No Time to Develop Process? Think Again!!

A number of years ago a new client responded to my question “can I see last year’s financials?” by handing me the check register for his business checking account.  Ignoring some other issues (many?), this is indicative, to me, of a problem that many individuals have when they start their business – they don’t put processes in place to ensure that what needs to be done is a) being done, and b) being done in a standard and repeatable manner.

So when should you develop and implement processes for your business?

Pivot!! Make Your Decisions Quickly

Those of you that know me, or have been following my Business Execution blog, know that I am a big proponent of planning – both strategic and tactical.  So, how can I now be advising you to make your decisions quickly?  Doesn’t that fly-in-the-face of taking the time to think things through and plan?

Let me explain why I don’t think that it does, and why I believe that the speed of your decision making can be an accelerant to the growth of your business.  After all, I am as big a proponent of execution as I am of planning.

I’m a Square!!

Yes, I admit it … but probably not in the way you are currently thinking.  The Square in my title is the credit card reader/application/service that I use for taking credit card payments – so maybe the title should be “I’m a Square user”!!

Earlier this week I was discussing with someone why I started my business and why my ‘focused market niche’ is in the entrepreneurial and small business space.  Square is an example of one of the market drivers behind my decision to start my own business.

Can money make you stupid?

Last week I talked about the new JOBS Act making “equity-based crowd funding” legal; and how I believe it is a good thing for startup funding.  So this week I thought I would talk about a potential pitfall for the entrepreneur from this “easy money”.  I’m ignoring any pitfalls that may be introduced by the act itself – until we see a draft of the regulations I think it is too soon to comment.

While I don’t have any “real data”, based on my own experience I would say that when you talk to people starting a business at least 80% of them come out with some statement along the lines of “if I can raise [insert number here], then all of our problems will be solved”.  Unfortunately for many of them, raising the amount of money they are targeting – or even twice as much – won’t help them succeed.

Equity Crowdfunding – Just Around the Corner?

On Tuesday (March 27th), the U.S. House of Representatives approved the Senate’s version of the “Small Business Capitalization” amendment to the JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act.  This amendment allows small businesses to use equity-based crowd funding to generate investment into their businesses.

This doesn’t open the flood-gates and create some kind of fund-raising free-for-all that some opponents of the legislation might have you believe is the case.

Small business – the engine of the US economy?

Politicians and the media like to spout what seems to be conventional wisdom that “small business is the engine of the US economy” and that these businesses create the most jobs.  But is that so?

One of the criteria describing Collaborative Xceleration’s target market niche is “small companies looking for exponential growth”.  So, recently I’ve been doing some research into how many of these companies exist in the U.S., and what their geographic distribution is (this is also input to deciding where we are going live!).  As part of that research, I’ve come across some interesting data that addresses the “engine of the economy” statement which I thought I would share with you.

Surround Yourself with Smart, Trustworthy People (Revisited)

In last week’s post, Surround Yourself with Smart, Trustworthy People, I talked about building teams of smart, trustworthy people around you.  In two LinkedIn groups that I post this blog to I got comments that I thought I should address here – especially as I thought I had covered the points they raised in last week’s post!  Also, I had a meeting this week with an individual where the subject of networking for leads came up, and which tells a similar story to that of the comments.

Surround Yourself with Smart, Trustworthy People

Recently, on behalf of a couple of new business owners I had met, I reached out to a past client because I thought they could provide some insight to and even connections for these new individuals.  This week, I got an email back from the past client in which they made a statement which I think is very apropos to the content of my last few blogs.

The past client said that the individuals should “surround themselves with smart, trustworthy people.  You can’t do these sorts of things alone.  Building a strong team around you takes time, a great deal of belief, money and tenacity.”  They clearly hit on my recent themes of “you can’t do this alone” and “get good people on your team”; but, in just those few words they touched on so much more.