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RESOURCE OF THE MONTH
IS HERE TO HELP SBA.gov Is an Excellent Booster for Your Business The Small Business Administration
to have performance talks. It is your job to make sure you hire the right people. It is your job to manage the situation before it becomes a critical situation.
If you’ve ever said, “No one can do this as well as I can,” that is a leadership problem and also a false belief.
When a problem does arise, you may not bear sole responsibility, but you (or a leader in your organization, or both) absolutely bear some responsibility for issues that arise at work. Just like with mistakes in life, you always could have made a better or different choice. No one is immune to leadership fails. Just this past week, I failed twice in a leadership opportunity with various people on my team and in my company. My failures caused frustration and turmoil, hurt some, and confused others. Was I solely responsible? Of course not. Did the team members involved bear some responsibility? Of course they did. Did some of my managers have faults and issues in this situation? Of course they did. We all make mistakes. It’s how you handle those mistakes and how you learn from them that makes all the difference in the long run. Your people, your systems, and your processes have a greater impact on the success of your business then any marketing campaign can, but few people invest time or treasure into developing these skills and resources. I’ve spent a lot of time and treasure on my leadership skills, and although I do screw things up from time to time, it is far less frequent then in years past. If I was asked to name just two resources from the dozens of books and trainings I’ve taken over the years, I’d first list my favorite book on creating a culture and leading people, “Uncontainable” by Kip Tindell, the CEO and founder of The Container Store. I guarantee it’s worth $20 and a read. And secondly, from a hands-on training standpoint, I couldn’t recommend Infusionsoft’s Elite Forum more highly. This is a two-day training at their headquarters that literally changed my business and gave me the tools — from a talent standpoint — that enabled us to grow 2,975 percent in a three-year period. We wouldn’t be where we are today in terms of sales and size without this training. As I said earlier, all problems are leadership problems. You have to invest and grow yourself if you truly want your business to grow. No employee, manager, or even the CEO is immune from screwing up.
business: the environmental view, the marketplace view, the project view, and the measurement view; driving forces — what will lay the foundation for what you want people to accomplish in your business; and ideal position — the conditions you determine are necessary for you to end up where you want. DEVELOPING A MARKETING PLAN Marketing is always tricky. That makes it all the more vital to create a concrete plan. According to the SBA, your marketing plan should include understanding your target market, your competitive position within that market, how you intend to reach that market, and your strategy for differentiating yourself from the competition. Your marketing budget should be a component of that plan, but allow for some flexibility. As the SBA puts it, “There may be times when you need to throw in another
The U.S. Small Business Administration has a vested interest in supporting and building up the small companies that form America’s backbone. In order to achieve this, they maintain a great website — sba.gov — chock-full of strategies for running your small business, with tips on everything from business leadership to cybersecurity. Here are just a few of the many nuggets of available knowledge: FORECASTING FOR GROWTH One of the most important things the SBA stresses is the need to plan ahead. As you develop a strategic vision for your business, the SBA points out five different criteria you should consider as you move forward: organization — the structure of your business and the resources necessary; observation — being aware of what motivates your people and how to solve potential problems; views — four different perspectives from which to examine your
Meet Rob: Our Favorite Poet and Our Pro Under the Spotlight Brilliant writing always takes a combination of discipline and creativity, and here at The Newsletter Pro, our scribes have both in spades. But it’s not every day that you encounter a there, too — though we’re not sure what that has to do with newsletters. The man is a dynamo, putting out pristine, high-quality articles at record speed. Everything he commits to print is funny, surgically precise, and packed with meaning. THE REAL DEAL
published poet applying his meticulous, precise artistry to an article about dental fillings. Meet Rob, one of the most talented, hilarious, and universally beloved members of our team. Rob has established himself as the go-to guy of our office. Need somebody to brainstorm tactics for expanding a client’s list size? Rob’s there. Need somebody to write up a hysterical list of old Valentine’s Day tragedies? Too late, he’s already finished. Need someone to teach you to absolutely shred on the blues harmonica? He’s got you covered
All that, and he’s modest, too. “I started writing because I wasn’t much good at anything else besides swinging a hammer, and there’s not much future in that,” he says. “And it’s free entertainment.” Humility aside, Rob’s brain houses a comprehensive lineage of roots country and blues music and a long list of poets whose words will make you put down their books with a sigh. Two of his own poems — “The Falling” and “Amos Wells” — were recently published in Texas Christian University’s gorgeous literary journal, descant .
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