Declining Business Conditions not Expected to Improve in 2012
Published November 11, 2011 | 
Business Economic Trends on the Horizon for 2012
If you have been keeping up with news about the economy, both U.S. and global, you are aware of more and more predictions and major concerns that the possibility is growing for another dip into recession. Regardless if the economy technically doesn’t slide into the next recession, it seems to many that we are in the middle of one, and just as many feel strongly that we never pulled out of the last recession.
In the Fall 2010 over approximately 40% of the owners of privately owned businesses indicated that their specific economic conditions had experienced improvement during the previous six months. We saw that number increase earlier this year in the Spring 2011 over 50%. But just recently in the Fall 2011 there has been a significant drop‐off of in the number of businesses who experienced improvement in their business conditions during the previous six months.
When asked to look ahead, less than 30% expect any improvement in business conditions during the next twelve months in 2012. Even more significant is the fact that more than 25% expect a continued deterioration.
All indications in the anemic job market point to continued employment sluggishness, and more importantly in looking over the horizon, order backlogs are weak (and the holiday season is fast approaching). When combined with external factors including continued declines in housing prices, increases in foreclosures and the price of gas constantly eating into available consumer spending that would normally be spent on other items, the economy gives us little to cheer about in the near-term and beyond.
When determining future capital expenditure commitments, businesses examine past months activities to make accurate calculated decisions. The information for the past 30 days is sometimes worse and flattens in the 60-day or more retrospect. A simple fact recognized in the economy is that cash is accumulating on the balance sheets of companies that were able to make the difficult adjustments during the recession, and as a result, are currently profitable.
It appears that reasons for capital expenditures being committed currently are not for expansion purposes, but rather for the modernization, replacement, and productivity efficiency improvements and additional regulatory compliance. These seem to be the main indicators for use of proceeds commitment for the next several months.
What we have noticed for several months is that as overall conditions continue to deteriorate, financing gets relatively more difficult, especially as the perceived economic risks inversely increase. Don’t expect the banks to give you an umbrella, when it starts to rain. In addition, equity markets have recently declined, strongly-suggesting that asset values are still in moving downward.
The Fed’s “Quantitative easing” has had little or no impact on the conditions for financing since the lion’s share of the funding remains on the balance sheets of the banking and financial institutions.
Response to the Great Recession through current policy decisions, along with the turbulent global economy is fundamentally important to the level of success of small businesses and the U.S. economy. The importance of privately‐held businesses of all sizes in America’s economy will hopefully guide future economic decisions, both nationally and globally.
Small Business Success – Serve Fewer Customers
Published August 1, 2011 | 
It has always been a major component in the entrepreneurial DNA that when introducing their business to the market, or launching a new product or service, most entrepreneurs tend to dream big. Magical visions of as they picture masses of customers gathering to buy their products or services, and the happy ending of sailing off into the sunset with their riches from success in hand. Now, while the vision and dreams of massive success are great, the strategy is generally unsound and faulty.
Wondering why?
Entrepreneurs that fall into this category, which is the majority, typically reason that every man, woman and child will strongly desire to buy their product or service. So, when asked “who do you think your customer is?” they naturally answer “everyone.” That answer is a big mistake they should rethink.
There are a couple of obvious problems with this kind of answer. One is that marketing to “everyone” is really difficult, and can be quite expensive. Of course, you may have occasional companies including Facebook and Groupon that enjoy tremendous natural growth via viral word of mouth. 
But this is such a rare feat the chances of being struck by lightning are much greater. The truth of the matter is for us that remain, marketing to those in the market we think as “everyone” costs millions of dollars.
Another difficulty is that when you attempt to serve more customers than you capacity to serve and maintain high-standards, more times than not you are unable to perform at the level required to serve any single customer and successfully meet the high-standards you both set and promise. Always remember this great saying: “When you try to be everything to everyone, you end up being nothing to anyone.”
Believe it or not gigantic companies like Wal-Mart is not everything to everyone, as there are many folks who have never been inside a Wal-Mart. While it is clearly evident retailers like Wal-Mart don’t target the upscale market, they do well at selecting one large customer segment that want low prices and high value and serving them extremely well.
So what’s the solution?
Target a smaller audience and provide outstanding service, and if you can do so, you will notice a few things happen. First of all, you will be able to more effectively market to the wants and desires of your smaller niche market, thereby gaining revenues and profits.
In addition, even without specific niche marketing, you will always undoubtedly serve some customers outside of your target market.
Lastly, via certain brand extensions you may enjoy, you will always be able to target additional customer segments as your capacity to successfully serve and maintain high-standards at the same time increases.
Small Business Success – Growing a Small Business Takes Time
Published May 27, 2011 | 
Compared to the time it takes to start a small business, growing that same small business takes much more time. Despite what you may have heard on late-night television infomercials, you can’t expect to jump right in and start making millions of dollars or even be profitable in the beginning. What it takes is sustainable, all-inclusive marketing tactics to build your customer leads, your sales, and ultimately your bottom line or profit.
Many of the successful businesses we observe in the economy around us make business success look easy (especially the larger ones). It is important to understand many of them have a highly-specialized marketing and sales staff running their daily operations. 
The reality is that most small business owners can’t afford such a staff, and they are on their own responsible for all aspects of the daily operations, including marketing and sales.
But the good news is that with the correct and precise focus, you can become that dedicated and expert marketing department. Although it requires a little bit of work up front in the beginning, you can get sales leads streaming through the door all by yourself.
Make it a dedicated goal that you will invest some time in educating yourself on a few simple uncomplicated marketing strategies and resources. A whole new level of business growth you never thought possible, will result from the little bit of work you accomplished up front.
If you can become proficient in a few simple areas, you will be well on your way to success.
Don’t try to implement all of these steps at once… that would be way too overwhelming.
Take them one step at a time and build as you go.
Just choose a few of the strategies you want to work on now and start there. Then, little by little, you’ll build up your marketing efforts until you can count on consistent sales and associated work from month to month for the business.
Get Ready for the Future…
Published March 18, 2011 | “Study the past, if you would divine the future.” – Confucius
“The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.” – Winston Churchill
“Learn from the past, set vivid, detailed goals for the future, and live in the only moment of time over which you have no control: now.” – Denis Waitley
“The best way to predict the future is create it.” – Peter Drucker
“Wisdom is the power to put our time and our knowledge to the proper use.” – Thomas J. Watson
A question that should be on the mind of every Entrepreneur and small business owner even before they start their business, and most certainly while operating, is are you ready for the future? The global economy is in a constant state of change and evolution. Now whether these changes are good or bad depends in part on how we are all able to adapt to them and make them work for us to create greater efficiencies and substantial increases in profit. However, ready or not, here they come!
Entrepreneurs and small business owners must constantly consider the past, the present and the future. 
The lessons and things that can be learned from the past, both good and bad, that can be applied to the things that have to be successfully accomplished today in the most efficient ways, and what methods and processes to keep, and improvements to make to successfully accomplish tomorrow’s business tasks better and faster.
You should always be thinking and have one eye and on in terms of how you are going to do business in the future. 
Before you realize it and your awareness kicks in, most of the future changes are already in the process of taking place.
To have a better picture and clearly understand where we are going, you need to experience an amazing look back at the history of technology, and the following video will give you a incredible glimpse of how far we have come.
IBM Centennial Film: 100 X 100 – A century of achievements that have changed the world
Most Important Questions for Business – Your Commitment?
Published January 24, 2011 | How Committed are you to the Success of the Business?
If you’re like most people you have a family and a couple of kids. So one of the first questions you have to honestly answer before beginning your entrepreneurial journey, is are you ready to completely dedicate 100 hours a week for at least the next two years to start your new business and get it off the ground? Before you answer, you must understand this fair warning: If you want to run the show, you have to be ready to commit everything, and even that might not be enough.
Like anything else with a lot of components, sustainable success for small businesses is especially like a puzzle with a large number of pieces. And just like fingerprints, every Entrepreneur’s business success puzzle is unique. What proves to work for a few doesn’t always succeed for others. Nevertheless, one piece in each Entrepreneur’s success puzzle is commitment. The puzzle piece may perhaps be a dissimilar shape and size, however it is constantly present.
Commitment by its actual character implies some act to be taken to reach a desire, an aspiration or what can as well be labeled a goal. Consider a recent business accomplishment and your degree of commitment. Then, consider an objective that wasn’t successfully reached and your amount of commitment. Weigh the two levels of commitment against each other and in comparison, were they equal or different?
You should understand that as a small business develops and evolves so does the Entrepreneur’s level of commitment. Entrepreneurs are extremely committed in the initial start up years to running the business operations by wearing many diverse hats. However as time passes, and the business experiences growth (expectantly), the commitment evolves and transforms into working on the business development at the same time as assigning others to work in the daily business operations.
Now during the last few years, we have spoken with numerous small business owners, executives and Entrepreneurs. What we have unsurprisingly discovered is that no one wishes to be a failure and yet everyone desires to be a success. Subsequently, the simple question is: Why don’t we experience more success? Keep in mind that most small businesses fail in the initial couple of years.
The solution to this uncertainty involves multiple pieces of the success puzzle. Then again, commitment to doing the right thing at the correct time in agreement with the right plan and associated with the true values is at all 
times part of the answer or in the precise words of Peter Drucker “Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans.”
Your clear understanding how you define and characterize commitment and how you execute and carry out effective commitment is utterly essential. For your personal commitment is the one of the critical pieces to carrying out and completing your own success puzzle.