If your company was a World Cup team, how would it do in terms of…

• Preparation? The Cup had teams who played well together, like the U.S., and those who didn’t, like England. Is your company focused on a common goal or too busy pursuing individual agendas?
• Coaching? The French team walked out on their coach after he exerted his authority, while Maradona created a cult of leadership around his Argentina team. What would your team do to you when faced with pressure?
• Fans? Is your team like Ghana who united their fan base across tribal Africa or like Brazil who booed them upon their return without the Cup? Do your customers really like you or just pay you because they have to?
• Commentators? Does the media treat your company like first-to-be-eliminated Cameroon (“They’ll be home before the postcards arrive” ) or like the Spanish, who consistently kept a low profile, played ever-so-well and took home the Cup and the world’s respect.

No other sport has a harder invitation to earn, 5 billion people to watch your every move, and relentless pressure to win and capture the hearts and minds of teams and sponsors that have millions to spend on victors and stars. As leaders running businesses in the age of social media, we share many of these same challenges and opportunities.

How would your business do as a World Cup contender?

The post Is Your Business World-Cup-Worthy? appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Here is my view of the 3 threats to small businesses — and what should be done about them.

Threat 1: Slow Payment – While large corporations and banks have been fortified with ample low-cost cash to buy small businesses’ products and services, they continue to pay slowly, bargain harder and demand more concessions from powerless small businesses who are selling their souls “where the money is.”

• Remedy 1: Require all corporations and governments with revenues/receipts over $100 Million to pay all their vendors under $100 Million within 30 days.  This would fortify small businesses’ balance sheets just as TARP funds and bailouts did and continue to do for the goliaths.

Threat 2:  New costs, taxes and compliance — As social causes like sustainability, diversity, healthcare and fair taxation are being legislated by governments and lobbied into favorable terms for corporations, small business is getting choked. Small business used to lament about paperwork. Now, the new costs, taxes and compliance rules are sapping the will of owners to believe that they should risk, invest and remain confident in their businesses. A comedian recently reacted to the Times Square hot dog vendor discovering the incompetent Time Square bomber’s smoking  SUV, that not only must small business save the economy, but now must save the country from terrorism!

How much can we continue to heap on the backs of small businesses?

• Remedy 2: If large corporations and government are serious about respecting small business as the best vehicle to empower minorities, women and the handicapped to join and increase the middle class, both of these goliaths must be held as accountable for the impact of their actions on small business as they are on the environment, minorities, women and the handicapped!

Threat 3: “Approved” vendor programs force buying solely on price — To shift responsibility and outsource their liability, corporations and governments are hiring third party sourcing companies whose objective is to reduce small business vendor power and commoditize their products and services. And the more owners have to comply with RFP’s and join “approved vendor programs”, the less they can add value through their creativity. Years ago I wrote a piece called ISO 9002 or I So Stupid.   Since then, ISO 9002 and recently, its environmental twin, ISO 14000, along with countless “vendor aggregators” are allowing purchasing agents to buy solely on price and penalizing small businesses who invest in innovation and branding to differentiate their offers and earn increased gross margins.

• Remedy 3: Recently a European friend of mine commented how the American flag and imagery of small business is featured in so many commercials. Whenever any organization invokes small business “values” or the American flag in their advertising they should have to prove their “commitment” and pay a “royalty” to small business by buying from or investing in small businesses just as consumer marketers must comply when they advertise “Locally Farmed”, “Fat-Free” or “Native-American” on their  labels.

I am so tired of witnessing small business owners endure so many hardships caused by the frivolous and cavalier behavior of the bullies they now face in trying to survive. The more we are impacted by the above threats, the more business owners are distracted from taking risks and confidently investing in profitable growth. Enough is enough!

And for those who only blame Obama, Congress or Wall Street, please don’t stop there! What’s the difference between government, large corporations, donkeys or elephants when it comes to their disrespect for small business owners?   I am still waiting to see if my small business owner’s prayer to Obama will be answered.

To paraphrase the popular country song, “Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)” by Big & Rich … save a small business, ride your corporation or government into respecting small business!

The post 3 Deadly Threats Against Small Businesses Today appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Knowing your style as a business owner can help you understand why you approach your business as you do. It can also help you change behaviors or compensate for weaknesses. That way, you can break through to a new level of growth.

The Growth Analyzer Quiz gives you insight into your style. I created the Quiz after having worked with and interviewed over 5,000 small business owners over a period of 20 years.

In most small businesses, the owner is the primary driver of business growth. The owner’s personality and style have a huge impact on the business’s growth and success. That’s certainly true in the case of sole proprietors. But it’s just as true in businesses with 5, 25 or 50 employees. That all begins to change once a businesses grows to $50 Million in revenues. At that point there is enough corporate-like structure in place with Boards and Management Teams to limit the effect of the business owner’s personality, eccentricities and sacred cows. But up until your business gets to that size, chances are you’re going to have to be good at working around your weaknesses and building on your strengths, if you want profitable growth.

That’s where the Growth Analyzer Quiz comes in. It outlines 45 business-owner characteristics. You are asked to check the boxes next to any of the 45 statements, if they are true and apply to you.

After you’re done, you’ll instantly see the results. You will see how you stack up on nine categories of business-owner characteristics. There is no right or wrong answer. I have seen business owners succeed and fail regardless of their style of business leadership. What makes the difference is how well you know yourself and the impact that your personality and style have on your business.

So, I invite you to take the Growth Analyzer Quiz now.

The post Take This Quiz to Assess Your Strengths as a Business Owner appeared first on Small Business Trends.

And when it comes to anything with technology, buyers need the most understandable solutions. If they don’t understand the product or service, they will view it as too big a risk to sign on.

This is not surprising considering how much new technology and science is now built into most products and services today. And there’s much more on the way. The US News and World Report’s latest report of top careers shows why.  Nearly every emerging job is in a narrow technical specialty that is exponentially creating knowledge that will need to be understood by untrained buyers.

Capable buyers know they must process technical information that’s flooding in from all sides. To do so they will need more interpreters, advisors and reconcilers who can instill confidence by comfortably explaining how a technical product meets a layman’s objectives.

But from where?

In business it seems there is a widening gap between those who can invent technology and those who buy the results of technology. Large corporations have historically dealt with this challenge by employing specialized staff who were technically educated, could communicate and sell product benefits, and then train a user in how to use them. These “sales engineers” could bridge the widening communications gap. They have always been in great demand.

In small businesses, smart business owners like you have usually served as your firm’s “sales engineer.” But you’ll never grow your business if you are the only sales engineer capable of explaining your product’s and service’s benefits to buyers.

Wrapped in that challenge is an opportunity. You can seize this opportunity if you find and train sales people to sell and communicate like you do – no, even better than you do.  Your sales ability, product knowledge and confidence built your business and its success. Now it is time to pay your knowledge forward.

To profitably grow to the next level, you need to leverage your expertise and experience through your emerging employees. So take the cue of the sales engineer. Take your most empathetic people and enhance their grasp of your products. Or take your technicians who are friendly and communicate well and give them more opportunities to teach, train and sell. Invest in them; work with them. Chances are they won’t be perfectly trained overnight.  They will stumble here and there. But then, you didn’t get to this point in your business overnight, either.

In an environment where more things are being bought by buyers only as needed, the best way to increase your sales and protect your margins is to sell your expertise and improve the experience of your customer. It’s how you convey value and differentiate your company from the competition.

But don’t literally be the only person in your company who can do this. There isn’t enough of you to go around. Teach your staff to do be able to convey benefits and demystify your products.

The post Secret #1 for Growth: Train Someone to Sell and Communicate Better Than You appeared first on Small Business Trends.

How do you know when a price is right? Let’s say that you meet a prospect for lunch in an attempt to close a deal. When you finally come to the point of stating your price, one of three things happens:

• Your prospect immediately says no, stands, and walks away.
• Your prospect immediately says yes, shakes your hand, and treats you, the waiter, and everyone at the surrounding tables to champagne.
• Your prospect contemplates the offer. The long silence feels like an ocean in your head until you hear that magical word: Yes!

In two of the three situations you closed the deal, but only in the third have you done it right.

If the prospect rejects the offer out of hand, he believes the price is too high, which means that you have failed to sell the benefits of what your company provides.

If the prospect takes the offer immediately, you have given away too much value for too low a price; your prospect feels like he’s discovered a Van Gogh original at a garage sale!

You know you’ve got it right when your prospect accepts your offer only after some deliberation. In this case, he knows the value he is losing if he says no.

Ultimately, your price is your demonstration of value. If you are getting your price in difficult times, congratulations, for you are truly valued for the value you bring.

The post How to Tell if Your Pricing is Right appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Business owners are struggling to define and retain their:

Liquidity

If they need to spend money now, they expect disruptions in borrowing cash.

Credit

As banks break more lending promises, an owner’s’ suppliers and customers have followed suit and aren’t fronting or paying on time.

Value

Value is what someone will pay for anything today and what they think it’s worth tomorrow.

Taking “incoming” in all forms, owners have lost credit, customers and vendors.  Psychologists like Kubler and Ross describe five phases of loss as denial, anger, bargaining, pity and acceptance.

It’s clear many business owners are still passing through these stages after this winter’s financial crisis.  But now, most are coping with a new more difficult reality after months of denial, anger, negotiating and pity as many have accepted how badly their worlds have been rocked.  Most small business owners realize that not only won’t the new government help them, but neither will big business or banks.  The smartest business owners have accepted that they must learn new tricks to survive and thrive in the new economy.  Which business owners are succeeding and what can we learn from watching and doing business with them?

Successful owners stand out from their peers in two ways:  By their money and their mojo.

Business owners with money are “Rock Stars.” They:

• Usually have little or no debt and access to more if they need it
• Can buy what they need to when they want to
• Do look beyond the short term and make plans for the short term

Business owners with courage rule their worlds like a “Jukebox Hero.” They:

• Have the confidence to say no to bad business and negotiate for good business
• Demonstrate the capability to maintain and improve what they make and sell
• Make and keep promises to vendors, employees and customers

If you are a business owner with money and mojo, you know you should:

• Negotiate for more service and bigger discounts by paying up front
• Build your market share by cutting prices or increasing service and value
• Snatch or “buy” your competitors’ customers

If you are a business owner without money and mojo, you should:

• Analyze which of your customers have money and mojo. Offer them discounts they can’t refuse.
• Team up with your customers who bundle and sell your products and services to their customers. Give them the latitude and support to make offers their cash-rich customers can’t refuse
• Make some free offers or provide a money-back guarantee to new prospects you know have high confidence in their plans and the cash to implement them.

In tough times, it is especially good to be the rock star or to at least party with rock stars.  If you have the gold, make your own hits.  If you don’t have money and mojo, then find out who does and make some music together.  Their “Midas” touch may turn out to be contagious!  May you catch all you can!

* * * * *

About the Author: Andy Birol is the author of “Focus. Accomplish. Grow… the Business Owner’s Guide to Growth.” He is also a noted small business coach, consultant and speaker who has been interviewed on CNN, Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Entrepreneur, and Fortune Small Business.

The post Money and Mojo: The New Keys to Small Business Success appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Whether you represent one of the many small businesses whose target market is other small businesses, or whether you represent a large organization, check out this interview. Below are selected quotes of Andy’s from the interview, or you can listen to the podcast or read the transcript. — Anita Campbell, Editor

Andy Birol on mistakes when selling to small business owners:

• …[Y]ou should always give your small business accounts — whether they’re prospects or customers — to individuals that have had at least a close encounter of the second kind, if not the first. For example, Lowes and Home Depot always hire individuals in their stores that have been contractors, so that when a contractor comes in, they’re speaking to somebody that can identify with what it means to be a small business. So, if you can’t hire ex-small business owners yourself, or retired ones, look around and see if you can at least hire their kids. Or hire folks that have already worked in a small business.

• Recognize that when you’re selling to small business, you’re on a series of dates with an owner. And since it’s so personal — because it’s their money, it’s their company, and it’s their problems — the last thing they’re looking for is a long term commitment from the get go. So, if it sounds like a great idea to make a six-month commitment, I’d ask you to think about making a six-day commitment or a six-week commitment.

• … [Never] think of business owners as this giant inanimate mass but rather understand they are as segmented as every other part of the formerly mass market has now been chopped into. Let me give you a great example. You should version your copy when you are writing to small business owners in terms of whether they are at the stage of survival or the stage of success. Those are completely different headsets and to speak to all business owners, even in the first person, as if they’re all surviving or as if they’re all successful is to probably alienate half of them.

• The majority of us want some small part of our miserably overstressed lives to get marginally better for a short period of time, which in turns really delights us. And when you think of the small business owner’s market, you’re talking about something not too different than the upscale mass market. So rather than try to sell them a total solution for which they’ve never asked, why not pick a bite-sized battle?

Listen to the interview by clicking the player below. Or read the transcript: Five Mistakes Selling to Small Business (PDF opens in new window).

The post Five Mistakes When Selling to Small Business Owners appeared first on Small Business Trends.

These are the opening lines in all three of Andy Birol’s new books on business growth. The books are part of the Owner’s Series and designed for small business owners.

Andy is a colorful guy who works large. Where most other authors write one book, Andy publishes not one, not two, but three books at once. I highly recommend you read them all.

Each book in the series stands alone, although they also complement each other as a set.

Each book targets businesses facing different circumstances:

• “Accelerating Your Growth” is all about growing a business during the good times, by capitalizing on your firm’s opportunities.
• “Returning Your Business to Growth” is about growing in turnaround situations or during times of problems.
• “Growing Your Business During Succession or Transition” is about growth during periods of change.

The books are based on articles that Andy has written and case studies. They are extremely timely and up to date. Each chapter is written in a crisp distinctive voice that makes it interesting to read.

These books are part of that new breed of books best described as street smart. The author has a knack for cutting to the heart of matters for small businesses. Consider some of his advice:

CRM software – few small businesses “have the resources or the needs to use the features of some of today’s hottest products.”

Strategic plans – “analyzing market share is a waste of time for smaller businesses” that could be better spent analyzing what share of your customers’ needs you could be meeting.

Pricing – “never base prices on costs.”

The unmistakable focus in each of the books is on how to make money and avoid going down paths that waste time with little or no return. The author says that sales and marketing goals should come down to three things: finding customers, keeping customers, and growing customers.

If you are focused on making money for yourself and your company, this set of books is a must-read. And if you aren’t focused on making money you might want to ask yourself what you are doing in business.

Finally, to answer Andy’s question at the beginning of the books, yes, your time is precious. That’s exactly why you should read these books, because you want results fast.

The post Owner’s Series Books for Business Growth appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Andy is the author of “Focus. Accomplish. Grow… the Business Owner’s Guide to Growth.” He is also a noted small business coach, consultant and speaker who has been interviewed on CNN, Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Entrepreneur, and Fortune Small Business.

Andy is a colorful guy who doesn’t hold back. His incisive, get-to-the-point remarks make for interesting reading. He talked about the U.S. Presidential election and why the election really doesn’t matter much for small business.

Small Business Trends: What did you think of this last U.S. Presidential election for small business?

Andy Birol:It was bitter sweet.

Whoever was going to win, I knew there would be a lack of impact for the small business market. Although President Bush is said to be a bit more small business friendly, the reality is: small business has no friends and few advocates.

There is only one unifying issue in this country for small business owners: health care. Beyond health care there is no unity of interest among small businesses.

Small business is really “Everyman.”

Take the steel tariff a couple of years ago. That helped one set of businesses and at the same time it hurt others. Their interests were not all the same, and so it didn’t affect all businesses the same. The issues were more complex.

Have you ever heard the Paul Simon song “One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor”? For every action in favor of one small business, it means something against another small business.

Small Business Trends: Would it have made much difference if small business owners had gotten involved in politics and lobbied?

Andy Birol:I’m not sure that spending time and effort on the elections would have done small business owners much good — unless they happened to be printing companies with a contract to print bumper stickers or ballots.

This election dumbed us down. All the issues are so much richer and more complicated than the way they were presented.

The trial lawyer issue is a great example. On the one hand everyone would agree that in the case of the woman who burned herself sipping hot McDonald’s coffee, trial lawyers took advantage of that. But without trial lawyers we would not have gotten padded dashboards, seatbelts or airbags nearly as fast as we did.

A small business owner can’t afford to unilaterally add safety items. Small businesses can only do so after the industry has adopted these and prices reflect them. And it took the trial lawyers to force big business to implement these safety features first.

Small Business Trends: You said “small business has no friends and few advocates.” What about small business advocacy associations, such as the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB)?

Andy Birol:Many associations just create co-dependence.

The entrepreneur is a hunter gatherer. Entrepreneurs don’t make money when they’re together. They make money when they are out in the marketplace.

I have a little saying. “Business owners should get their lovin’ at home.”

Associations can’t be effective lobbying for legislation because there is little legislation that impacts small businesses the same across industries.

Big companies can lobby for laws or special consideration, but small biz can’t do that. A small business is selling only 1% or less of whatever market they’re in.

Workers comp is not a small business issue, it is a business issue. So guess who legislation will be designed for? Big business.

Small Business Trends: Talk to us about outsourcing trends. Do small businesses outsource much?

Andy Birol:Tons of outsourcing is going on — tons.

And yet in this election you had all this ranting and raving about bringing jobs back to the U.S. But that’s not the way business works today. It was another oversimplified issue.

I am a one person company and I outsource nearly everything. I have at least 20 service providers.

Outsourcing offshore is the only answer for any commodity business. Small manufacturing companies are outsourcing production to China. I advise all my small business clients to move the commodity portions of their business offshore.

Right now I am imploring an accounting firm to consider moving its 1040 personal tax return work — the type of work done by H&R Block — overseas. How can a small accounting firm compete against H & R Block’s prices? Anyone who tries is suicidal.

Small Business Trends: What one thing does every small business need to do today to be successful?

Andy Birol:At the end of the day business owners have to move from ambivalence and apprehension, to confidence and conviction. The single biggest destroyer of business is lack of confidence.

I’ve been working with small business owners my entire professional career. I started out working in Corporate positions and ran a $40 Million unit of New England Business Service, now a division of Deluxe Corporation.

Then I realized I am unemployable and proud of it. So I started my own consulting business.

The lesson I’ve learned is… you have to walk the talk. I eat my own dog food — I’m a small business owner and I follow my own convictions. That’s why whoever is in office as U.S. President doesn’t really matter. Business owners have to find their own confidence and convictions.

The post Why the U.S. Presidential Election Doesn’t Matter appeared first on Small Business Trends.