes down to the definition of wealth, which is the ability to choose what do with your time and your money. Can you?

Are you the main producer/deliverer by choice or necessity?
Does the business make money when you are somewhere else?
Are you making decision based on where you are, or where you want to be?

Chuck blames the focus on exit and selling your business. In his view that is similar to selling your children. Why would you invest all that love, time and passion to sell it off, instead of creating an ongoing stream of long term wealth?

Time and money are at a premium

Gallup research tells that the average business owners work 52 hours a week (hose are the lazy or lucky ones). They work 6 days a week, some have zero vacation and when they do over 50% still answer work related e-mails and calls. Only 3% of business owners create 86% of the revenue in the USA. So time and money are at a premium. How can you earn more money in less time?

Are you on the treadmill?

According to Blakeman there are seven stages of business

Stage 1 Concept and start up
the trick here is to move as quick as possible from dreaming to doing. Dreaming includes thinking, researching and planning. The number one indication of success is the speed of execution.

Stage 2 Survival
you have burned a lot of fuel, time is grinding, sales are difficult and you are focused on making money. You are now on treadmill of urgent.

Stage 3 Subsistence
you can pay your bills and are making money. There is little time to relax and your focus is on keeping it going. If you don’t watch it you are back in stage 2.

Stage 4 Stability
you are making a net profit and you have freedom money to spend. You can choose what you can do with your money. Time is still a big issue. You have created yourself a well paid job. You are an employee of yourself. An hostage to your own business.

Stage 1 to 4 are treadmills. You focused on the wrong question, which is “How do I make money”. Making money is NOT an empowering vision.

You need to get off the business treadmill!

The basics of a mature business are that you are not the main producer and it makes money when you are not there. Which moves us to stage 5 to 7.

Stage 5 Success
you have shifted your mindset to building a business versus building a job. You are moving from production to process. This is where Chuck introduces “freedom mapping”, which is a version of process mapping that brings clarity to what people are supposed to do and how it fits into the overall customer delivery process. It makes things consistent, repeatable and replicable.

Stage 6 Significance
you role has shifted to becoming a leader and you are less and less involved in direct delivery and production. You business is starting to make an impact. You are free. However, leadership is in place, leadership is not in charge. It is vision and guidance, which means you still need to keep an eye on the business and guide management.

Which brings you to the last stage. Stage 7 Succession. This is where leadership is in charge and you have ingrained a culture that embraces you vision. Only vision. You are truly free.

The key question

What is stopping you to get to stage 7? Chuck thinks it is only one reason. You are not asking the right question. How do you build a mature business and when do I want to get there?

What do you need to do?

It is very simple. Intentionality. Make the decision, put a date on it and go public. Going public changes everything (the Hawthorne effect (also referred to as the observer effect) is a type of reactivity in which individuals modify or improve an aspect of their behaviour in response to their awareness of being observed).

As a business owner you owe to yourself to try. Why would you not? How could you not? Particularly if you know that retirement as we know it now is bankrupt. Create your own retirement on your own terms.

Pick a date. You now have a clock ticking in your head. Define what does your business look like at maturity. Consider your lifetime goals (why, why, why, what is the transformative purpose). Consider the time and money required to create your ideal lifestyle.

More money, less time

Now back to basics I. More money in less time. How to increase revenue and continually reduce time to bring in that revenue.

The freedom questions

Is this (whatever you are doing right now), the best use of your time? If this is not the highest and best use of your time, how do you ensure you do it for the last time? Those two questions need to be asked constantly in all parts of the business. Parts such as leadership, business development, operation and delivery, financial management, customer and employee satisfaction and to community and family impact.

Systems and processes are the key. What is your yield per hour now? What should it be? Do the activities you are involved with now, warrant the yield per hour you want?

Back to basics II

Back to the big why. Why are doing this? Why do you matter? Why does your business matter? Why is it significant? What do you want to be remembered by? Purpose and passion. Using time, money and energy to create significance. Every book on strategy we covered on Bookbuzz always boils down to that question. See http://www.bookbuzz.biz/the-strategist/ for example.

You then need a strategic plan. You don’t need a business plan. Chuck is not a fan of business plans. Planning does not create, movement does. And the size of commitment to the intent. Straight from Do! by Kevin Kelly . Develop a two page strategic plan with key milestones and with an action plan attached. You review that strategic plan every day. You need to be able to recite that plan verbatim any time, any place within a maximum of 3 minutes. In the meantime the business maturity date is ticking in the background……

You need then set of outside eyes. A group of mentors. An advisory board. Make sure you are not alone.

In the book Chuck Blakeman gives a wide range of toolsets to figure out your lifetime goals, strategic plan, your leadership profile, etc. But the most important tool is the freedom mapping. Your franchise handbook. Your process descriptions. If you do one thing, do that. Map your overall business process and then break it down.

Stop playing office

Build a business engine. Create wealth, not money. Become a master of your own destiny. Become intentional, set the date, tell the world and move.

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Small Business Secrets: Technologies To Invest In

Almost every business today, whether large or small can see the amazing effects the right technology has on total revenue. Many of today’s customers relate well to technology whether utilized for marketing and advertising, bill paying, or communicating. Although it may seem expensive to invest in at times, the initial cost of better technology will reap dividends in the future. These four options are among the best types of technology for small businesses to invest in now.

Small Business Secrets

Accounting Software

Although most large businesses have their own accounting staff or hire out for their accounting needs, small businesses don’t have the capital to invest in such large services. In addition, many small business owners, while having what it takes to run their businesses, may not have the financial knowledge it takes to keep detailed books, do end of year taxes, or payroll. Accounting software doesn’t require a large financial investment, but instead decreases the amount of time spent doing the books each week.

Cloud Storage

Speaking of online programs, a smart choice small businesses can make is to store company information in a digital cloud. While many companies have recognized the importance of changing their filing systems from paper to digital, this process can become even safer by using an online cloud. The cloud safely stores any information in a variety of off-site servers, ensuring that if anything happens to the business’s on-site computer systems the information remains safe on the cloud.

Company Website

A company website is vital in today’s marketplace, since most customers will turn to online browsing to find products or services. A website is often the first introduction consumers have to a business. Small businesses should either invest in a premium website building service, or hire an IT services company to build a unique website that includes search engine optimization. The best websites catch the eye, show up in the top search engine results, and include a blog and social media links. SEO services will help you connect with more business for an investment that’s well worth the cost.

Online Security

As with any part of your company, data and information need to be kept stored and secure. Your website and online programs that will launch you into the modern world will need to be refined with better security. A good option is to outsource here as well to IT services like the Bedrock managed services in Ottawa who work with local businesses to protect websites and programs against outside attacks. You should also consider getting new anti-spam and malware services.

Each of these technologies will take a substantial amount of money and time for any business to set up initially, and learn how to use. But because these services will save employee time and be cost-effective overall, they are each well worth the investment. As information technology and online services boom, businesses of all sizes must keep up in order to retain current clients and gain new customers.

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7 UX Tools That Simplify Web Designers’ Task

We come across various websites on the internet; some of them simply have a breathtaking view whereas some are a sheer delight to interact with. But less do we know about the efforts that go behind making those websites the way they look. Web designers toil everyday in adding a wonderful dimension to site’s user experience. But a few hit the nail on the head. Websites today are not static pages anymore that people read and move ahead. They have become playgrounds for interacting, learning and communicating. You see customers are no more pleased with a site’s look but the entire experience.

When it comes to designing websites visual quality is dominated by functionality and interface elements that constitute overall user experience. Therefore web designing is subject to guidelines falling within the realm of user experience. Here are some tools that will curtail your stress and enable creation of websites users love exploring.

UX tools can be broadly categorized in two divisions: a. Wireframing Tools and b. Research & Testing Tools

a. Wireframing Tools

In software development lifecycle system’s look and architecture is contrived in the Design phase. These tools create blueprints for screens that enable developers to emulate the form and function in the live model. It can also be called idea testing from the designing point of view as it mainly focuses on functionality. You can create a mockup from your specifications to examine its working and to visualize ideas narrated by the client. A bunch of such prototyping tools are available in the market. Let’s take a closer look at some of the chosen ones here:

1. Axure RP Pro: One of the most widely used wireframing tools it produces dynamic prototypes as well as UI specification documents. Rich UI elements called widgets help you build interactive prototypes. It provides a huge widget library for a wide number of industry websites as well as apps. A rich collection of placeholders, shapes, gradients, icons, etc. makes it a workhorse producing almost real working models. Its HTML mockup makes it convenient for people to view the wireframe without installing an RP player, on desktop as well as mobile. The inbuilt SVN client feature allows users to share their work. Its intuitive interface can emulate even very complex websites. The inline notes allow UX designers to state business rules for clients and developers (this feature can be turned off when not required). It supports Mac and Windows Operating Systems.

2. Balsamiq: It’s a quick tool for creating static mockups. If you want speedy replication of multiple wireframes then this is the tool you were looking for. However it does have certain limitations. If you want to integrate interactive elements into this wireframe, then it fails to overwhelm you, as this is ideally suited for only sketching a system’s UI and not mocking it.

3. Invision: It’s not just a prototyping tool but it works as a good collaborative tool as well. It collaborates with Photoshop, illustrator and Fireworks. By uploading images and hotspots it gives an impression of an app. It is a versatile tool that creates interesting prototypes.

b. Research & Testing Tools

Information drives decisions. Our UI design is majorly derived from disseminated cognitive theories, which should be ideally based on user reviews gathered through surveys and research tools. Around 1000 papers get published every year regarding web design and usability. Still websites fail at providing the expected user experience and suffer sporadic traffic outpour.

A few accepted guidelines spur the design layout; however there are tools available to understand customer’s interaction manners and general site expectations. There are tools that perform quantitative research and those that perform qualitative research.

1. Usability Tools: It’s a comprehensive package of 9 tools to predict user demeanor. These tools are classified into 2 suites: First is the UX Suite that contains elementary methods of comprehending and connecting with users through surveys and scenario-based testing. Second is the Conversion Suite that gets you a more detailed overview of user input and analysis, especially the form-tester tool. So now instead of correlating the output from different tools, you have one tool performing most jobs. And the best part is, it does not restrict you to test a specific number of websites; instead it charges based on the data gathered from your research.

2. Userzoom: This is a research and analytics tool that provides insight into customer behavior with respect to your website. You get to see your site from an end user perspective. What you get at the end is tangible reports and no guesswork. Conducting in-lab tests is not always feasible, therefore tools that provide a framework to interpret user movements throughout a website and generate analysis reports based on it simplify designers job.

3. ClickTale: This tool set visualizes customer behavior and analyses friction points in a website. Its deliverables like mouse move heatmaps, click heatmaps, scroll heatmaps, link analytics, comparisons and visitor playbacks give an astute vision of site’s usability.

4. Formisimo: This tool mainly revolves around web forms and checkout process. Since these checkout forms are the last step to conversion, it’s crucial to know how users relate with them. Sometimes websites experience high traffic inflow but the conversion ratio falls much below the expected figures due to complex checkout procedures. Therefore it’s important to study your checkout forms usability and this tool does just that.

What led to the discovery and acceptability of these tools in the digital industry was the need to provide web designers with actionable data for designing user centric websites, which successfully attract and sustain traffic. Select the tools that best serve your purpose and fall within your budget frame.

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You Need More Than Responsive Web Design to Improve Sales

The whole world is going gaga about responsive web design. And after Google’s new mobile friendly update, no one is even ready to take the risk of being left out. In fact, having the “mobile friendly” label matters a lot, statistically speaking. According to a recent comScore study, around 20 percent of all search activities originate from smartphones while another 9 percent comes from tablet devices. It also indicates that a large number of people are using mobile devices (46 percent using smartphone and 48 percent using tablets) for watching online videos.

Moreover, being mobile friendly is an absolute necessity if you are targeting teens. A report from Nielsen indicates that 80 percent of teens in the U.S. own smartphones and over 90 percent of them are using these devices to search the web online. Another study conducted by L2 further shows that 69 percent of global consumers aged between 18 and 39 with incomes ranging from $75,000 to $99,000 are using smartphones to research products online, whereas 44 percent are using tablets for the same purpose.

By now you are already convinced that all you need is a responsive web design to make your online business the next big hit. Wait, we are not yet finished. If you are happy and super excited after resizing the browser, we are probably going to vandalize your glee. Having responsive web design alone is not enough to improve your sales.

Why Responsive is Not Enough

Focus on responsive web design as your only solution for mobile and you will end up losing your users and money too. The goal is to apply responsive design intelligently as performance is the ultimate truth for mobile, as for web. To do it right, you need to first understand the problem.

Since the beginning of mobile, designers and developers are oversimplifying the issue. Responsive web design has become a cookie-cutter solution to all of our problems. As a result, we often overlook the real purpose of mobile web experience – speed. People browse mobile on the go and they need what they are looking for real fast. You need to therefore provide a lightning fast mobile web experience to your users. And here lies the real challenge.

Delivering a usable, fast and compatible mobile web experience across all devices is easier said than done. It remains same when implementing a responsive technique. A better and more feasible approach is to embrace performance, right from the beginning.
That being said, we are not criticizing responsive web design. It is in fact a great thing, but responsive web design isn’t a silver bullet. It cannot be your only weapon for a winning mobile strategy. Otherwise, performance issues are likely to impede your conversion rate.

According to a research by Akamai’s Guy Podjarny, only “18.7 percent of a list of 10,000 top-tier web sites is responsive.” The number decreases in accordance to the site’s traffic. In fact, the percentage comes down to 11.8 percent when analyzed the top 100 sites. The research also indicates that 72 percent of these responsive websites are delivering equal number of bytes, irrespective of screen size and mobile network connections.

But you should not forget that Internet users are known for their lack of patience and the problem is even more acute in mobile users. They won’t be waiting for your website to load, at least not all of them. The good news is that you can make things right and minimize the loss, now that you have a basic understanding of the issue.

Responsive + Speed = A Winning Mobile Strategy

There is no denying that responsive is a smart approach than an m.* subdomain but you also need to understand that responsive web design is not a replacement for mobile web sites. What we mean is that there is no hard and fast rule that you need a single URL to deliver the same content across various devices or that all devices need to download the same resources.

While responsive design has tons of benefits, it is certainly not meant to solve performance issues. There are other techniques for that. You need to design responsively in order to cater to various viewport sizes across mobile and desktop. But when it comes to mobile devices, considering only screen size will lead you nowhere. Today we have different possibilities, depending on the device type, open to us especially as the line between desktop and mobile is becoming more and more blur. As a result, responsive web design too need a few tweak to sync with the modern vision.

Long story short, responsive design is not a cookie-cutter solution, neither is it a silver bullet to be applied to all kind of documents. Rather, you need robust mobile solutions that maximize performance.
Here are a few ways to do it:

A mobile-first approach is a better solution, especially if you are creating something from scratch.
Use same content and same URL to deliver your document across all devices but do not follow the same structure.
Resizing your desktop browser is just a thing of past. Instead, test your website on real devices and try loading resources to see how much time it takes. What is the user experience?
There are several optimization tools; leverage them to measure and improve your mobile performance.
Use JavaScript to deliver responsive images.
Consider the loading time; don’t make the website heavy with unnecessary JavaScript. A better approach is to load only what you need for a particular device with conditional loading.
Follow above-the-fold content delivery format or inline the initial view for mobile devices.

The key techniques you need to incorporate for a smart mobile strategy include applying responsiveness according to group, conditional loading, above-the-fold content in 1 second, and a server-side layer.

Conclusion

The real challenge with responsive web design is that each designer define “responsive” differently, leading to communication issues. To address to this issue we need to first understand the broader goals we need to achieve through mobile. Responsive design is not the goal, neither it means to be mobile-compatible. The goal is “user satisfaction” as it is your happy users who lead to more conversions, the ultimate goal of any business.

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Microfinance Ireland future plans

Michael Johnston, CEO of Microfinance Ireland talking about the future plans. Next stage is to grow to lending 8 million next year (it is now 6 million) and an expected growth of 25% each year for the coming years.

If you are interested in applying for a loan, please go to http://microfinanceireland.ie/how-to-apply/

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The Business Achievers Awards 2015: Open For Entries

As many of you know we at Small Business Can are big supporters of business competitions: anything that gets you thinking about your business and working on your business rather than in it. And if you can generate publicity, link into a great business network and meet bankers, politicians, founders and journalists along the way, that’s even better.

Enter The Business Achievers Awards

The Business Achievers Awards competition is probably one of the biggest and most broadly based competitions on the island with categories to appeal to most businesses of all sizes across sectors. The application form is here and will take no more than 30 minutes to fill in. It could be 30 minutes well spent because there are great benefits to entering.

Here are some good reasons why you might want to consider adding ‘must enter business competition’ to your ‘business planning to do’ list!

The application process is an opportunity to reflect on what your business is all about and clearly articulate your USP.
It’s an opportunity to work on your business rather than in it by stepping back to look at achievements, challenges, market trends and areas for improvement.
It will give you time to reflect on new angles and perspectives to overcome obstacles or to plot new strategies for growth.
Competitions are also about PR, marketing, selling…spin. They’re an opportunity for you to raise the profile of the business for free. Entering the competition will get you into the local press. You could get your business national and even international profile.
By working the competition – filling in the forms correctly, engaging with local reps for the competition, turning up at the networking events, volunteering to give quotes and elbowing yourself into photos, you will get marketing material that’s ‘independent’ for your website and other marcomms.
If you progress through the competition there are some programs such as Ulster Bank’s Business Achievers Awards that produce corporate videos for all of the short listed companies. These are done by professional companies with editors and designers. You probably cannot afford to produce these yourself! They are given to you after the competition for your website and other marketing material, and they will impress!
Working the competition will also give you access to a big network of people that can help your business grow. The politicians always turn up. You’ll meet the local and national enterprise support agencies. Bankers, funders, journalists, other successful businesspeople…the big national Awards are a veritable who’s who of the great and the good in business. And you’ll be one of the stars of the show…just by entering. And if you win…!
When you sit down and take the time to apply to a competition, you’ll realize that you have a team supporting you. It illustrates the importance of the support of family and its role in moving your business forward. You’ll see the staff that have and are stepping up to the mark.
You’ll probably get your management involved. Sometimes just by reflecting and internally acknowledging what you’ve achieved together is a major win in its own right.
Even if you’re not short-listed you will benefit from working ‘on’ your business. You can use the knowledge to plan future strategies and identify weak areas. It’ll help you make your business stronger and better. And that’s what it all, eventually, boils down to!

Don’t miss your chance!

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Monthly Archives: August 2015