Small Office, Home Office Information

In the build up to Christmas here in our house I was absolutely remiss in not wishing all our readers a very merry Christmas. We certainly hope that you had a great time with your loved ones on Christmas Day and that the gifts you received were just what you wanted.

This year one of our daughters gave us gift certificate for a well-known chain of bookstores and, after reading some comments on Darren Rowse’s blog we’ve already decided on one of the books that we’ll be buying.

Darren commented on a book by Richard Koch – 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Success by Achieving More with Less – and it immediately interested us because the 80/20 rule is something that is well known in affiliate marketing.

For anyone who uses the affiliate model to sell their products this principle means that 80% of all sales will be generated by just 20% of all your affiliates. Once you understand that principle then you know which affiliates you need to focus on to help them make even more sales.

Richard Koch applies that principle to wealth generation. His argument is that 80% of your income will be generated by just 20% of your effort and he encourages people to identify that important 20% and focus on it to generate even more income.

It’s an interesting concept and one that all of us need to look at.

Michael Gerber in his book The E Myth Revisited talks about the three types of people who are needed to run a small business. Often all three are packed into just one person and the most important person is the entrepreneur because that’s the person that makes the business grow and survive.

Darren Rowse has some interesting thoughts on Seven Characteristics of the Entrepreneurial Life over at his blog and they are well reading and thinking about.

And if you want to know who wears the entrepreneurs cap in our business … well there’s no doubt that it’s Toni

Cash flow has very definitely been on our mind again these last few weeks as previously reliable clients have had us do work for them and then failed to pay us. For most small businesses it doesn’t take much to reduce a steady flow to a terrifying trickle and so working on your cash flow is always important.

Sometimes ‘working’ can be as simple as doing some reading on the subject so you might find a new book that is about to be released quite helpful.

It’s not out yet but The Truth About Small Business Cash Flow: Why Making A Profit Doesn’t Mean Success does look interesting and you can register to be notified when the book is released.

Websters Online Dictionary announced last week that the word most people came to the dictionary to find the meaning for this year was integrity.

That’s a sad indictment on today’s world when people need to find the meaning for a word that describes an attribute that every person should have.

Of course not everyone does have integrity and here in Australia there are a few politicians from the religious right and from the far right who need to match their words to their actions. They also need to check to see what the meaning of integrity really is.

But just because others don’t have integrity doesn’t mean that you or I are absolved from displaying that attribute in our every-day activities.

And just in case you don’t know what the meaning of the word is then I can tell you that Websters defines it as ‘firm adherence to a code’ and ‘incorruptibility’.

Unfortunately the cost of fuel is affecting small businesses wherever they might be located. Qually unfortunately there is no quick fix for the problem but there are survival strategies and you might find the suggestion you need right here

That’s a question that was basically asked of us the other day and the obvious answer is a resounding NO!

I suppose that has to be qualified just a bit because there are some small businesses that are just going to be too much for anyone who is getting on in years but there are certainly plenty of opportunities for small business people whatever their age might be.

Unfortunately many young people don’t understand that and they are quick to discourage any older person who might want to launch their own small business.

Only yesterday a lady of middle age came into the computer shop where Toni rents a desk several days a week. She happened to notice that Toni had Dreamweaver open and was working on one of our projects. The lady confided in Toni that she was completing a Macromedia (they make Dreamweaver) course at tech and she really didn’t know what to do when she had finished.

She was the only mature student in a class of mostly teenagers and they had all told her that she was far to old to even think of making money on the Internet.

The lady was greatly relieved to see Toni fall about laughing when age was mentioned.

Age is no barrier to anything you might want to do in a small business that wants to use the Internet as a platform. Anyone who suggests that age might be a problem is definitely not worth listening to.

Many small business people are people of action. They can’t sit still and do nothing when they have a good idea. They have to explore, sample, test and investigate. Once they have completed those actions then there are times when they should take further action and there are some times when they should do nothing.

That ‘do nothing’ option is probably the hardest option of all for them to take but there are times when that really is the best option.

A guy we know here in town approached us on the weekend with a view to us building a website for him. Currently he has a page on a community portal that brings in quite a bit of business for him. That page ranks very well in the search engines for the key phrase that he needs to focus on but he has no control over the page or what images the portal owner chooses to display on the page.

So our acquaintence thought that his own web site might be a better option. We looked at his situation and in his case the ‘do nothing option’ was the best. That may sound strange but these days a new website has no guarantee of ever reaching the same level of search engine ranking that his single page already has.

If it did manage to reach that point it would take many months and possibly even a year or more. So there was definitely no short term advantage in having his own website built and there were no guarantees that there would be a long term advantage either.

Will he really opt for the ‘do nothing’ option?

It’s hard to say but could you sit still and do nothing if that were the best option?

Earlier today I offered you a link to some suggestions for starting a small business.

Now here is a story of one man’s approach to starting his business. Sometimes you can gain inspiration from other people’s experience although I’m not suggesting that wearing a wig and a dress is going to work for everyone.

In case you haven’t realised it, when you’re reading this you are actually reading a blog and for many people blogging is a business and for many it’s a small business.

That means that successful bloggers often have a lot to teach small business people. That is certainly the case with Ten Rules for Profitable Blog Startups. A lot of what Darren has to say there is very applicable to any small business person who is trying to get their business (whatever it might be) off the ground.

The local electricity supply company has decided to cut the power to the neighbourhood where we live. There are no apologies and no concern or thought for consumers and the affect it might have on them.

The company says it needs to do some upgrade work and so the power goes off and it’s going to affect a number of small businesses in the area. Next door to us is a Bowen therapist, round the corner is a grocery store, two blocks away is a public school and in between there are lots of homes. Of course the company could carry out the work at other times of the day but, while that might suit their clients it doesn’t suit them.

To make it worse, this is summer time here and the temps are expected to hit the mid 80s.

Fortunately, as long as I remember to get the car out of the garage before the power goes off, we can pack up our laptops and go and work from a friends place but everyone else just has to put up with the situation.

Don’t you just love it when a big company has so little regard for its clients?

What would it do to our businesses if we acted in the same cavalier fashion.