Small Office, Home Office Information

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

There are many small business people who are involved in online marketing. Of all the huge range of things a small business could be involved in online marketing would have to be one of the hardest and it is becoming harder and harder all the time.

The amount of competition that people who market online is just one of the factors involved here. There are many others and most of them are almost beyond the control of the small business online marketer.

So it’s no surprise that, when one well-known person in this part of the small business world becomes excited about a product and writes about in genuinely glowing terms, that a lot people will rush to jump on the bandwagon without taking time to read the fine print.

Of course, the fine print is more than just the fine print on the contract. The fine print also includes things like how the product will fit with what the small business is already doing and whether or not the new product is well established or still in beta mode.

Ultimately, if the product doesn’t work for you then if someone needs to be blamed for that failure the blame should start with you and not with the person who suggested the product in the first place.

Toni and I have been watching as a very genuine and responsible online marketer has been trashed by people who blindly rushed in to take advantage of something that was working for him.

Nobody forced them to follow his lead, no one held a gun to their head and made them take on the product he found that worked for him. Instead, they rushed in without understanding the fine print and some of them have not made the money that the expected to.

Instead of blaming themselves they’ve blamed him for the inability to make the product work for them. Right now they are making life hard for him but in a few days it will have all blown over as they rush off to follow some other great idea that probably won’t work for them either.

If you want to seriously make your small business work then don’t be a lemming - don’t rush from one good idea to the next till you are worn out. Take the time to read the fine print and see how the product will fit with your business and only then should you take some tentative steps to see if it will work for you.

If it doesn’t work and you are committed to the product them improvise adapt and over come instead of standing around crying and blaming someone else.

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.

Yesterday I asked if small business boards on the Internet were really much help at all to small business people and those who work from home.

While that post has certainly attracted its fair share of readers no one has commented and that really doesn’t surprise me. Anyone who says that they agree with me will then have problems going back to any board that they may spend time on.

Anyone who disagrees would be challenged to show us why they think those small business boards are useful. And justifying some of those boards can be difficult.

So if most of the small business boards don’t scratch where many of us itch then what are we to do and who are we to turn to for help?

For some small business help is waiting for them in business incubators - now that sounds a little scary but we’ll talk more about those tomorrow.

Some years ago in Webmaster circles my nickname was becoming well known for being contentious and rather abrasive. That wasn’t really a persona - I didn’t set out to make a name for myself by being abusive and nasty.

However I was, and still am, rather blunt and tend to call a spade a spade and I don’t handle fools very well.

And I’m telling you that because I’m really not trying to stir up trouble when I ask the question - how much help are small business boards really?

I’m asking it as an introduction to a series of posts I will be making over this week and I want you to think seriously about the question.

Are they any help to you really?

I have to say that most of the small business boards I have seen have been very light in genuine help for serious problems and rather heavy in people who want to troll the boards for business … or to scam. Undoubtedly part of that problem arises from the fact that most people who hang out on those boards are fairly new.

But there are others who want to be seen as legends - they have an opinion about everything and quite often their opinion is not based on their own experience but on what they have read somewhere.

So are boards like that much help is there some other way to get the help and support you need to get your business going?

I would be really interested to hear your experiences and feel free to mention any board that you find gives you genuine advice and support and isn’t just a bunch of people saying hello to every newcomer that arrives.

I’m sure most small business owners think that, unlike big business, we can respond quickly to change. I’m certainly one who would subscribe to that idea but, just lately that has not been our experience.

Back at the end of October I made a post about the challenges that were confronting Toni and me and I said that I would share our experience as we faced that challenge. You will find that post here.

Of course, since then, I’ve hardly said a word about it. That’s because we can see the changes that we need to make but actually getting to the point where we can make those challenges is not that easy.

For several months Toni has been unwell - in fact, thanks to a GP who really had no clue, she was becoming severely malnourished - and in that time a huge amount of work backed up. Now that a specialist is in control her health is improving and we are catching up on that backlog but until we do get caught up we won’t be in a position to really start implementing those changes.

However, we are taking small steps along the way towards achieving our aims but talking about it while we’re in the middle of it all is not that easy.

So I thought I should let you know that I haven’t forgotten my promise to post about those changes - I certainly will do it but not just yet.

I wish I could say that the hectic pace of yesterday has settled down again but I can’t - the pressure of work continues and I’m dashing this off in a few spare moments while I grab a coffee - 4.30pm and it’s only my second of the day.

Yesterday I rambled on about instant messaging systems and small business and today I would just like to add a one or two additional thoughts.

Using an Instant Messaging system to close a business deal is no more dangerous than using email or even the phone. The safest business deal is the one that’s closed with a firm handshake and an opportunity to look the other person in the eye.

Now of course, you can’t do that with ICQ, Messenger or any other IM but nor can you do it with email, the telephone or even mail so to think that doing business via IM is filled with danger is a little silly.

However, any prudent business person will always take precautions when it comes to doing business that way. We never start a text job until we have been paid at least 50% up front. There are simply no exceptions and anyone who wants to see the work before we see the money is politely told to look elsewhere for a writer.

We always ensure that every important business message is backed up. Most IM software have a history option but sometimes it is not enabled by default. If you are going to use an IM system for business make sure that the history option is enabled and even then copy and paste important conversations into a word document for further backup.

I’d like to say that we have never been conned by anyone who wanted to use our services and came to us via IM but I can’t. We have been caught but then others have been caught when work has come to them via email, letter or phone.

The risk is always there but you work to minimise that risk because doing business via IM is just too convenient to ignore.

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No, we are not thinking of selling our small business - or should I say, Toni’s small business (because Copytext Online is very much her baby) but it is an interesting situation to consider.

It is especially interesting for those who have a small business that is saleable. I really doubt that the current incarnation of Toni’s business is saleable but there certainly are many small businesses out there that could be sold.

In fact there are some who would suggest that your business should always be for sale. I guess that depends on whether the price is right or not but I certainly have heard of small business people who have been quietly working away. doing their thing, and suddenly find that the person who has just walked through the door has come to buy the whole business.

So think about what your response might be if someone did suddenly offer to buy your business and while you’re doing that have a look at The Ideal Time to Sell a Business - if you can cut through the jargon and get to the plain-speak you might find it helpful.

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Well it’s almost 9am here in the office and I’m getting down to some serious work. Not that I haven’t been working already but that was just some reading and a business meeting down at our favourite cafe.

Now I’m down to the serious part of the day. I’ve got articles to write, a resume to put together for a friend who wants to change his employment, and a website to finish work on as well. And of course, I’m doing all that here in sub-tropical Queensland where the weather beautifully warm.

Because I’m self employed I can sit here with the window open, the breeze coming in and I don’t have to wear anything but a pair of shorts.

It all sounds like heaven doesn’t it?

But of course, if you read yesterday’s post you will know that heaven kind of slipped away from us and the business has been running us rather than us running the business.

So today I want to ask you, why did you start a small business?

Michael Gerber in his book - The E-myth Revisited - suggestst that:

The purpose of going into business is to get free of a job so you can create jobs for other people.

“The purpose of going into business is to expand beyond your existing horizons. So you can invent something that satisfies a need in the marketplace that has never been satisfied before. So you can live an expanded, stimulating new life.”

How does that fit with where you’re at in the life of your small business?

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