Rick's Blog - Common Sense Experience for Small Businesses
Your Business Website is Only a Beginning
Every business process has a beginning and an end. In the case of your business technology there is also a lot in the middle and really no end in sight. A business website is typically a good place to start building the technology that your business will use for communication both inside and outside of your business. The website can be a place where all or most all of your communication technologies meet. A website…
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Does Technology Help or Hurt Our Business?
This may not sound like a serious question to everyone, but I think it is perhaps the most important question or issue facing small businesses today. It is meant to be a roundabout way of asking you is technology working for your business. More importantly are you getting the most of technology in your business? There are five main considerations that need to be considered when you try and answer this question. First, what type…
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Who Makes Up The Planning Team?
The answer to that question would seem to be easy if your business is a sole proprietorship and you are the only employee of the business. You are the planning team. Let me suggest that may not be the best answer. Even if you consider yourself a team of one, there are others that can help you develop a better business plan. A good place to start is with organizations in our community or online…
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Do I Need to Use a Dynamic Business Plan?
The word “dynamic” is defined as an Adjective: “(of a process or system) characterized by constant change, activity, or progress: “a dynamic economy”, or as a Noun: “a force that stimulates change or progress within a system or process: “evaluation is part of the basic dynamic of the project.” In a real sense both definitions could apply to your business. For example, if you are starting a new business or introducing a new product or…
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What is the Temperature of Your Business Financial Plan for 2018?
At this point of the year, yes, we are still in January, I would hope that you have all your planning wrapped up. If not, then this encouragement is definitely for you. It is also if for those who finished their planning prior to the end of the year and just filed it a way. Get that plan out, share it and make sure you have the action plans in place to make it…
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Where Do We Go From Here?
That sounds like a great question for many people and businesses at the beginning of a new year. My hope would be that most of you already have some idea or perhaps even a plan to move forward into the new year. I would like to suggest that to a certain degree your opportunity to find the success that you are looking for in 2018 has already been decided. The fact that you already have…
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It’s That Time of Year!
My name for this time of the year: “The ending and beginning of opportunities.” The business world always abounds in opportunities for those who seek are willing to seek them out and seize them. However, for some reason we seem to become more aware or perhaps more open to them this time of year. I would suggest that this awareness is driven by a sense that the New Year brings a chance to begin again.…
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What Does 2018 Look like From the Small Business Point of View?
As the year winds down, it is only natural to look forward to 2018. Some businesses develop extensive business plans for the new year; while I suspect that most small businesses simply think about the new year and record little of their plan on paper. I encourage all my clients to take the time, away from the day-to-day activity of their business, to develop at least a one-page plan to guide them in the new…
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It is Time to Go – How to Know When it is Time to Leave Your Business
Every business venture has a beginning and end for its owner. A great deal of time is typically put into the beginning of the business. The beginning or start-up phase is an exciting time for everyone concerned particularly the owner. Plans are written and re-written as assets are counted and typically to a lesser extend liabilities are considered. Once the business starts, then it is off to the races with little if any concern for…
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