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long way toward building the confidence to move forward in spite of the knowledge that you could fail. The type of business entity you form can help protect you from personal financial loss. But at the end of the day, starting a business venture is a risk. Leadership. Would you want to work for you? Do you lead by example? Do you inspire others to be productive? Leadership is an important trait when building a business because a new business may not have the capital to offer employees top wages, chill working conditions, or great benefits. You’ll need to inspire loyalty and motivation through good leadership by including employees in your vision of success and making them feel like they are a valuable part of the team.
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Powerful Pretzels Auntie Anne’s got its start in 1988 when founder Anne Beiler bought a stand at a farmers market and began selling her homemade pretzels. Today, annual sales top $400,000,000.
Delegator. Control freaks beware. A business owner who tries to “do it all” increases the risk of the business failing. If the opportunity exists to delegate tasks to a trained and competent employee, do it. In fact, Sara Blakely, entrepreneur and founder of the wildly successful company Spanx, recommends “hiring your weakness” to increase efficiency. That means identifying the task or tasks you are not good at or simply hate doing, and hiring someone to do them. Delegate responsibility, and trust the people you hired to do the work you hired them to do. Reflect on Learning: Do you have any of these traits? Which? Which do you think is most important for the success of a small business? If you owned a small business, what would be your personal weakness? Skills of a Successful Small Biz Owner. While delegating tasks to qualified employees is ideal, many small businesses, especially start ups, often don’t have the capital to hire a full team of employees. A successful small business owner is a person willing to wear multiple management hats, requiring different key skills: Money Manager. A small business owner has to manage money. That means keeping an eye on the cash flow. A business budget is a detailed plan of future receipts and expenditures which tells how much money is coming in and how much is going out. Budgets help manage costs, determine profit goals, reserve for taxes, and determine when to increase inventory or hire employees. Experts advise reviewing a business budget every month to make adjustments. For example, if an important client cuts costs and reduces the amount of business they do with you, your budget will need to be adjusted to reflect the reduction in revenue. There are abundant resources and templates online to help a small business owner make and manage a budget. If owning a small business is your some-day goal, develop your skills by taking business management courses in college. Marketing Manager. If no one knows about the product or service offered by the business, no one will buy it. Good marketing is key to the success of a business. In the old days, attracting customers involved a relatively simple process of taking out an ad in a newspaper or magazine, hanging up a sign, or buying air space on T.V. or the radio. These days marketing is a high tech mix of social media marketing (SMM), website design, search engine optimization (SEO), adword algorithms, demographic studies, PPC (pay-per-click) and CPC (cost-per-click) budgets and analytics. Marketing is PRODUCT PREVIEW
Chapter 12 | Small Biz Whiz 222
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