Tag business failure

Entries 12 Total

Avoiding Snakes

Oct 4, ’11 3:35 PM
Author Leonora Soculitherz Categories Small Business / SOHO

You may have spotted me at the Balenciaga fashion show in Paris last week.  The front benches, which contain the A list celebs, collapsed. This  meant we all had to stand for ‘health and safety reasons’. This was good for me, as I was on the second row as an A minus celeb. It gave me a perfect view, of the stick insects, over the diminutive doll in front of me.

As I saw the startled VIPs, from the front row, on their miniature bottoms on the floor or scrambling uncertainly to their feet, I thought about the snakes and ladders of both celebrity and running your own business.

Just as you think you’ve made it, to the best seats in the house, something can bring you down again in an instant. When we start our businesses it’s all about avoiding the snakes who will offer us things we don’t need, like premises, cars, insurances and consultancy. Then when we’re finally established with a positive cash flow, it’s all about avoiding the snakes that want a piece of our action, like buyers, suppliers, staff and the financial services sector. These snakes not only sting they suck. They suck money and our most precious asset, and in short supply, time, out of our business

I’m just a successful, supercool, celebrity, fashionista that does a bit of investigative journalism about entrepreneurs on the side.  But I do know the answer to how you can avoid these snakes?

From well before you start your business build your own support network of a few friends and family, whose advice you can trust.  It’s best if most of them have started and run their own business. Then when the irreplaceable staff member blackmails you for a bonus, when the SEO consultant wants your arm and leg, when the big company buyer wants a contract that would leave you with only one customer and  when the bank rings you to offer you a great deal; you say ‘I’ll get back to you’. Then you phone your friend.

Q&A

Finally, in this blog I’ve offered to answer questions from my fans.  Robbie from Scarborough asked me to explain the importance of ‘self-handshakes’ from my ‘Awake the Volcano Within’ workshops for entrepreneurs.

Learn to shake hands with yourself.  This releases vital entrepreneurial energy from the right side of the brain. This in turn empowers the left side of the brain where dexterity, speed of thought and movement emanate from. You’ll solve problems quicker and just fly between meetings. Shake hands with yourself regularly, say 3 times an hour, and you’ll see fast results. You’ll be down to 5 minute client meetings and you’ll even leave the room with more business.

You’ll see David Cameron, your PM, shaking hands a lot, with himself, at the Tory party conference this week.

Leave your writing (comments) on our wall.

Comments · Email this · Subscribe RSS · Share on Facebook · Tweet · Permalink

If you need a bank or government to start a business, don’t do it!

Sep 27, ’11 5:28 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Small Business / SOHO

I my opinion, the business world, seen through a SMB/SME looking glass, has never been more cynical in my lifetime.

Banks pretend to offer loans, they never hand out. Now they even offer business advice (they certainly should know what NOT to do) in an attempt to show support for small business. Many of my clients don’t ask for loans to grow their business, because they don’t trust the bank – IMO, with good reason.

We do not know where this recession is going to take us next. Even if you could secure a loan, you can’t be sure it will not be called back in tomorrow. Then you are in a position where you have no loan, but also lost all your loan securities and possibly your business too.

Governments are involved in large scale spin when it comes to small business. In the UK if you are big business, you get drastically a reduced tax (below 6%) bill and your own HMRC “buddy”, not to speak of the financial help available to big business. If you are a small business you get the tax inspector charging you penalties and interest for every bit of genuine accounting mistake, no support, no help.

I believe that the large scale mistrust of the small business community towards government and banks is one major reason why this recession is so long and so hard on our economy.

What should you learn from all this? Simple – don’t start a business if you need help from government or banks! Using bootstrapping techniques will help you to get into business without loans and support.

You have been warned!

Leave your writing (comments) on our wall.

Comments · Email this · Subscribe RSS · Share on Facebook · Tweet · Permalink

Top 5 Myths about Starting a Small Business

Sep 19, ’11 7:00 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Business Checklists, Business Checklists

The weekly top 5 tips post is always full of helpful hints and advice for small, home and micro business owners.

1. The statistics often paint a grim picture for the survival of a small business. It is not unusual to even see claims that around 50% of small businesses fail. Remember that the term ‘small business’ is remarkably vague and a statistic like this means very little in regards to your own business survival.

2. To be a successful small business, it doesn’t necessarily require you to take a whole load of risk. Entrepreneurs are often portrayed as wild risk takers but in reality the decisions they make are almost always careful strategies based on quality data.

3. Don’t expect to simply be able to pay yourself whatever you like, as many people believe when they start a business. In the early days it may be difficult to even turn a profit and business owners that do manage it will often reinvest that profit back into the business for the first few months or years.

4. You also shouldn’t expect to be able to hire people straight away that you can delegate all the worst parts of running a business to. For a long while you are going to have to get your hands dirty to succeed.

5. A common myth is that you need money to be able to make money. This is false, many large corporations have been built totally from scratch. Don’t be fooled into thinking you absolutely must have a bank loan or something similar.

Leave your writing (comments) on our wall.

Comments · Email this · Subscribe RSS · Share on Facebook · Tweet · Permalink

Stilettos. Risk. Small Business.

Sep 18, ’11 8:20 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Business Startup

Last night I went to a 50th birthday garden party of a good friend (Andy – great party and we all get there, in fact some of us have been there for a while) and his daughter, a gifted dancer, was walking around in stilettos on soft and uneven grass and I was getting quite concerned about her falling or even breaking her ankle.

It got me thinking about why she was taking this risk, if she broke her ankle surely her promising dancing career would be over before it started. Why the risk?

What is risk to you and me? Obviously risk is a very subjective commodity. As my wife would point out, me running my own businesses all my working life has not been without it’s risks. I, on the other hand, believe running a business to be the safest way to control your future and live a full-filled life.

Andy’s daughter, due to her training, enhanced balance, may consider the “garden-stiletto challenge” a simple walk in the park, sort of speak.

What seems risky to me may not seem risky to you at all, maybe we all need to get a more “open” risk prospective!

With the right training “risk” can even turn into “opportunity”.

Leave your writing (comments) on our wall.

Comments · Email this · Subscribe RSS · Share on Facebook · Tweet · Permalink

Bootstrapping – The Way To Survive a Recession

Jul 19, ’11 6:26 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Business Bootstrapping, Recession Survival

Many of our clients currently find the going tough, although I happy to report that they are surviving better than the average micro business out there. You may ask why is that? Answer: “Business Bootstrapping!”

Here are a couple of techniques on how to use business bootstrapping to survive a recession:

1. Cutting Overheads – is all about lowering your monthly financial outlay, just to keep your business ticking over. Keeping this amount as low as possible will dramatically enhance your survival chances. Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

How much do you pay to your accountants for bookkeeping services, would it be better to find cheaper bookkeeping services?
Do you really need someone full time to answer your phone, or would an outsourced service do?
How many non-core activities do you perform in house which could be outsourced?
Do you really need your own servers and all the associated cost or could you move your IT to the cloud?
Are the Yellow Pages really bringing you customers anymore?

2. Helping instead of Selling – Selling is an expensive exercise, finding ways of using customers as sales-agents (word-of-mouth) is by far the cheapest and best way to find new clients.

Consider this, someone calls you after a client referred him/her to you. No more selling needed – your caller has already identified you as someone who can help solve the problem they have. In this situation selling is a step back from getting an order, helping is the way to move forward.

3. Online Marketing – as under 2. use online marketing to find new clients you can “help”. Online marketing, like social networking is nothing else but word-of-mouth online. Anyone contacting from these sources is looking for help. Anyone can do it, best of all it’s free – if you don’t know how, get training.

Depending on your business choose at least two of the following social networks:

Twitter – B2B and B2C
Facebook – more B2C
LinkedIn – B2B

As you can see saving money and time are essential recession survival techniques, followed by using free marketing and sales opportunities to find new clients and lastly only spend money to get new business.

Leave your writing (comments) on our wall.

Comments · Email this · Subscribe RSS · Share on Facebook · Tweet · Permalink

Just Don’t Quit!

Jun 17, ’11 6:24 PM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Business Psychology

I ran one of the largest ISPs in the 90′s and it was not always easy (the understatement of my life), we were growing so fast, that we never had any money, our cash-flow was catastrophic, always.

During those years my CFO and I had a saying, “It’s going to be another interesting day!” – meaning, we did not know if we’d still be in business by the end of that day, literally.

I spoke the other day to a group of people about these times and at the end someone asked me, “How do you survive those years of extreme growth, decline, change and/or financial upheaval?”

That is a very good question and I’m sure many of you, running your businesses, are in the same position now and then – so here is my highly unscientific, but in my opinion the only correct answer:

Just don’t quit!

Share your comments with me and my other readers on my Facebook Page.

Leave your writing (comments) on our wall.

Comments · Email this · Subscribe RSS · Share on Facebook · Tweet · Permalink

What is Mentoring?

May 30, ’11 8:24 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Business Mentoring, do a reality check

Running a business can sometimes be a very lonely affair. Decisions are always on the to-do list, having someone as a sounding board can be an invaluable asset to every small business owner.

business mentoring for smes

Business mentors are one group of people who can be your sounding boards. But what is a business mentor and what can you expect from a business mentor?

Maybe we should start by talking about what a business mentor is not. A business mentor is not a business adviser or business coach, they do not charge for their service, in fact they are often volunteers. This is an important fact about mentoring, no money changes hands. With money the whole relationship changes and it is no more considered mentoring.

Business mentors can be other business people you know or even former bank managers, who can help you to understand how to deal with banks. It is important to understand that business mentors should be trained for the job, volunteers or not. You can have different business mentors for different purposes too, however that is more the exception than the norm.

A business mentor is not someone who shows you the way to become successful, no road-map, no advice – only discussions, questions and playing devils advocate. A business mentor helps you to make up your own mind which way you want to go, in other words helps you to make the final decision.

After a few year in business, you could return the favor and become a business mentor, this again is good for your business, because it exposes you to new ideas and will enrich your business life too.

Research shows that using a business mentor makes a business more successful and less vulnerable.

Leave your writing (comments) on our wall.

Comments · Email this · Subscribe RSS · Share on Facebook · Tweet · Permalink

Top 5 Tips for Preventing Business Failure

May 23, ’11 7:00 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Business Checklists

The weekly top 5 tips post is always full of helpful hints and advice for small, home and micro business owners.

1. It helps to be prepared, but over preparation can distract you from the important task of actually getting started and making money. Not everything needs to be perfect first.

2. Keeping your private life separated from work is always advisable. If you must employ family and friends, make sure that you remain professional at all times

3. It is tempting to go all out and buy the best of everything, even down to the furniture you put in the office. However, you should try to avoid any expenditure that is not essential because it will ultimately harm your bottom line.

4. The opposite of this is also true. You shouldn’t be so adverse to spending money that it leads to you cutting corners or buying poor equipment that makes it difficult to work efficiently.

5. As a small business, you should always attempt to underpromise and overdeliver. Customers will always be impressed by what you deliver, instead of being underwhelmed.

Leave your writing (comments) on our wall.

Comments · Email this · Subscribe RSS · Share on Facebook · Tweet · Permalink

Naive Realism

May 22, ’11 8:49 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Business Psychology

Ever thought about your business or product as far better than any other product on the market? At some level you may acknowledge that you are subjective and biased, but then you reassure yourself that you compared your product to the competition and came out on top.

Truth is, this is an illusion called “Naive Realism”. Emily Pronin, a psychologist at Princeton University, says these illusions or convictions are inescapable and deep seated in our consciousness.

What does that mean for us in business?

Simple, find enough people who share your “Naive Realism” and you have a market or market niche!

Question: Do you share my “Naive Realism”?

Leave your writing (comments) on our wall.

Comments · Email this · Subscribe RSS · Share on Facebook · Tweet · Permalink

UK Economy in “Fragile Recovery”

Apr 28, ’11 7:35 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Exporting, Globalization 3.0, Small Business / SOHO, Small Business / SOHO

The UK economy grew by 0.5% in Q1 of 2011 – apparently reducing the risk of a double-dip recession.

Different sectors have grown at different speeds, the manufacturing sector is doing very well, while others are struggling to make any gains. Bank lending to the SME sector has fallen again, which makes you wonder.

UK GDP Growth Q1/2011

Manufacturing has the potential like the housing market to create a recovery all by itself. If manufacturing grows all other sectors, including private households, will benefit sooner or later – look at the German economy, totally driven by manufacturing.

Small business is a major part of UK manufacturing, the potential for job creation is enormous. The pound is weak against almost all foreign currencies, creating ideal conditions for exporting. This in turn would also reduce our enormous foreign trade deficit, which would have a positive effect on our currency and economy as a whole.

All this would point to a strong recovery – so, why is it not happening? Why are other countries pulling ahead? In my opinion it is the lack of working capital in these SMEs. Once again banks are engaging in risky lending to the private sector, why aren’t banks supporting SMEs?

Is it that they fear the success of other industry sectors, which would expose them to less favoritism?

Leave your writing (comments) on our wall.

Comments · Email this · Subscribe RSS · Share on Facebook · Tweet · Permalink