Making the Most of Your Strategic Plan

One of the cornerstones of the E-Myth philosophy is the need for strategic planning. The fact is that most small businesses fail to grow because they lack a strategic plan to realize their vision. And if that were not distressing enough, another fact that plays a part in this failure is the lack of effective implementation once a plan is developed.

When considering your strategic plan, the first question you must answer is what, exactly, do you want to accomplish? Once that has been determined you will then need to develop your strategy for making it happen. As the old adage goes, “Plan your work and work your plan.” [read]

Creating Sustainable Competitive Advantage

No successful web company (not eBay, Flickr, Amazon, Facebook…) succeeds because of a significant technological barrier to entry. It’s not insanely difficult to copy what they’ve done. Yet they win and the copycats don’t.

Few organizations succeed in the long run because of proprietary technology. Not Starbucks or CAA or Nike, certainly. Not Caterpillar or Reuters either.

Technologists often tell me, “this product is very hard to build, that will insulate us from competition and protect our pricing.” It might. For a while. But once you’re successful, the competition will figure out a way. They always do.

So, what to do? [read]

Traction and Friction

A big car on a wet frozen lake goes nowhere. No traction, no motion.

A small bug working its way across a gravel driveway takes forever. Too much friction, too little motion.

If you’re stuck, it’s probably because one of these two challenges.

There’s not enough traction online. Too many choices, too few boundaries. It’s easy to get stuck because there’s nothing to push off of, no box to think outside of.

There’s too much friction in stuck industries. The walls have been expanded for so long, you just can’t get over them.

The power of online platforms is that they create traction… [read: Seth Godin]

Selling Your Photos Online

You want to sell your photos online?  One option is to spend the time and expense to created your own website, print your own prints and ship them to customers.  That is not only time consuming but it’s also very expensive.  Here’s a couple of options for you.

1. SMUG MUG. It costs about $120 a year for a pro account. It’s far better to let them handle the printing and shipping. You set the price, and you get many pro features.

2. MPix.com, which supports ZenFolio and, like SmugMug, you can embed onto your site.

Why The Baker Should Not Be Running The Bakery — And Other Tips For Entrepreneurs

Daniel Odio is co-founder and COO of PointAbout.com, but beyond that, he’s an entrepreneur and gadget geek with more gear in his “social media travel bag” than Carrot Top. Daniel sat down for an interview on The Hopkinson Report Marketing podcast.

So if you want to become an entrepreneur, there’s a theory from the book “The E-Myth” which basically says, the baker should not be running the bakery. What they mean by that is, people think, for example, ‘Oh, I love to bake, I should open a bakery!’ But running a bakery is a completely different skill set than baking…

You can read the full story and listen to the podcast at Wired.com.

How to Manage Your Ego So You Can Reach Your Full Potential

The ego is one of most self-destructive mechanisms of a person’s character and his or her abilities. In fact if you look at some people who’ve achieved massive success only to lose it all at the end of their lives, it’s almost always a function of the ego that results in this. As strange as the following examples might be, drug dealers, and gangsters in the movies are blatant examples of people whose egos have ruined their success. There are two characters that really exemplify this: George Jung (Johnny Depp in the movie Blow) and Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington in the movie American Gangster).

If you have seen the movie Blow, you know that the life of the main character is driven by the desire to never to be poor after growing up in financial dire straits. As a result he chooses a career as a drug dealer. Early in the movie, he becomes quite successful, ending up with a dream home, his dream girl, and almost everything you think would be enough in life. In fact every single time I watch this movie, I think “If he had just quit while he was ahead, then imagine how different his life would have turned out.” But, greed, and perhaps the desire to keep proving to himself that he was capable of more, ultimately his ego, led him to 60 years in prison. [read]

Do you know how much cash you have; how that cash flows through your business?

The amount of cash you have on hand is one of the most important metrics for the growth and survival of your company. As a business owner three of your primary financial responsibilities are:

• Being aware of the business’ cash position
• Actively guiding the business towards attaining more cash
• Maximizing the return on cash reserves

To put it simply, you need to know where your cash is, plan its path through the business and how to make the most of every dollar.

Think of cash as the fuel that runs your business. Lacking cash can leave you stranded on the side of the road while the competition zooms by. A business, like a car, won’t go anywhere without fuel. The last thing you want is to be walking for miles with that gas can in your hand.

Accordingly, you must be aware of how much fuel you have in your tank at any time. You must understand the efficiency in which your business is burning it, where your next fill-up is coming from, and how well your reserves are performing. How do you monitor all this? By implementing an effective cash management system; which forms a part of every well managed company’s financial controls. [read]

Tips from a Small Business Attorney

E-Myth President, Wendy Vinson interviews Nina Kaufman, a small business attorney about the three most common questions she gets from her small business clients:

1. Can I use contracts (or anything else, for that matter) that I see on the Internet?
2. I’m going into business with a couple of friends and we know each other well. Why do we need a partnership agreement?
3. My clients are slow in paying. What can I do?

Source: E-Myth Blog [read]

More marketers use social networking to reach customers

SAN FRANCISCO — Ford Motor has high hopes for Fiesta, a popular model abroad launching in the U.S. next year.

So how does it introduce the subcompact car to Americans? A massive ad blitz on TV? In-house promotions at dealers nationwide?

Nope.

In April, Ford tapped 100 top bloggers and gave them a Fiesta for six months. The catch: Once a month, they’re required to upload a video on YouTube about the car, and they’re encouraged to talk — no holds barred — about the Fiesta on their blogs, Facebook and Twitter.

“It’s extremely important to this company’s history,” says Scott Monty, whose job as head of social media at Ford was created about a year ago to take advantage of the growing social-networking wave. “It’s about culture change and adapting to this ongoing way of communicating. The bloggers are fully free to say what they want.” [read]

How to Be a Great Boss

If you’re in charge of a company or team, small or large, you’ll want to do your best to keep everyone keen, engaged and productive. Being a great boss involves walking a fine line between friendship and leadership – but the rewards are immense: high employee loyalty, improved results, fewer wasted resources and the ability to go on vacation without worrying that everything will fall apart without you.

The top factor in determining workplace satisfaction is the immediate manager. In a study of 60,000 exit interviews, 80% of the employees who quit their jobs did so because of their boss. (from Blame it on ‘The Boss’, BtoB Magazine)

Here are seven ways to build a great relationship with your team and to make sure that your employees stick around. [read]