5 benefits of leveraging the small business checklist
While it doesn’t get loads of attention like some other special days, Checklist Day (October 30) should be on the calendar of every small business owner. Let’s look at five incredible benefits you can get by simply creating good checklists in your small business. Reduce errors. Establishing a checklist for routines, procedures, and processes will assure you that steps don’t get skipped. Further, if team members submit their completed checklists and you review them, it gives you a way to “close the loop” on operations, which is fundamental to quality control. Increase efficiency. Reducing errors by itself will increase efficiency. You’ll also find that over time, people working through the checklists will discover steps that are outdated or otherwise no longer necessary. You can use checklists as a starting point, keeping your eyes always open to finding unnecessary or redundant steps. Train better. There are few better tools in training than the simple checklist. New employees can do their jobs with less supervision when they have good checklists to work from. Take a step toward automation. If you can create an accurate, step-by-step checklist for repetitive tasks, it is the first step toward automation. By the way, you should have checklists for computer-based tasks because they could give you the foundation on which to create software to do operations that you’re currently doing by hand. Provide a basis for “productization.” If you are a service provider or consultant, create a checklist that captures all the things you do to provide your service. You can take that information and then create a product out of your service. When you productize your service, you create a business that is more easily scalable. Vic Dorfman gets into the process in detail in this article he wrote for WPcurve. And, the whole process can start with creating a good checklist for what you do! Checklist design If you have Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, or Google Docs achieving a good checklist design is not a problem. Word, Excel, and Google Docs have checklist templates ready to use. You’ll find checklist templates for a range of specific uses – such as buying a new house. Even if you can’t find one that meets your needs right “off the shelf,” you can easily edit them. In fact, a good idea is to create your own, custom checklist template with your small business logo etc. In the Microsoft software go to File > New From Template, and then search for “checklist.” If you’re using Google docs head over to this template collection page and search for “checklist.” Armed with either a Word checklist template, Excel checklist template, or Google Docs checklist template, you’ll be able to make professional looking – and extremely useful – checklists for your small business. The Checklist Manifesto In honor of Checklist Day, I’ve written this short “ode to the checklist,” but if you want to delve into the topic in much more depth, grab a copy of The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, by Atul Gawande. It’s a highly rated work where Gawande uses his medical background to demonstrate the importance and the power of checklists. I think that’s about it for this topic today. Excuse me while I check another thing off my...
read moreYour small business online: What do you really need?
When it comes to your small business online presence, how big does it really need to be? While I think it’s true that most small businesses would benefit from a decent-sized website that includes a blog and other elements to aid in marketing, frankly many small businesses can get by with a fairly minimal presence. (And it’s definitely better than no online presence at all!) In fact, a one-page website may be enough to promote your small business online. (And, I would say that a single well-designed and informative page is better than a haphazardly designed multi-page small business website.) Here’s a one-page website for a property used for events that looks great and serves a specific purpose. It’s pretty much intended just to supply guests with directions and give them a good feel about their upcoming experience. Technically and artistically, the design of this site is fairly advanced; nonetheless, you can get some excellent “design clues” from it even if you’re planning something much more basic: Its subject is completely clear: Malibu House and its address. Its design is “airy.” It’s not jammed with type. The graphics are large and bold. Visitors get the information they need in the “Directions” section. There’s no confusion. Currently, this website isn’t being used for marketing. If it was – and there’s a good chance your website will be designed with some marketing intent – it should have a call to action. The CTA can be as simple as urging the visitor to call and having your phone number in clear type. Or you could provide a simple contact form to boost your small business online marketing. I’ve seen other single-page websites that function well for their owners. Freelancers can sometimes get by with a single page. Small local businesses often can as well. But, just because you think you can accomplish your goals in a single web page, don’t think that you can get by with throwing anything up on the old Interweb. In fact, the information and “feel” conveyed by your single webpage may be all a prospect ever knows about you. It has to be good. I’ve given you some design tips above. In addition to those, you need to give serious thought to the colors you use, your logo, and your type faces. These will all be elements within your branding, so you need to get them right the first time. You might find a WordPress theme that works for you or a template at one of the DIY website building services. But if you decide you need something more custom, you’ll want to find a good designer and you really can’t hire the first person who knocks at your door…or responds to your email. Andy Crestodina has written a good article that tells you what kinds of questions you need to ask any prospective website designer. Pay heed. We know that as many as half of all small businesses don’t have a website. It could be that the task seems too big, so some small business owners decide not to deal with it. If that’s you, I hope that my “ode to a one-page website” will make the project seem less daunting and inspire you to finally establish your small business online...
read moreThis week in small business: When is the right time to pivot?
Some small businesses go under because owners think that if they just stick to their original business plan, they’ll eventually be rewarded for their persistence. However, sometimes a pivot is in order, as we see in a couple of excellent articles this week. Leadership, management, and productivity Sometimes survival is all about “the pivot.” Dileep Rao delivers five strategies for adjusting your business plan. And speaking of mid-course corrections, Laura K. Inamedinova tells the story of one entrepreneur who demonstrates the power of pivoting. This cyber security report and related articles provided by AT&T (one of my sponsors) proved very popular with my Twitter followers last week. Check it out. Meet the introverted Australian business coach with a disability who is helping U.S. small businesses “rock the world.” Marketing and sales In this Business-2-Community article, Yash Mehta runs through three ways to boost online business sales. I wonder how many aren’t doing the second strategy listed. In sales, actions speak louder than words. Discover four reasons why starting a sales call with “I want” is a terrible idea. Looking for someone to manage your sales team. Bruce Sevy tells why you shouldn’t look to your top sales people to plug into the position. Jeff Rajeck gives us 10 ways to freshen-up our email marketing. Good, solid, advice. If you’re B2B, you need a LinkedIn marketing strategy. Krystal Overmyer’s ContentStandard article will get you going in the right direction. Do you outsource your online marketing? If so, is it time to move on to a different agency? Jacob Baadsgaard tells us the signs to look for. Growing old is a growth industry. Here are five ways companies are capturing the senior market from Dan Blacharski. This infographic from Vistaprint gives us the main ways people discover small businesses. Entrepreneurship, startups, and innovation This ranking of the best states in which to start s small business takes into account the best startup activity, business survival rate, cost of living, and other factors. Emily Gruber, CFO/Co-Founder of Apliiq, and Luz Rivas, Founder/Director of DIY Girls, talk about what it’s really like to be a female entrepreneur. Staring failure straight in the eye in your startup? Chris Myers delivers a road map on how to navigate the “entrepreneurial valley of death. Politics, government, and the economy Wonder why the U.S. economy seems sluggish? Kevin Drum takes on that question in this Mother Jones article. Writing for Forbes, John Mauldin outlines an infrastructure plan that he says will save the U.S....
read more10 tips: How to create a core team you can trust
How many times have you heard this line in a movie: “I don’t know if I can trust you…”? The line always comes at a pivotal moment. If there isn’t any trust, then the love affair, caper, or escape won’t happen. It teaches a good lesson: For important plans to be successful, there must be trust. This is true for small businesses and we see it in big ways and in smaller ways. For example, many small business owners don’t have enough trust in their employees to feel comfortable going away on vacation. Let’s look at 10 principles and behaviors that will build trust between yourself and your core team. Trust is a two-way relationship. The feeling of trust must be mutual. This principle sets the stage for the following guidelines for how you work with your team. And, because trust is a two-way relationship, these guidelines also define the kind of on-the-job behavior you need to instill in your employees. Don’t compromise your values. You set the moral tone in your business. Don’t let your moral values slide. If you do, it’s a clear signal to your team that they can cut corners and not have to worry about their integrity. Don’t be a hypocrite. Trust is built on relationships where one’s actions and words are in harmony with each other. The quickest way to break someone’s trust is to say one thing and then turn around and do something else. Hire for values and character. Technical skills can be overrated. Prisons are full of criminals who are very proficient technically. You can teach skills. By the time men and women are adults, it’s virtually impossible to teach character and values. Give employees a good helping of freedom and self-determination. Let employees try their own ideas. Don’t criticize them if the ideas don’t work out and don’t start with a negative comment like, “You can try it if you want to, but I don’t think it will work.” Praise them for taking initiative. Doing this puts a “trust deposit” in your employee-relationship bank account. Don’t gossip. Loose lips sink ships. Much damage can be done with careless talk and gossip is a very common problem in the workplace. Don’t do it. And, as with the other points here, be certain your employees know your opinion and prohibition on workplace gossip. If negative gossip is already a problem in your business, check out this Forbes article by Lisa Quast that gives you five tips. Be a listener. You need to hear, understand, and process what your employees are saying before you can make a good reply or response. Don’t talk over people at meetings. Listening is a skill you need to develop. Resolve problems. If there is a problem between you and an employee, or between two employees, don’t let it fester. It will only get worse. Don’t hold onto anger or grudges. This is similar to the last point, but with a slight twist. Sometimes things happen in the workplace that merely annoy us, and frankly, sometimes it’s our attitudes that allow us to get annoyed in the first place. For a very small infraction, just let it go – completely. Forgive and forget. You unintentionally rub people the wrong way too occasionally, I’m sure. Be honest, but...
read more2 inspiring stories to beat your worst enemy: Discouragement
Sooner or later – and usually both! – small business owners suffer an attack by the most sly and underhanded enemy of them all: Discouragement. If I were writing a job description for a small business owner, one of the qualities I’d list would be something like this: Must be proficient at handling extreme discouragement. This is an especially large problem for small business owners for two reasons. First, discouragement inflicts a personal pain on small business owners, and second, small business owners must prevent their employees from being discouraged. These facts are reflected in sayings like, “It’s lonely at the top.” One of the best ways to beat discouragement is to enjoy an inspiration injection from an outsider. And, in the business world, one of the best ways to get this inspiration is to see how other business owners have worked their way through times of terrific discouragement to achieve great success. Today I have two short stories of encouragement for you. FedEx I think the ultimate measure of a company’s success is when they name of the company or its product becomes a common noun or verb. I’m thinking about products like Coke, Kleenex, Google, and Xerox. The same is true with FedEx. Everyone knows what you mean when you say, “I’ll FedEx it to you.” However, things didn’t always seem so rosy. As a student at Yale, FedEx founder Fred Smith first put his ideas down in an economics paper and got a “C” on it. The idea stuck with him however and he eventually founded his company. A few years after its launch, FedEx faced a crisis. Fuel costs were going through the roof and the company was down to its last $5,000. Smith pitched General Dynamics for more funding. It was a no-go. FedEx didn’t have enough money to keep planes in the air. Smith took the money to Las Vegas and turned it into $32,000 (Insanity, right?). This was enough to maintain operations for a few days. That breathing room gave Smith enough time to find funding and the rest, as they say, is history. LEGO Are you old enough to remember the phrase, “cheap plastic toy”? Back in the day, plastic toys were infamous for quickly breaking in the hands of children. All the good toys were metal, so you can imagine the hurdles Danish woodworker and designer Godtfred Kirk Christiansen had selling toy stores on his vision of toys made entirely of plastic. As a youngster, Godtfred started working in his father Ole’s shop, where they made stepladders, ironing boards, stools and wooden toys. It was the 1930s and businesses everywhere were being ravaged by The Great Depression. The shop had to layoff workers until it was just Godtfred and his father. One day a toy wholesaler came through and became excited by the wooden toys and agreed to carry them. However, before the arrangement got off the ground, the wholesaler went bankrupt. Ole took it on himself to sell their wooden toys. They survived, but just barely. And if The Great Depression wasn’t a high enough hurdle to get over, add to it the German occupation of Denmark during World War II and a fire that destroyed their shop. Many small business owners would call it quits facing obstacles like...
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