What I am about to tell you is what in my opinion is heart of the matter or more accurately, the commonalities I have seen in most, if not all small businesses and small business owners.

1) Small business owners live in ‘isolation’.

• They have no one to talk to
• No one to bounce ideas off of
• No one to ask advice or brainstorm and problem solve with

2) There is no one to hold the small business owner accountable.

• It is easy to fool yourself.

Especially if the task is something you don’t like doing. For instance, when I first started my business, cold calling was a must. I hated it – still do… So it was easy for me to justify or rationalize not getting around to doing it. “Oh, I was busy doing X or Y or Z”. Anything not to do cold calling, including “arranging my sock drawer”.

• It is much harder to fool someone else.

If there had been someone to hold me accountable for doing the cold calling, I’m sure I would have done much more of it than I did and potentially my business would have grown that much quicker.

3) They have no “game plan”.

• No 90 day plan, much less a
• One Year Plan or a
• Long Range Plan (3 to 5 Years)

As Yogi Berra said “If you don’t know where your going any road will get you there”.

These three issues make the typical small business owner vulnerable to, at the very least, complacency and at its worst FAILURE.

Over time as I have talked to small business owners I ask them “Who is your support group for problem solving? Who is holding you accountable? Do you think you would be more successful if you had these? ”

Invariably they think it’s a great idea and want to know where to go to find one. Unfortunately most formal or for profit CEO Roundtable cost much more than the typical small business owner can afford (or rather want to pay).

I have encouraged them to start their own support group of similar businesses. Many have asked that I start and facilitate the group and I am trying to carve out some time to start these up. 

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We have placed a sample of the Business Audit in the Resource Library Tool section. This is an example of the type of methods we use to get to the root cause of the areas of concern for the business owner.
 

One Page Business Plan - James Horan

Most small business owners cringe at the thought of a “business plan”, the proverbial 50+ page bible. Who has the time for this? Who has the fortitude for this? Who has the desire for this? Certainly not me and I am fairly certain not you. And unless you are going to external sources for financing or support of some kind it’s not necessary.

There are many resources out there to assist you in doing a short and sweet business plan. One I recommend is the One Page Business Plan by Jim Horan. When I reconfigured my business this is what I used to do my business plan.

This book will walk you through the five simple steps in developing a workable plan. Planning is nothing more than setting your Vision and Mission, identifying and preparing your Goals and Objectives based on your Vision, determining your Strategies to support your Goals and Objectives and then prioritizing them into your Action Plan.

This book makes Planning simple, straight forward and affordable.
 

Recent surveys, both here and in the United Kingdom, the latest in Business XL magazine, have shown that money is not the prime motivator in their entrepreneurship.

Sixty plus percent would rather enjoy what they do than have a business that makes huge profits.

Throughout these surveys the results come back that quality of life, not the quantity of profits is the prime motivator for most entrepreneurs.

Less than 30% of state that success is defined by profitability, while more than 50% responded that respect of the community, having enough money to live comfortably and being able to secure their retirement were far more important!

Entrepreneurs must strike a balance between their business and their personal lives. You need to fit your business into your lifestyle not fit you lifestyle into your business. How to do that and still enjoy the rewards that should come from entrepreneurship is hard part.

What do you want?
Untold riches?
Quality of Life?
Respect and admiration?

How do you strike that balance?  How do you define your equilibrium, every entrepreneur is different and there is no correct answer. But we all must find that “sweet spot” or we will terminally unhappy.

I’ll be writing about the balance between your business and personal life more in the future… Stay tuned.

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