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The Small Business Recession Plan “b”: How to Create the Six-part Contingency Plan That Will Help You Guide Your Business Through the Storm

C. Hand asked:

 The Small Business Recession Plan “B”: How to Create the Six-Part Contingency Plan That Will Help You Guide Your Business Through the Storm

If you’re a small business owner, your list of worries seems never-ending. For starters, consumer confidence is down and your sales are starting to reflect that reality. And as experts predict a deep recession, it’s doubtful things will start looking up anytime soon. Yes, you’ve been wringing your hands and obsessing over the financial news for months, while simultaneously scrambling to keep your customers happy and your business strong. But action is the best antidote for agonizing—and now is the perfect time to create a recession contingency plan that will help you guide your business through any future rough patches.

Too often, when the economy goes south, a small business owner is paralyzed by anxiety and isn’t able to act quickly enough to save his or her company. Having a well conceived contingency plan in place gives you peace of mind when trouble hits and enables you to act quickly.

For small business owners, contingency planning is one of the best and most effective preventive actions you can take in a down economy.

Contingency planning will allow you to make the best possible decisions for your business if things continue to get worse before they get better. Even if you are an eternal optimist—after all, many of us entrepreneurs are—you’ll be wise to have a contingency plan in place if, say, one of your biggest clients succumbs to the bad economy, or if you have to face the difficult decision of whether or not to lay off an employee.

If you’re unsure where to start when it comes to crafting your contingency plan, here is an explanation of the critical elements you’ll want to include:

A People Plan. For small business owners, employees are often like family. That means the most difficult decisions you’ll have to make will probably pertain to them. That said, it’s important that you remain objective when creating the “People” section of your contingency plan:

1. What people assets are critical for you to keep? Why?

2. Who can “afford” a salary cut?

3. Who could undertake more responsibility?

4. Who are your definite keepers?

5. If you had to cut 10 percent of your workforce, what would your severance policy be?

6. How would you treat departing people so as to engender trust, respect, and loyalty of those remaining?

7. How would you implement a people “cut”?

By answering these questions truthfully and thoroughly, it will be much easier for you to make decisions concerning what to do with your workforce during the slow economy. Sometimes cutting back on your workforce, at least temporarily, is a necessary evil. Knowing that when you do so you are simply following a plan will help you manage some of the guilt that will come if you have to let someone go or reduce employee pay.

A Key Customer Plan. It’s likely that your customers are feeling just as much anxiety as you are right now, so it’s best to handle them with kid gloves. Fail to do so and you risk damaging a relationship that will not only help get you through these hard times but which could prove very profitable when things pick back up. Here are a few things to consider when developing the customer section of your contingency plan:

1. Who are your most profitable customers?

2. Who are the most loyal?

3. Who must you keep long-term at all costs?

4. How is the downturn affecting each of your customers?

5. How can you get closer to them?

6. Which customers have pressures of their own that will force them to ask you to cut prices? And how should you respond? Should you extend credit, put them on an agreed-upon payment plan, etc.?

7. What can you do to attract new customers?

You and your customers are in the same boat. They face the same struggles as you. In your dealings with them, it’s important that you strike a safe balance between managing their best interests and managing your own. The contingency plan will help you do that and help you make decisions that will allow you to strengthen your customer relationships now. When things pick back up, your customers will remember the way you treated them and will want to do even more business with you.

A Cost-Cutting Plan. When deciding where you could cut expenses, it’s important to consider what you could do to cut costs immediately by 10-15 percent. You should also go through your expenses line by line and consider which expenses are not necessary for your survival. Be sure to involve your employees when creating this section of the plan. Because they are on the front lines every day, they may have a better idea of what can be cut. For example, maybe they’ve noticed that you have an incoming paper supply that could be reduced. You should also include in your plan what to do if the amount you pay to lease office or warehouse space becomes unmanageable.

Naturally the decision to cut certain expenses will be easier to make than others. Just remember that now is the time to get back to the basics. You don’t need lots of bells and whistles to run a successful business, and taking a look at your expenses will help you separate the necessities from the frills.

A Cash Flow Plan. Cash flow is key to running any small business, and managing yours is never more important than in a tough economic period. That’s why you should include cash flow management in your contingency plan. There are two specific groups to consider: your customers and your vendors. First, think about how you can get delinquent customers to pay up. Talk with your customers and help them set up a payment plan with you so that you know you will be getting paid when you need it most. Also, consider giving a discount to those customers who agree to pay in cash. You should also think about how you can defer your cash outflows such as payments to vendors. Ask if you can go to a 60- or 90-day payment cycle.

Keeping up a healthy cash flow is vital during a slow economy. You might have to have tough conversations with customers who need to pay up or a vendor who you’d like to defer a payment to, but if these conversations help you keep cash in your business when you need it most, they will be worth it.

A Financial Safety Net Plan. So what do you do when all of your customers have paid up and you’ve extended your payments to vendors, and you are still having cash flow problems? Quite simply, you consider more drastic ways of putting cash into your business. It’s time to fall back on the financial safety net that you’ve created for your company. What will your safety net be? Will you draw on your home equity? Stop taking a salary? Ask friends or family for a cash infusion? Sell off some of the company’s assets? Reduce employee salaries? Apply for a small business loan?

You don’t want to be making these decisions when you are already in desperate need of cash. While you are still in good shape, plan out the first three ways you could immediately increase your cash flow. And do everything to ensure that you are protecting your credit so that if you do need a small business loan you can get one. Make certain to pay your bills on time. Don’t let anything fall through the cracks. If you are having trouble making a payment, let the company or bank know why. If there is a dispute on a payment, get something in writing that says you aren’t to blame. Being turned in to a collection agency will tank your credit score. You absolutely can’t risk it.

An Exit Plan. There are some situations you simply can’t plan for. You can’t know for sure how your industry will be affected by the down economy. It’s possible that no matter what you do the slow economy will make it too difficult for you to keep your doors open or too difficult for you to navigate on your own.

The exit plan is the hardest for any small business owner to put together. No entrepreneur wants to give up on a venture, but sometimes you have to face reality. So, think about what lengths you are willing to go to in order to keep your doors open. If you are open to taking on a partner, what kind of person is going to add the necessary skills to the business to help you keep the doors open? Or if you decide to sell the business, would you want to stay on and keep working for the company or would you want to go your separate ways?

Of course, keep in mind how long these transitions will take to make. As a small business owner you naturally have a strong attachment to your business. When you put so much blood, sweat, and tears into your business, it can be difficult to pull the plug at the right time. If you decide what your exit strategy will be before you are experiencing serious problems, you can take your emotions out of the decision-making process and come up with a clear-headed solution that protects your best interests.

Creating a contingency plan will help you minimize the risk of any surprises that pop up—and they will!—during a slow economy. But keep in mind there are some basic things that you absolutely can’t lose focus on during a recession.

You should be aggressively going after new customers, marketing your business nonstop, and giving your customers world-class service. Yes, these are trying times for small business owners, but the obstacles are not insurmountable. With the right plan in place, you can create strong, long-lasting relationships with your customers and a business that can weather any storm.

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About the Authors:

Ed Hess lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, and spent most of his business life advising entrepreneurs and financing their business ventures. He went to college at the University of Florida and to law school at the University of Virginia and graduate law school at New York University. Ed’s professional career was spent with firms like Atlantic Richfield Company, Warburg Paribus Becker, Boettcher and Company, The Robert M. Bass Group, and Andersen Corporate Finance, and he has built three service businesses.

In 1999, Ed began teaching business students part-time at Goizueta Business School, Emory University, during which time he created and taught the entrepreneurship course. In 2002, Ed joined the faculty at Goizueta full-time as an Adjunct Professor where he became the Founder and Executive Director of both the Center for Entrepreneurship and Corporate Growth and the Values-Based Leadership Institute.

Ed has written five other books:

• Hess, Edward D. Make It Happen! 6 Tools for Success (EDHLTD, 2001).

• Hess, Edward. The Successful Family Business: Proactively Managing Both the Family and the Business (Praeger: Westport, Connecticut, 2005).

• Hess and Kazanjian, eds. The Search for Organic Growth (Cambridge University Press: New York, 2006).

• Hess and Cameron, eds. Leading with Values: Positivity, Virtue and High Performance (Cambridge University Press: New York, 2006).

• Hess, Edward. The Road to Organic Growth: How Great Companies Consistently Grow Marketshare from Within (McGraw-Hill: New York, 2007).

In July 2007, Ed joined the Faculty of the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia as a Professor of Business Administration and Batten Executive-in-Residence where he teaches courses on building small businesses and organic growth.

Charlie Goetz earned his college degree at Emory University and holds an MBA from the University of Texas. Charlie is a successful serial entrepreneur. He built several successful businesses, which in total employed over 1,500 people. He sold most of his businesses and made substantial amounts of money their sales. Charlie then began teaching entrepreneurship at Emory University in the Goizueta Business School where he was again successful. His courses are always oversubscribed, and he has earned multiple teaching awards.

Today, Charlie lives in Atlanta, Georgia, and is an investor in several new businesses and consults with people starting businesses. His specialties are marketing, customer acquisition, and product development.

About the Book:

So, You Want to Start a Business? 8 Steps to Take Before Making the Leap (FT Press, September 2008, ISBN: 978-0-13-712667-5, $18.99) is available in bookstores nationwide and from all major online booksellers.

For more information, please visit http://www.edhltd.com or http://www.ftpress.com.

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Tags: Antidote, Consumer Confidence, Contingency Plan, Contingency Planning, Critical Elements, Difficult Decision, Down Economy, Eternal Optimist, Financial News, Obsessing, Peace Of Mind, Perfect Time, Plan B, Preventive Actions, Recession, Rough Patches, Small Business Owner, Small Business Owners, Starters, Worries

Discover The Little Mistake That Cause Most Business-Start-Up.To Stop

Deborah Pretty asked:

They Laughed When I told Them About My Business-start-up Ideas…but when it worked they were shocked.

It’s no secret that many in our society are looking for home business start-up ideas.

It’s a much easier task when you are dripping in gold (which is a great commodity as we speak.)

But if you are like most people your business-start-up can be the most challenging… which is why the start is what stops most people.

Business consultant Marshall Thurber said it like this \”anything worth doing well is worth doing badly in the beginning\”. Obviously, you are reading this because you are serious about which direction to take to start-up your business.>b>

According to the internet experts, you are not alone there are over one hundred and seventy-five thousand people every month online looking for legitimateLegitimate Business Opportunity.

Whether it’s that you always wanted to work at home, bring your wife home, spend time with the children or you felt the hatchet coming at work and decided not to wait around to be road kill… whatever your reason, you deserve a hand or two for getting started…Good for You.

But before we get started I have to give you a high five. You are taking the first step towards the path of a 3 percent-er…we’ll explain more about that later.

Now a word of Caution.. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Be patiently persistent and you will find the right home business-start-up for you.

Firstly, you will want to put on your thinking cap. Most people find it hard to just sit and think… I know it feels strange but try it.

There are a couple of reasons why we rarely if ever do think… One is because it‘s not encouraged in our public school system…  we were taught to regurgitate not think. In order to start a successful home-business we must learn to think … so let’s get started.

O.K.

So now you are ready to look through the catalog to decide which business-start-up idea is right foryou….Business-start-up ideas 101.

Now if you use any of these business-start-up ideas.. you owe me…”Just kidding\”

One good thing this economic turbulent society has created is stiff business competition.

Any way back to the subject at hand.

The point is you have to think… now what will you think about?

Learn how to build an Empire working from home visit.  Here are a couple of questions according to the Small Business Administration you should ask yourself before starting any business.

1. What do you like to do?

2. What are you passionate about?

3. What would you do even if you weren\’t paid for it?

4. What do your friends and family members tell you you are good at?

5. What could you write a book about?

6. Are you self-motivated?

7.Do you work well with other personalities

•      Customer Service Trainer

Contract with small businesses to train all their customer service personnel

•     Start a Service Provider Directory

Home owners I’m certain you have had to call a plumber, carpenter or an electrician…you may even know who\’s the least expensive, with the best customer service. Put together a directory and charge the companies a referral fee

…it beats expensive, ineffective advertising… hoping to acquire a customer.

•    Business Consultant

What do you do at your job better than anybody else?

Start that which you are good at part-time…that\’s how some of your most successful companies got started.

•    Business Mentor

Have you owned a business and closed it because of the long hours, high-overhead, but love the freedom of business ownership. You possess the skills to help others start their business..

•    Business system organizer

There are plenty of small businesses that are sole proprietors that know absolutely nothing about organizing files, systems, or anything else.

•       Garage organizer

*Food for Thought:

How many people do you know that needs someone to clean out first, then organize their garage.

What waste have you noticed at your job or in the businesses that you frequent?

Are you a thinker, do you notice faulty business systems, improper service set-ups, and immediately come up with solutions ….then you could be a free lance business consultant

Last but not least this is an excellent idea and is one of the top 10 home business start-up ideas.

The garage organizer is an example of one of our top 10 easy, low-cost traditional business start-up ideas.

The top 10 list gives superb business-start-up ideas for single moms, stay at home moms, burned out executives, and the like.

Some home-business ideas are a little more sophisticated, but there are a variety of business start-up ideas that touch 10 different industries.

It’s the start that stops most people.

 

 

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Tags: Business Consultant, Business Start Up Ideas, Caution, Commodity, Direction, Discover, Dripping In Gold, Hatchet, Internet Experts, Legitimate Business Opportunity, Little Mistake, Marshall Thurber, People Find, Public School System, Road Kill, Rome, Sit, Successful Home Business, Thinking Cap, Whatever Your Reason

An Effective Business Card Message.learn the Secret to Making Clients Choose You Over Your Competitors

Deborah Pretty asked:

Learn What an Effective Business Card Message Is and Separate your Business from the other 95% that Don’t Know

 

Are you Unknowingly designing an Inefficient Business Card

 

This will be one of the most outrageously significant, straight-forward lessens you will learn about the importance of an effective business card message ever.

You will learn the key purpose of a business card, what message to give that’s sure to set you apart by leaps and bounds and equally crucial whatnot to say.

You will discover the Little Secrets of an Effective Business Card message that will have your Competitors Clients Jumping over Them to Get to YOU.

Fortunately, you will also uncover the mistake that 95% of most business owners make when designing their unique business cards.

What IS the primary purpose for creating your business card? Unfortunately, we’re not sure if entrepreneurs know the real reason or usefulness of a business card!

But here is one helpful definition

An effective business card is another method of marketing your message. Your marketing message should unquestionably stay consistent on all of your advertising media i.e.

Website, print material, radio, newspaper, ads, etc…

Business Cards are an inexpensive tool that many people create to give away to prospective clients… on those cards are their achievements, honors, gold stars and successes…stuff that only interested themselves not their potential clients.

Think about it, what’s on your business card and how effective is your marketing message? Or did you erroneously duplicate what 95% of the others entrepreneurs did?

Listen while we explain the normal path most(home business, entrepreneurs) newbie’s take, if this sounds like you, then you know you are in the right place…at the right time.

Here’s how most home business owners come up with their award-winning business card, they dream up some cock-a-mamie logo, something pulled from the universe.

Then they added some glitz and glamor, looked at it as if it took 1st place at a pig picking contest.

Being incontestably impressed at their creative business card decision they then send it to the printer for approval.

It looks good to the printer so 1000 inefficient business cards are on their way

 

Questions: How did they decide what message to print on their card? Do they have an effective message or benefit to deliver to their clients?

Is their message saying the same identical things the other "95%" of all other business cards say? Are they running off at the mouth talking about your great product or service?

Gain the Fair Advantage by learning Essential Skills that will make your Business card 100 x more Effective than Your Contenders

Simply implement this Powerful Effective business card strategy and be on your way to the top 5%.

You will pull away from the crowd like a super sonic jet vs. a bike with training wheels.

Let’s get started!

One Last scenario

Here’s what most amateurs business owners do… look for the most elegant, unique, top-notch business card available.

Then they add what excites them about their business, product or services incorrectly thinking everyone will like what they like…(love at first sight).

Admire it and on to the printer.  Now there’s nothing wrong with beauty…however let’s not exclude brains.

Now I’m not saying don’t use any fancy paper stock, unique metal, plastic, see thru material or any of these new and effective business cards options.

But here’s what I do know and “John Assaraf Author of “Having It All: Achieving your Lifes Goals and Dreams” and a professional business coach” validates…. your message is as vitally important as your looks.

Think about this, which service you would consider, you received two business cards both from the social networking event.

Business Card #1

You are passed a business card, it’s beautiful and you even commented on the card. You’re mesmerized because it has features you’ve never seen before.

The business card feels silky and it has a sleek look. It even has a distinctive logo, it looks foreign with a magical sensation. Everyone is raving about the card.

You’ve collected some decent business cards as usual but you put them where you keep all of the other cards???  Let’s say you are looking for a day care facility for your kids. You come across cards from some of the people you met at the social.

All of the cards basically look alive, you look at the fancy one it looks good but it’s playing the same old song. A “me me me “card. Who cares you‘ve been in business for over 50 years…

They are also 50 year old fools too…

All of them said the same thing just packaged differently.

How do you determine which one to call on?

Business Card #2

Now you come across a card that wasn’t fancy in style. The front has the

•    Person’s name

•    Telephone number

•    Business Name

•    A picture of them or hot button image

•    At the bottom they stated a short  effective message that sparks your attention

•    Then an “over”  arrow

Once you turn over the business card it has a statement that answers a concern you have with many of the day care center. (hot buttons)

1.    Your kids don’t spend idle at ABC Day Care Services they learn something every minute of every day

2.    Are you concern for your child’s safety; we provide TV monitoring services you can view from the privacy of your own home

3.    Want to know what your son will have for breakfast, lunch, and dinner view of menu at www yourchildeat’s healthyhere.

“Over on the back also has a website for more info on what’s important to you that there center offers."

Which service are you going to investigate and more then likely choose? What does your marketing message say?

Set yourself ahead of your challengers with an Effective Business Card Message and watch your competitors fall like dominoes.

 

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Business From Scratch

Azfar A Khan asked:

Article

Business from Scratch

(By:- Mr. Azfar A Khan)

Most of us sometimes feel that we should have a business of our own and be our own boss but we are shy to jump in the business arena due to some unknown fear. In this indecisiveness, we keep thinking for years and years together and can’t make up our mind one way or the other, thus wasting a lot of time with no tangible results.

“The hardest thing about getting started is getting started.”

 

                                                …Guy Kawasaki

To own a business is a great challenge. It’s not difficult at all to start a business and succeed in it too provided you follow certain laid down principles of entrepreneurship. These principles are time-tested and provide guidance to avoid possible pitfalls. In this article, our discussion would generally revolve around these principles.

While starting a business of his own, an entrepreneur has to decide which main product he’d like to keep in focus. Also, he’ll have to see whether there was any market for that product? Also, he has to see which other competitors already exist. So, he has to do something that distinguishes him from others in the area. He should develop his niche. His product has to be better in quality; he may offer useful options to the customers within the same price range. Say, there’re two Pizza shops side by side. One of them being new in the business has a system for home-delivery whereas the other one doesn’t offer this facility. Naturally, the one with home-delivery system would have an edge over the other.  

Before starting a business, an entrepreneur has to carry out a survey as to which product was required by the market. Then he should choose his product keeping market need in view. He should always be thinking about the new ideas. He should assess his idea’s market potential.  He may look for some add-ons in the existing products; or still, he can make use of new technology, think of innovations. Once, he has done his homework, then he should implement his idea. The uniqueness of his idea would catch the customer’s attention. He may also see which segment of the society he intends to target.

A lot depends these days upon marketing of a product. Marketing is nothing but ways and means to sell your product. He has to resort to massive advertisement for his product through various means like handouts, internet, banners, newspapers, radio, TV, etc. I would explain it in this way: Say, you’ve got gold in your pocket and you want to sell it, but unless you tell somebody about your intention, it would be next to impossible to find a customer for your gold. The same is true for your business.

As mentioned above, an entrepreneur can make the best use of internet to promote his business. He may design his website through some professional in the field and attain international exposure. Website must be promoted through various means. It can be be promoted through search engines, business cards, stationery, etc.

Selling online these days has become a roaring business. It’s a multi-billion industry and is quite cheap as compared to an actual bricks and mortar store. Now, you can access billions of websites, find an item of your choice and place an order online. Say, an entrepreneur is engaged in supplying electronics goods to his customers. For his satisfaction, the purchaser wants to see the item before placing an order so that he could be sure whether the item being supplied to him was exactly the same that he wanted. So, he’ll communicate with the supplier on the internet and at the same time see the item physically on the monitor of his computer before placing an order. Just imagine, how much time, effort and money is saved!

Before starting his business, an entrepreneur has to choose what form of business he intends to follow like sole proprietorships, partnerships or corporations.. In sole proprietorship, he is fully responsible for all debts and liabilities. This form of business is very popular. The examples include home-based businesses, consultants, restaurants, etc. He can do his business in partnership with somebody and share the assets, liabilities and profits of his business. If he intends to conduct his business on a large scale, he can venture into a corporation. Corporations are divided into shares or stocks. Ownership is dependent on the number of shares owned. Corporations are expensive to set up.

There’s one thing that’s very important while starting a business and that’s preparation of a business plan. Anybody, who starts a business, must prepare a business plan in advance. A business plan is a notice board of the company that shows the entrepreneur’s vision about the business. It convinces the client that the company’s business was in safe hands and that it wouldn’t be risky for him to make financial commitments to this company. The business plan comes handy while applying for loan as well. It tells the investor as to how the loan would be repaid. A standard business plan may comprise about 35 to 40 pages. It should make use of bullets and steps for explaining various aspects of the plan. The language should be simple and easy to understand. It shouldn’t give a gloomy outlook; rather it should evince enthusiasm and compel the investors to invest their money in this new venture.

An entrepreneur should have a fair idea through estimates as to how much money would be needed to start his business.  He should be very clear as to which sources he intends to tap to arrange finances. The best choice would be if an entrepreneur invests his own money in the business. It would give a lot of confidence to the lending agencies implying that he himself was ready to take risk for his money, if any. The best part would be that in this case nobody would be sharing his equity. The next preference goes to his family members and friends who could chip in according to their capacity. But, their money should be taken as a sacred loan. By investing in his company, they have reposed a lot of trust in him. But, there’s one danger in this sort of investment and that is: If the entrepreneur incurs a loss, then a long-lasting relationship could be at stake.

An entrepreneur has to protect his creations against copying. He must know what his rights were as far as intellectual property was concerned. He can opt for patents, copyright, trade secrets or trademarks.

A new entrepreneur should not worry about the size of his business. He should find out the strengths of his new business. It has been observed that at times a lean company has defeated well-established companies. Why? Because, it has efficient management, its executives take quick decisions, its staff employs innovative techniques and responds to market needs, its monitoring mechanism is efficient; its management is alert to change; the quality of its product or service is superb; its staff is alert to all queries; it provides efficient after-sale service, and, above all, its clients are highly satisfied.

In the modern world, technology is the name of the game. It’s changing at a very fast pace. In recent years, the entire concept of doing business has undergone a dramatic change. If an entrepreneur wants to succeed, he must keep himself abreast with the latest developments in technology as applicable to the business field. He should know that the time of typewriters is a story of the past and that he should now develop his liking for computer and internet.

During my recent visit to the United States, I was staying with one of my friends running a super market in Long Island along with a franchise of “Subway.” One day I saw him sitting with a laptop at his residence and passing some instructions to somebody in his office in his super market that was some 20 kilometers from his residence. Suddenly, he asked that person as to why his office had been opened without his (my friend’s) permission. The person from the other end explained his position and satisfied his boss. He was connected to his super market through a video camera and the internet.

Being an entrepreneur, if you hire some workforce, you have to provide them resources as well. You shouldn’t bother about petty things and waste your time on non-issues. I know a gentleman who owned a large indenting business and making millions in defence deals but was extremely miser in providing necessary resources to his staff. I noticed that there was only one typewriter that was being used for typing the entire stuff of the company. You could always see three to four managers lined up in a queue waiting for their turn to get their letters typed on that single typewriter.

An entrepreneur can use his website to introduce his business to a large audience in the shortest possible time. This way, even a small home-based business can easily get international exposure and that too at a negligible cost. Your website should be professionally prepared and be able to convince why people should place their orders at your store despite the fact that millions already exist for the purpose.

If possible, an entrepreneur should get his company certified according to the requirements of the international standard for Quality Management System i.e. ISO 9001. This job should be accomplished right in the beginning so that the company starts on the right foot. But, one word of caution! He must make it a point that he himself gets involved fully during the preparation process. Only then that he would be able to exercise effective control on the quality management system of his company.

An entrepreneur should know how to prioritize his jobs. I know a gentleman who lacked in this quality. He was based in Gulf and dealing in transporting manpower to African countries by chartering airliners from various companies. Once, he won a contract to airlift manpower from his country to a country in Africa. He hired an aircraft and called the passengers on the fixed date without first ensuring landing permission from the host country. He woke up when only two days were left in the departure date whereas 45 days were available to him since the contract was won. The aircraft and the passengers reached the airport at the appointed date and time. Due to various reasons, he couldn’t obtain permission for the next one week. The passengers had to be accommodated in the hotels and the aircraft had to be returned. The gentleman had to incur a colossal loss, running into millions. As a matter of fact, he should have known as to which actions were most important and needed immediate attention besides constant monitoring. If his company had been an ISO 9001 certified company, this problem would never have arisen as everybody in the company would be having his duties in writing and the gentleman entrusted with the duty of obtaining landing permission would have been on the job the moment he had come to know about the company having won the contract!

An entrepreneur has to be extremely judicious in using his resources during the start-up phase of his business; like for example, during the initial phase, he could run his business from his home rather than hiring an office away from his residence. He could take office equipment like fax machine, photostat machine, computers, printers, scanners, etc, on lease rather than purchasing it.

An entrepreneur has to be flexible while conducting business. Suppose he’s running a fast food business and preparing burgers for his customers and it’s running fine; but the people are approaching him with a lot of enquiries for Donuts as well. So, it would be prudent on the part of the entrepreneur to respect the demands of his customers by starting a franchise of the Donuts as well.

It’s generally perceived that one needs a lot of money to start a new business which isn’t true. The main thing is how you manage it. You can start a business with even as little an amount as $ 3000! The main thing is ensuring an adequate cash flow i.e. the difference between the money you have received and the money you have spent. A successful entrepreneur always keeps the cash flow on the plus side.

Starting business from scratch is an interesting endeavour. One has to pay heed to the proven principles of entrepreneurship. These principles were true yesterday; they are true today.  An entrepreneur doesn’t have to re-invent the wheel. He should just follow these principles in letter and spirit. Whosoever follows them is bound to excel and would ultimately touch the dizzying heights of success.

……………………………..

 

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Business and Internet Marketing News Report

Sharquenta Wells asked:

Established, proven & doable internet and business models or systems for earning income have never been more abundant, more inexpensive or easier to conduct.

Additionally there is an abundance of business and internet news available on-line to help you set up your internet business. However, it is up to you to do the proper research for a program that is designed to fit your needs. However, I have outlined a Business And Internet Marketing News Report for your convenience.

Business and internet news opportunities also tend to hype the ease of online marketing and the popularity of shopping on the Web (e-commerce). However, if you are not prepared with a plan of action profits will elude you.

The mission here is to provide business and internet news to those thousands of people searching for ways to make money from home or to be their own boss. Or to just plain quit their boring get nowhere jobs with workable business models, instructions, and information on the latest technologies that are available to help you succeed in your business today.

Business coaching has become easy to acquire and should be obtained for anyone beginning a new business. There are many business and internet experts available to anyone who needs their help which makes internet business development a breeze for the novice.

You can start out the new year with an incredible website. Business building software can teach you a simple set of systems for growing a business and earning a lucrative online income.

If you already have your website up and running becoming an affiliate for one company won’t make you a millionaire but by adding a couple of affiliate programs to your website you may make enough to prevent you from having to take a second part-time job.

It all starts with an idea and a strong desire to work at home. Businesses need a system in place to get noticed and attract potential businesses to their site. Many businesses hire web developers to get their companies online using good old HTML.

However, with today’s technologies you no longer need to know HTML or website design. But you do need up-to-the-minute business and internet news to keep you abreast of what is currently happening online because the internet changes at such a rapid pace.

Business people can modify and deploy new business rules quickly and easily, without downtime and without development environments or programming with the right software and design programs.

And businesses are being built online and offline from scratch and many opportunities are here on the net for you to explore. Internet Business Opportunity’ is the category where the best home based business opportunities are assembled for your selection.

Although the economy is declining — business is increasing little by little and on a steady pace. And the good news is that business is now being conducted both on a national and international scale.

Internet consulting companies offer web site development, e-commerce development, online communities, database integration, promotion and marketing.

Internet consultancy provides database integration, web design, e-business development, content development, custom programming, hosting, interaction and support services to help ensure your business and internet marketing endeavors are successful. Utilize these systems if you are serious about your business.

Home based business can bring you the best ‘work at home business opportunities online. Therefore, internet marketing consultants and web consulting services are among the experts you should consider working with.

Internet portals provide email, news, shopping, web search, music, fantasy, sports and many other online products and services to consumers and businesses worldwide. These are a few of the internet business opportunities that you can market that works for real people.

Internet marketing requires discipline and hard work and you need to know what is and what isn’t working and why. For this reason it is important to have a web consultancy company at your fingertips with up-to-date business and internet news sources.

And most importantly — do not overlook the fact that a good plan for internet marketing is essential for any website that aspires to make a profit online.

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Tags: Internet Business Development