My Thoughts by Rick Stephens

One of the first things I like to do with a new client is to go through a process called SWOT Analysis. SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. SWOT Analysis is a technique business owners can use to evaluate areas within their operation that can be leveraged for competitive gain or focused upon to improve the business.

When you identify your Strengths, you are bringing into focus that which will give you an advantage over your competitors. Use these strengths as often as possible to improve your competitive edge.

Identifying Weaknesses can stifle and intimidate some people. We don’t like to look at our faults so we tend to minimize them. Be brutally honest with yourself. Recognize that you have strengths that can be used to overcome any shortcomings.

Opportunities are all around us. Don’t let your competitors have an advantage by not reviewing and acting upon opportunities as they present themselves.

What do we mean by Threats? Well, to some it could mean that your competition is closing in on your customer base. To others it could mean that government regulations are restricting some areas of your business. Whatever they are, identify them.

SWOT Analysis will help you see how you are positioned within your industry. Work on strengthening your weakness and removing your threats. At the same time, use your strengths to act upon your opportunities.

There is no better way to improve your business than to look at yourself in the mirror. Utilize SWOT Analysis at least twice per year. Document your findings and then update your vision and business plan accordingly. What? You don’t have a vision or business plan! Put that down as a weakness.

To Your Success -

I speak to my clients on a regular basis about the importance of having specific processes to guide the activities of their business. Processes keep you from having to spend time making decisions about things that come up routinely. It also insures that when something goes wrong, your company is in a position to identify and correct it quickly and that the right choices are being made with or without you being there.

Your business cannot have enough processes. I don’t mean to say that you should create processes for the sake of creating processes, but if it is something you must deal with either routinely or otherwise in your business, a process, or procedure for addressing it is imperative.

The creation of procedures is an ongoing activity. It is unlikely that you will be able to identify all required procedures at one sitting, so you should plan on this being a lifestyle and a commitment that you make to the business.

My lawn service recently failed to mow my back yard after mowing my front yard because the crew did not have my gate combination. I have been a customer for years with the same lock, but the lawn service came real close to losing a long term customer simply because the crew did not have a procedure in place to address this minor problem.

Sometimes a concept like this can be made clearer by exaggerating it. Take a look at NASA for example. They have millions of processes in place that are examined by thousands of people constantly when they are ready to launch a space shuttle. If they miss a procedure someone dies. Your business may not have as grave a result for not having a procedure in place or failing to follow it, but proportional results will occur on a smaller scale. You lose customers.

Create a book of procedures. Add to it until everything you do is documented. A lack of procedures may not kill your customers, but it has been known to kill a lot of companies. Don’t let it be yours.

To Your Success,

A big barrier to the success of a startup business is lack of commitment. I know that there is a lot of enthusiasm when starting a new venture and the excitement of living the dream is sometimes mistaken for commitment. But let us not confuse activity with achievement or involvement with commitment.

Too many times an enthusiastic owner of a startup will begin to do all kinds of things in the interest of getting his business off the ground. Business cards are created along with letterhead, an office location is selected, phone service established, logos designed etc. All these “Activities” are great but they should not be confused with achievement. Likewise, these activities are simply ways to be involved with the business and does not constitute commitment.

One of the most critical things an entrepreneur must do is to establish a Business Plan taking into consideration all of the “Activities” that will result in the achievement of the goal, customers, sales, and profits. How many calls will I make today? How many does it require to gain a prospect? How many prospects do I need to secure a sale? The result of these activities is measured by the achievement toward the goal.

Sometimes the entrepreneur will know what is required, but is not totally committed to the plan, but rather just involved. The Personal Vision comes into play here. Make your vision something that is personal to you and extremely important to achieve. One of my clients chose their son’s college education as their personal vision. Look at it everyday and say to yourself, this is why I work! Stay Committed to the vision and let your business be the vehicle for achieving it.

I was once told that the difference between involvement and commitment could be summed up in your breakfast of bacon and eggs. The chicken was simply involved. The pig, however, was totally committed. Being committed means there is no way back. Is that you?

To Your Success -

As a business advisor I get to speak with a large number of business owners. Most of these owners are small to mid-sized companies with 5 to 150 employees. Although there are many factors that can cause a company to be successful or not, one common characteristic that distinguishes the good from the bad is the owner’s vision for the company.

Almost everyone who owns a business has at one time formulated a vision of some kind. The successful business owner usually takes the vision however, and crystallizes it until it becomes as clear as a photograph. To the successful business owner, the vision is the target, the goal, the measure of success that keeps the passion alive. To the struggling business owner, the vision is cloudy, with no distinguishing milestones or meaningful characteristics. Because of this, it is rarely thought about as he/she continues to struggle with the challenge of the business.

A good vision can produce amazing results, a poor vision won’t. A good example of a clear vision was in 1961 when President Kennedy announced his vision for putting a man on the moon and bringing him safely home again before the end of the decade. Of course, we all know the result of what most skeptics believed was an impossible dream.

There is one other important element that contributes to the successful vision. Not only is it important that you, as the business owner, are clear on the vision, everyone in your organization and around you needs to have the same clarity. Perhaps that is why during the 60′s, the Soviet Union’s space program failed, even after taking a commanding early lead. Their lack of communication to their own people, and to the world, was exasperated by their strong fisted position to restrict freedom of speech.

A friend of mine once offered up this Yogi-ism regarding vision, “A man without vision, is an umpire!” Don’t become an umpire, clarify your vision today and share it with someone. Do this simple thing and you will increase your odds for success.

To Your Success -

According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, there are almost 600,000 new businesses started each year. The bad news is that over 90% of these businesses will eventually fail. Over 75 % will fail within 5 years. Even with failure rates this high, the entrepreneurial spirit in this nation lives, and the dream of being an independent business owner will cause another million or so people to try and beat the odds again this year.

So welcome to my blogging site, devoted to the entrepreneur which, hopefully, will provide ideas and suggestions to small business owners that will make business sense as well as financial cents (sorry for the play on words) and help improve the odds that your business will succeed.

So what is the defining difference between the 10% that make it, and the 90% that don’t? That is what we will explore in this blog.

We have all heard the phrase “Knowledge is Power”, but the reality is that having knowledge won’t help if you don’t do something with it. I prefer the phrase, “The Effective Application of Knowledge is Power.” It is applying what you know effectively that will mean the difference between success and failure.

As we begin this journey, please feel free to contact me, either by phone, mail, or e-mail if you have specific issues or questions you would like me to address in upcoming posts.

To Your Success -