Why your company needs a clear, written mission statement and tips for writing yours
When you are buried in the day-to-day operations of running your business, it’s easy to get tunnel vision. Your nose is to the grindstone everyday just getting it done. Such a limited perspective is one of the biggest reasons business owners fail to seize growth opportunities. Myopic vision limits your ability to think about the big picture. One of the most important things to understand as you found, lead and grow your small business are the reasons why your company needs a clear, written mission statement. Before your business can grow, you should be able to articulate a clear vision of where it is you want your company to go. Sounds simplistic, doesn’t it? It’s not. Formulating a clear, written mission statement can be a greater challenge than you might anticipate, especially if you take the time and put in the effort to do it properly. To create the vision for your company’s growth, step away from it and take a fresh look at the world. What’s happening in the world today? What are the market trends? How will national and global trends filter down to your community? This is your chance to gaze into a crystal ball and see into the future. Imagine there aren’t any constraints such as money, people or resources. What direction would you take? What would your business look like? The vision is all about what it is you are going to do, not how you are going to do it. It’s not about execution. Dream to written vision statement “A business without a dream is like a life without a purpose,” says Michael Gerber, who is a well-known small business expert and thought leader. According to Gerber, the surprising reason most small businesses fail is not because their dream is too big, but rather too small, too realistic – it isn’t big enough to sustain more life. This is why it can be so difficult to really create the clear, written mission statement that will take you past the first several months of your small business startup. It’s easy to see what you need to do tomorrow; it’s far more difficult to see what you need to be doing a year and a half from now. Talk to people outside your company and ask them what they see. You might be missing revenue and market opportunities because you simply don’t see them. As a certified business coach, Dresdene Flynn-White, has seen this several times. “Often the owner is so entrenched in the activities necessary to keep the business alive, they have little time to focus on generating ideas to move the business forward. One situation that comes to mind is a restaurant whose name and theme suggested a fairly specialized and restricted menu. The reality was, the restaurant had a full menu and catering services with a certain type of food as their specialty,” she says. Flynn-White says the restaurant was suffering from limited traffic based on the perception they only sold one type of food. “One thing that was obvious to me, and which was immediately implemented, was vivid and attractive pictures of the variety of menu offerings. These were displayed on the tables and the walls so that patrons were made aware of the additional menu and services. Not rocket science,...
read moreThis Week in Small Business: Pistol-packin’ Nana, Small Biz Grant Guide, and more…
You know it’s been a good week for small business articles when one features a 65-year-old handgun and Taser packin‘ grandmother who runs a bail bond business from her home office! Leadership, management and productivity Consumer goods entrepreneur and startups specialist Toby Nwazor outlines five ways small business owners sabotage themselves without knowing it. If you’re skeptical about hackers and cyber criminals targeting small businesses, you need to hear what Eric Ringleberg has to say. Is your pricing on target? This article discusses pricing that “makes customers buy.” Twitter has introduced a “customer feedback tool” for small businesses. This could be what many small business owners are looking for. Do you have the five traits necessary to be head of customer experience? Marketing and sales Many content marketers don’t have a strategy. This Copyblogger article fixes that. And for another view on the topic, look over Neil Patel’s six steps for making your first content marketing plan. Visual learners will appreciate this infographic that details how small business owners can benefit from marketing automation. Things are changing fast…sometimes it seems too fast. Here’s how to keep up with digital marketing trends. Master these five things content writers should know about SEO. Running a one-person social media marketing campaign? Here are strategies to help you scale up. In your passion to appeal to Millennials, are you ignoring Generation X in your marketing? Don’t – they have more buying power! Is geofencing in your local sales and marketing strategy? It should be. Entrepreneurship, startups and innovation Looking for a grant to help get your business going? This guide should give you some direction. Mom power! Check out how these eight “mompreneurs” were successful without sacrificing their families. This fintech startup, Honest Dollar, had to figure out a way to pull “gig economy” workers into its system to be successful. Behave! Among the tools of the trade for this 65-year-old grandmother are a handgun and Taser. She runs a bail bond business. Politics, government and the economy Probably a good idea: The NFIB urged House leadership to fast-track a bill blocking the Executive Branch from finalizing costly business regulations after Election...
read moreThe Smart Way To Use Promotional Items to Build Client Relationships
A friend of a friend gave his wife a vacuum cleaner for Christmas. Relating this story to me, my friend wondered out loud how it was possible that his buddy was still alive. This is the classic husband mistake: giving his wife something that he thinks will make life easier for her and that in doing so he’s being very thoughtful and considerate. There’s another – even more common – gift giving mistake and I suspect men and women may be almost equally guilty of this one, and that’s giving something that you would want to someone else. I suppose that sometimes our intentions aren’t all that terrible. We think that if it’s something we would want, others should feel the same way. I also suspect that sometimes we believe that since we close to the person receiving the gift, that we’ll get to enjoy it or use it as well, so it’s almost like giving the gift to ourselves. Small business promo gifts And this brings me around to a common small business gift giving error: Giving important customers or clients gifts that are all about promoting ourselves, and nothing about those who are receiving the gifts. While promotional giveaways may seem like a great idea, you need to think about the message you’re sending and the results you want to achieve. I’m not against handing out promotional items or sending them to clients or prospects, like gimme hats (You know, “Gimme one of them hats!”), calendars, magnets or ballpoint pens, but there are times when these kinds of promotional merchandise are not appropriate. Think about the trade shows that you’ve attended. If you’re like most of us, you occasionally navigate up and down the aisles just looking for the promotional giveaways that are sitting on the counters. You grab a handful, stick them in a tote bag you’ve picked up at one of the booths and continue on your merry way. The logos on these promotional products will remind you of the companies that offered them, but only in the most minimal of ways. This brings us to the crucial question of how you should weigh the merits of incentive gifts: Do you only want to remind a client of your business in “the most minimal of ways” or do you want to make a big, lasting impression? ROI of promotional goods I suspect that when it comes to important clients, you want to make a big, lasting impressions. If that’s the case – even though we’re talking about promotional merchandise as incentive gifts – you need to go back to rule number one of gift giving: It has to be about the recipient. In other words, don’t be like people who select gifts according to what they want; gifts for businessmen and businesswomen should be items that those people will treasure. In the grand scheme of things they are “promotional giveaways” but only in the sense that you have shown your appreciation for a person by taking the time and expense to select a valuable and lasting gift. Instead of printing your logo on something, why not print the logo of the recipient’s company? Or the recipient’s name, or initials? Make it about the person receiving the gift, and in the long run you will enjoy more value...
read moreHow to make a vision board for your business and why you should
There’s a proverb in the Bible that says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” It’s a truth that applies to virtually every aspect of life. While we might not physically “perish,” I think we all have suffered through seasons where a lack of vision brings a sense of uselessness and negativity. A powerful and consistent vision can be one of the strongest driving forces that pushes you to succeed in your small business. I’ve written about business plans and many of our guest writers here have as well, but business plans can have some shortcomings. Among these is the fact that with a standard business plan it can be difficult to convey the emotional power that will be required to maintain enthusiasm and focus. I think this is one of the reasons that formal business plans are often written and then tucked away in a desk drawer somewhere, seldom to see the light of day again. You can balance out the sterility of a written business plan by augmenting it with a small business vision board. By capturing images in a vision board for business purposes, you can make your ideas and inspirations come alive in a way that is impossible with a formal business plan. Vision board balances the brain It’s well known that the left side and right side of our brains are predisposed to helping us navigate the reality of the world in very different ways. The left side of our brains is where our logic, analysis, language and linear thinking make their home, while the right side is where creativity, visualization, non-verbal feelings, imagination and intuition are found. We all balance or blend these two halves differently, but none of us (aside from Star Trek’s Spock) is 100 percent vested in any one side. The point I’m making is that a vision board for your small business can add a dimension to how you relate to the management and leadership of your company in ways that are impossible if your only “guide” is your original written business plan. You can take a range of approaches for creating your small business vision board. It can be a private project. You can step it up a notch and actually create a work of art that you can hang in your office as a continual reminder of what you want to achieve. You can make it a collaborative and ongoing project with other members of your team. Creativity, flexibility and inspiration should be guiding you as you make a vision board for your business. By the way, don’t allow yourself to get pulled down by trying to make it too literal – that is the purpose of your written business plan. Capture your BHAGs As you start the process, think of the “big hairy audacious goals” that you had when you were first inspired to start your business. Find ways to express these in images, but don’t be too literal. Think about the feelings these goals inspire in people. Think about the outcomes of these goals. You want your business vision board images to help you mentally jump over the daily grind and transport you to the sweet spots that were your original big goals. If creating a family business was a goal, find illustrations that...
read moreIt’s time to revitalize small business. Here’s why and how.
Want to buy a small business? How about a small town too? That way you can be the town’s major business figure as well as its mayor. You wouldn’t have to worry about the town passing onerous ordinances that put you out of business, right? Swett, South Dakota, is a 6-plus acre ghost town (in more ways than one) and it’s on the market for $250,000. Sadly, the demise of the town and the small business located there – a closed down bar – might be a bellwether for U.S small business in general, if recent trends continue. Late last year Gallup published a study that showed how U.S. business startups have been in a steady decline over the last 30 years. Further, in 2008 an ominous line was crossed: there were more business closings than business startups. If that continues on through a few generations of Americans, a lot of the country will start looking like Swett, South Dakota. Let’s take a quick look at what’s at risk if the gradual decline of small business continues unabated. Job growth slows drastically. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, businesses with fewer than 50 employees accounted for 40 percent of the net job growth in the third quarter of 2013, essentially the same as the large firms with 500-plus employees. Small business is small – but mighty – when it comes to job creation. Overall, small business accounts for 55 percent of all jobs. Retail gets more concentrated. We recently celebrated Small Business Saturday and that put the spotlight on the country’s vibrant small business retailers. Small businesses are the largest retail employers in the U.S. economy, if they are endangered it can totally change the complexion of retail. So many of today’s successful retail goods producers started out by selling to small, independent retailers. Who else would take a chance on these unproven innovators? The construction industry suffers. U.S. small businesses occupy 30-50 percent of all commercial space. When more businesses close than open, it kills demand for new offices, stores and shopping centers. Construction jobs vanish. More small towns suffer the fate of Swett and become unoccupied and go up for sale with no buyers in sight. Communities suffer. I started this with the tale of Swett, because it might give us a terrifying glimpse of the future. When small business goes away, there is really nothing to come in behind it and put things right in a community. Small businesses are the last line of defense for small and medium-sized towns and cities. State and federal programs may try to revitalize some areas, but that takes money, and as small businesses fail, the tax base shrinks. This can be especially critical for local governments that depend on sales tax and property tax revenue. Vacancies depress property values, shrinking small business retail wipes out sales tax collection. The vexing part of this story is that the governments that depend on healthy tax revenues from small business are one of the biggest causes of the small business decline. The costs of government regulations hurt existing small business far more than they do big business and they also discourage people from taking the risks required to start a small business. In many cases, meeting regulatory requirements is just too costly...
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