One of the best ways to start and grow a small business is to get expert advice. I’m not referring here to paid consultants, a luxury that most early stage and small companies can’t afford. (When you can afford the right ones, by the way, they can be an excellent investment.) Instead, I’m referring here to getting a mentor of one kind or another. Read more »
Universities – How They Can Help Your Business
Professors at schools prefer to assign real life problems to their students. At most graduate business schools, they assign students singly or in teams to analyze a real company in their city. The other subject areas like engineering, graphic design, advertising, etc., are also looking for real life assignments for their students. If you have a product that needs to be engineered, you can approach the professor teaching that subject to ask if students can be assigned to your project. Read more »
Pricing For Profit
One of the most important aspects of launching and growing a successful product is correct pricing, one of the major components of profits. The right price gets you an order and maximizes your chances for reorders. The wrong price—on the low side—leaves valuable profits on the table. The wrong price--on the high side-- may decrease your orders, your chances for getting reorders, and invite competition. This may not appear to be a Bootstrap strategy. It is included because a high percentage of businesses do not give enough attention to this important profit element. They too quickly determine price by their costs or by what competition or perceived competition is doing. The result is that profits are left on the table, or more succinctly, you are depriving yourself of precious cash...your life blood. Read more »
Cash Free Ideas to Beat Competition
Competition for customers in most industries is extremely intense. This is exacerbated if the customer is a large one and your product is not particularly unique or patent protected. Your customers are also in a high pitched battle with their competitors. This can be seen in your everyday life. Look at the competition in cars, retail stores, food stores, homes, computers, music, etc., for your dollar. This extends into the industrial sector and personal services. Here are some non-cash ideas to help your small business better compete. Read more »
A Perfect Gift for Small Business Entrepreneurs
Small Business blogs were my first encounter with social media. The goal was to share my hard earned knowledge with existing and wannabe Small Business managers to ease their path to entrepreneurial success. If successful, I was hoping that they would then consider buying my book, Bootstrapping 101. However, I was warned not to sell my book in the blogs. I have followed that advice for some 90 blogs. Now, I would like to blatantly try to sell you on purchasing it for yourself or someone else who fits the bill. Why? Read more »
Entrepreneurs-Time To Be Thankful
Whether you’ve had a difficult year in this current environment or have been one of the fortunate ones and prospered, it would serve you well to pause and take stock of all the things you should be thankful for. Be thankful you are in your own business and your own boss. Millions of people aspire for the same. Be thankful for all your customers without whom you would have no business.... Read more »
Writing Business Plans-Anyone Have a Pencil?
The smartest entrepreneurs plan on growing and are prepared for change. I have a few words of advice for first-time entrepreneurs, as well as seasoned business owners looking to hit a new stage of growth. My advice is this: write your business plan in pencil. I realize this may be difficult for all you non-golfers, but doing so will illustrate two important principles. Read more »
The Mission Statement – For Small Business?
The mission statement is something very different from the business plan. Mission statements set the moral and human goals to which your company is supposed to aspire. In many cases, they also state higher order business goals, such as a corporate commitment to maintaining an annual compounded rate of growth of a certain percentage. Mission statements are most often associated with large corporations—an effort to get thousands of people to pull in the same direction across a far-flung corporate empire. But I think a mission statement is a good thing for a small business as well, and it’s something that should be developed at the outset. Read more »
Factors: How They Can Help Small Business
Factors finance $120 billion in receivables, yet most start-up and small businesses are not aware of them. Business schools rarely acknowledge them. However, they can alleviate your cash flow problems. They can loan you or advance you money against your receivables and in some cases against your inventory. In other words, your receivables are an […] Read more »
Protected: Sales Reps and How They Benefit Small Businesses
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post. Read more »
Bootstrapping for Cash Strapped Businesses
I define bootstrapping as ‘pursuing success with limited resources and with the help of others.” By limited resources I mean a shortage of money or knowledge. Here are some tips and ideas to help solve these shortfalls for small and wannabe entrepreneurial business owners. These ideas are particularly apropos in today’s environment. Read more »
You Don’t Know? It’s Very Okay To Admit It
Success or knowledge in one area or endeavor does not automatically ensure the same in others. I have never met anyone who knows everything about everything. No one can know it all although many think they do. I’m sure you’ve met some of them. However, when many people are asked a question and they don’t know the answer, it is difficult for them to say the simple words “I don’t know.’ Read more »
Suppliers Can Be Key to Your Growth
Suppliers can be a critical component of your growth and survival. Your approach to suppliers needs to be part of your strategic plan, since almost every company, whether product or service oriented, is dependent on suppliers. Many people seem to get this supplier issue wrong. They feel that because they write the order, they are in the dominant position and can exploit it with unreasonable demands upon their suppliers, including personal perks. Please let’s get this right! You need good and reliable suppliers. When you find them, treat them like gold. Work as hard on building a supplier relationship as with any other one. Read more »
Great Idea to WOW your Suppliers
When I blogged my earlier post on Suppliers, I received a great comment from Pierre Martell, the CEO of Martell Home Builders in Moncton, Canada, that I want to share with everyone. Their mission is to build customized homes in 99 days on budget. Their website is their primary selling tool. To accomplish this, they use a network of subcontractors. As a start up in a very competitive industry, Pierre quickly realized how critical the performance of his suppliers was to his success -- thus his 100% agreement with my supplier post. So to attract maximum supplier cooperation over his competitors, he came up with what I think is a simple but brilliant concept. I know from experience that the single best action you can take to be a great customer to a supplier is to PAY YOUR BILLS ON TIME. Read more »
7 Tips on Barter for Small Business
Barter, an $8-12 billion dollar industry, is one of the businesses that flourishes in bad economies, as it offers entrepreneurs many opportunities to acquire things they need and want for no or little cash. Here are some of the things you should know about Barter, a great Bootstrapping activity. 1. It is the exchange of […] Read more »
Curiosity – A Key Entrepreneurial Trait
Most of us will agree that creativity is a key element in a company’s growth and sustainability. This applies to small and large companies, start-ups, and service or product companies. Without creativity, you are susceptible to becoming a me-too company, which will lead to lower profit margins, loss of market share, and eventual demise in […] Read more »
Rebounding from Setbacks-A Wow! Video
My definition of Entrepreneurship is “The recognition and pursuit of opportunity without regard to the resources you currently control, with confidence that you can succeed, with the flexibility to change course as necessary, and with the will to Rebound from Setbacks.” (This definition is primarily from Professor Howard Stevenson of Harvard Business School with some […] Read more »
Preparation Works in Business as in Sports
The sports media and coaching community consistently attribute the success of our sports stars to their dedication to preparing for their role on the playing field. Football quarterbacks, who besides their extreme physical routine, spend huge amounts of time seeing film of their next opponent and studying their game plans. Baseball pitchers study countless hours […] Read more »
No Can Become a Yes in Selling
Would you believe NO can get you a good Yes? Yes, it’s true; sometimes NO is the keyword for successful selling. In all negotiations and selling which falls into that category, you need to understand the other person’s needs, job responsibility, and goals. One of the major responsibilities of a buyer is to get the […] Read more »
A Letter to My Blog Subscribers
To: All Subscribers to my Bootstrapping 101 Blog From: Bob Reiss First, thank you for subscribing and reading my blogs. Second, I want to wish everyone a happy, healthy, and fulfilling New Year. When I started writing these blogs over 15 months ago, I was told by the Internet experts (of which I am […] Read more »