Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work And What To Do About It

American author and consultant Michael Gerber wrote the E-myth for everyone who has ever wondered“how do I take my business from this struggling, one-man phase to the next level?”

                   

If you are a small business owner looking to inject some life back into yourself and your business, keep reading. In 265 pages, he tells us why 50-95 percent of small businesses fail within the first five years and what you can do to avoid being a statistic!

There are 3 basic principles in the E-myth:

 The E-myth, or the idea of the true entrepreneur really is a myth!

Your business is an extension of who you are

To be successful in the long run, small businesses must begin to think like global franchises

If you have ever read the biography of say, Sir Richard Branson, CEO of Virgin Group for inspiration, you may be a victim of the e-myth – the myth that tells us that the greatest businesses (McDonalds, Disney, Virgin Group, IBM etc.) were all started by a special group of individuals, the true entrepreneurs. If you were unfortunate enough to be born outside this elite circle, your chances of building a wildly successful business are slim to none. True or false? False!

 Successful global businesses are built by relatively normal men and women – including you. According to Gerber, what separates them from the entrepreneurs that fail is how they build their businesses. While many leave jobs to start a business and end up becoming employees of their business, only a few learn how to build a business that works for them, one that is self-sustaining and self-developing and does not depend on your presence 24-7 to be effective. How? This brings us to principle number 2: Your business is an extension of who you are.

At the risk of sounding philosophical and‘fuzzy', Gerber introduces a concept that is both deeply revealing and potentially painful for most business owners – if your business is disorganised, stagnated or losing money, it isn't because the market isn't big enough or you don't have enough office space or capital (though those may be part of it). It's simply because you don't have enough of the skill that it takes to own and manage a business. Gerber illustrates his principles through the eyes of Sarah, the owner of a Pie shop who, though an excellent pastry chef, is permanently overwhelmed and frustrated by her struggling shop.

Sarah's problem wasn't capital – she already had a wonderful shop with all the state-of-the-art equipment she needed, and it wasn't the customers – her pies were well known in the city. It wasn't even her staff – some of whom had been very loyal and dedicated. The only problem Sarah's business had was its owner, Sarah. You see, while Sarah was a great baker – a technician who knew how to make excellent pies and products, she was not a very good shop administrator – a Manager, who makes sure the all tools and personnel are in good condition for the business to run smoothly. And she was certainly not a good leader – the Entrepreneur who provides the vision and strategic direction for the business, who identifies and exploits new opportunities and who creates the boundaries within which the technician and manager work. So the pies at her shop were very good, but Sarah was tired, in debt and nearly out of ideas. Until Sarah could learn how to delegate her knowledge and skills as technician, manage a manager and assume responsibility as an entrepreneur effectively, her pie shop suffered.

 The difference between Sarah's pie shop and a global business like McDonalds was that the founders of McDonalds (and every other successful global business) discovered how to tap into the three personalities required for business – the technician, the manager and the entrepreneur – and to equip other people to carry out these tasks effectively. Gerber takes this idea of equipping a step further with his third principle: to be successful in the long run, small businesses must begin to think like global franchises.

 The E-myth challenges small business owners to stop thinking of their businesses as local businesses but as the franchise prototype for a future network of 1,000 franchises. If you have a hard time envisioning this, ask yourself, if my business was to be multiplied, could someone buy my present business model and have it work for anyone anywhere? If the answer is no, what would it take for your business model to work no matter who was in charge of it? By assuming this mind-set, an entrepreneur stops working in his or her business and starts working on it, building it.

 What is your goal? A successful business that is profitable, growing and ultimately sellable? A business that frees you to pursue other interests while generating income? Or an expression of your creativity and passion? Whatever your goal is in business, failure is not one of them. The surest way to guarantee success in business is to create a business that works, with or without you. If this sounds like the remedy to your business situation, read Michael Gerber's E-myth and share your how you think it will help you.

From Ventures Africa

How 122-Year Old General Electric is Killing It on Social Media

General Electric may not be a sexy startup, but it knows a thing or two about innovation. And it's proving its chops in the social-media world.

 GE was represented in several categories at last night’s Shorty Awards, which honors the best brands, agencies and professionals on social media. The company took home Best Brand on Vine, were nominated in the Best Fortune 500 Brand on Social Media, Twitter and Instagram categories.

So, how does a 122-year-old company compete with young whippersnappers? By humanizing its brand, educating its followers and taking photographs of jet engines and other visually stunning technology.

In positioning itself as more than a maker of refrigerators and light bulbs, GE is leading the pack. Here are the three social media channels where the blue-chip shines:

Vine. GE got on Vine one day after the video-sharing app launched. Since then, GE has not only shared do-it-yourself and stop-motion videos, but also launched the #6SecondScience Fair campaign, which encouraged fans to shoot their own science experiments. GE then“re-Vined”those experiments.

Instagram. Stunning images of jet engines rule GE's account. Along with striking photos of turbines, factories and locomotives, the company is certainly establishing itself as more than a maker of dishwashers.

Twitter. Stodgy it is not. GE is extremely active on Twitter, using it to share infographics, reports and photos as it aims to educate in 140 characters or less. When it asks questions to its 206,000-plus followers, the appliance maker will take the time to respond and thank those who answered.

From Entrepreneur

If You Envision It, It Will Come

It's not just mumbo-jumbo: visualize your positive future and you'll have an easier time reaching that peak performance. There's a science to visualization that runs much deeper than reading a copy of The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.

How?

Studies have shown that concentrated visualization efforts work because your subconscious mind does not like the conflict that exists between your current situation and what you're visualizing. It will try to resolve that conflict and move toward your visualized reality. Your subconscious is like the mediator, trying to arbitrate for a way to get to what you're seeing.

Your subconscious programs your brain to start opening your awareness to resources that are already around you to resolve the conflict. It does this through the RAS section of your brain (short for reticular activating system). The RAS section acts like a giant filter that basically chooses which stimuli you notice and which stimuli you don't.

Have you ever learned a new word and then all the sudden you hear that word three or four times throughout the day? That's your subconscious and RAS allowing the new word to now filter through.

This new allowance filtering means your subconscious mind actively starts to use resources to create solutions to resolve the conflict. You're seeing opportunities all around you now because you have a focused vision about where you want to go and your subconscious wants to get you there ASAP. All of a sudden, you start remembering old contacts and overhearing ideal conversations you need. Just like that.

With the awareness and solutions starting to marinate and little accomplishments and synchronicities popping up all over the place, your subconscious starts creating new levels of motivation. The first little step of conflict resolution felt so good, it wants another one! And then another, and another, and ... you get the big picture.

By now you should be perking up and paying close attention. However, you're an entrepreneur, you're smart, you want some case studies, right?

Ever hear of Natan Sharansky? He was a U.S. computer specialist who spent almost 10 years in prison in the USSR after being accused of spying. As you can imagine, there isn’t much to do for nine years in a USSR solitary confinement cell, so he decided he had to focus on something to keep himself sane. In an interview after his release, he said he decided to start playing chess against himself in his own mind. If that’s not brilliant enough, he focused all his energy into believing he could be the best. He said,“I might as well use the opportunity to become the world champion!”Remarkably, in 1996, a free Sharansky beat world champion chess player Garry Kasparov.

Pro-athletes are also famous for visualizing success. Golfers are particularly apt to do it, which makes sense given the highly mental nature of the strategic game they play. Tiger Woods claims to have been using it since his pre-teen years. So does world champion golfer Jack Nicklaus, who has said,“I never hit a shot, not even in practice, without having a very sharp in-focus picture of it in my head.”

Maybe it works for prisoners and pro-golfers, but what about entrepreneurs like you and I?

Sara Blakely, the billionaire entrepreneur and founder of Spanx, is a fan of visualization.“I believe you can take mental snapshots of your future and what success looks like to you," she has said. "If you mentally see yourself in a scenario, you'll start to make decisions in your life that get you there.”

Of course, it takes action to back up your visualization, but if you know where you want to go, it's very likely you can trick your subconscious into getting you there.

From Entrepreneur

What Does the Color of Your Logo Say About Your Business? (Infographic)

Close your eyes and picture McDonald's famous golden arches. Now, imagine if they had been gray. Would the burger chain be the international success it is today?

The color of some logos is more powerful than the logos themselves -- think the red of Coca-Cola or the pink of Barbie or the rainbow colors of Google.

Color can become a key part of any brand. Whether your logo is red and intense, yellow and joyful or black and mysterious, its colors are announcing something to the customer. As you create the perfect logo, be sure to pay attention to the color messages you're sending.

Check out the infographic below to figure out exactly what your logo's colors are telling potential customers.

From Entrepreneur

The Single Most Important Habit of Successful Entrepreneurs

In his book No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs, business coach and consultant Dan Kennedy reveals the steps behind making the most of your frantic, time-pressured days so you can turn time into money. In this edited excerpt, the author describes the one habit you should adopt--and stick to without fail--if you want to be successful.

I'm sure there are exceptions somewhere, but so far, in 35-plus years of taking note of this, everybody I've met and gotten to know who devoutly adheres to this discipline becomes exceptionally successful and everybody I’ve met and gotten to know who ignores this discipline fails. Is it possible that this one discipline alone is so powerful it literally determines success or failure?

The discipline I'm talking about is punctuality -- being where you're supposed to be when you're supposed to be there, as promised, without exception, without excuse, every time, all the time. I cannot tell you how important I believe this is. But I’ll tell you some of the reasons why I believe in its indescribably great importance.

First of all, being punctual gives you the right—the positioning—to expect and demand that others treat your time with the utmost respect. You cannot reasonably hope to have others treat your time with respect if you show little or no respect for theirs. So if you're not punctual, you have no leverage, no moral authority. But the punctual person gains that advantage over staff, associates, vendors, clients, everybody.

It is my conviction that a person who cannot keep appointments on time, cannot keep scheduled commitments or cannot stick to a schedule cannot be trusted in other ways either. There is a link between respect for others' time and respect for others’opinions, property, rights, agreements and contracts. A person reveals a great deal about himself by his punctuality or lack of punctuality. As a general rule of thumb, I use this as a means of determining whether or not I want to do business with someone. And, when I violate this, as I occasionally foolishly do, I always get burned.

Let me give you one example. Dozens of years ago, a person seeking to do business with me arranged to meet me at an airport, where I had a 90-minute layover. We agreed, and I confirmed by fax that we would meet at my arrival gate, at my arrival time, and then go to that airline's club room right there on the concourse for the meeting. When I arrived, the guy wasn't there. Some ten minutes later, I'm paged and told to meet him in the main terminal where he is because he ran late getting to the airport. It takes me ten minutes on the tram to get to the main terminal, and I have to cut another ten minutes of our meeting to allow time to get back to my gate. I have to go through this to meet with a man so disrespectful of a commitment made and of my time that he cannot organize his life to arrive at a meeting on time in his own home city. If he could not be relied on to honor such an easy commitment, why should anybody believe he would honor more important ones?

Still, violating my own rule, I went ahead and accepted this guy as a client. It was predictably ugly. He lied, he cheated, and he was completely disorganized, dysfunctional, and unreasonable. He sucked up a pretty good chunk of my time, and it cost me thousands of dollars to get rid of him.

Now, here's a“success secret”for you: I'm not the only person to have figured out this punctuality-integrity link. I'm just not that smart. I’ve stumbled on something that a whole lot of other smart, successful, and influential people already know and secretly use to make their determinations about who they will buy from or not buy from, do business with or not do business with, help or not help, trust or distrust. If you are not a punctual person, others you wish to positively influence negatively judge you.

If you think that successful people—people you want to deal with—do not have their own little“systems”for judging people, you're very naïve. Not only do they have such a system, most successful people make a point of having “instant reject criteria,” to save time in determining who they want to deal with and who they don't.

One of my earliest business mentors said that there were only two good reasons for being late for a meeting with him: one, you're dead; two, you want to be.

So, to borrow from Dale Carnegie, if you want to win friends and influence people, be punctual. And, if you'd like to save yourself a lot of time and trouble, start using this as a means of judging those who would do business with you. 

From Entrepreneur

Hate Small Talk? How to Break the Ice When Networking for Business

One of the most important aspects of networking is the small talk that occurs at networking functions. These ice-breaking conversations are important because they are the first opportunities to identify and begin to grow connections with other people, connections that may lead to business referrals in both the short and long term.

The fear of small talk is a common objection those who shy away from networking. Many people simply dread thought of having to carry on conversations with people they don't know. It's easy to label these people as shy, but only a small minority of people is too shy to enjoy talking with others. Most people aren’t afraid to talk, they are just intimidated by the task of finding something to talk about.

For this reason, it's important for business owners to stay on top of pop culture and current events. The latest issues and stories in the news are great ways to break the ice and help you find common ground with a person you may never have met before and with whom you may not have much in common.

But with the media explosion, it's increasingly difficult to have a firm grasp on water-cooler talk, particularly when it comes to conversations with people in different age brackets.

So, how do you start - and maintain - a conversation at a networking or other event with someone you don't know at all?

The answer is clear. . . just ask questions.

This sounds simple, because it is. A great way to get people to talk is to ask a few"feeder" questions that will help you learn what the other person is interested in. Then, simply home in on that subject.

You don't have to know anything about the topic to converse about the topic.

You just have to know enough to ask the questions.

Now I can hear many of you groaning: "I'm already working 24-7, now I have to constantly search for articles on pop culture and current events?"

It's easier you think. Mobile news sites such as CNN.com are have set up their pages with easy-to-read convenient categories, such as Top News, Sports, Entertainment and Tech. Either at night or first thing in the morning, you take just a few minutes to read the headlines, and maybe the first one to two sentences. You’d be surprised how much you can learn about “what's hot” from just a cursory glance. You have enough information to start asking questions and conversing with someone new.

Another important point: By asking questions, you make the person you're talking to feel like an expert.

I still remember when I realized the value of asking questions and letting someone answer them. I was flying for business, and just prior to taking off, I struck up a conversation with the person seated next to me. I’m not sure what started the conversation, but I wasn’t familiar with the business he was in, and I asked a question. That question led to another, then another. . . and at the end of that two-hour flight, I realized that he had talked the entire time. We made a good connection, I had learned something new, and, as we were gathering our belongings, he complimented me for being a good conversationalist.

A savvy networker I know named Susan reads the sports section in her newspaper from cover to cover every single day, even though she has zero interest in sports.“Why on earth would you subject yourself to this?” I asked her, as I am admittedly not a sports fan, either.

She replied, “My networking functions are primarily attended by men. I don't want to stay on the sidelines while important conversations are going on, conversations that invariably start with a discussion about last night's game.”

The bottom line is this: Taking a few minutes each day to browse enough headlines to arm yourself with enough knowledge of current events, pop culture -- and yes, even sports -- to be able to ask questions and get a conversation going is simply a good networking strategy.

As a bonus, you'll learn a lot from these conversations you might never have otherwise.

From Entrepreneur

Smartphone and Social Media Usage: Men vs. Women (Infographic)

The old adage -"Men are from Mars, women are from Venus" – absolutely holds water when it comes to how consumers use mobile technology.     

Men turn to social media for business reasons more than women do, according to data compiled in the infographic below by personal finance website FinancesOnline.com. Men also, somewhat surprisingly, turn to social media for dating purposes more than women do.

Women, on the other hand, are more likely than men to use social media to stay in touch with family and friends, share photos with friends and to find how-to information.

Similarly, men and women look to their smartphones for different reasons when they interact with brands. Men are more likely than women to scan a QR code or coupon code. Women, meanwhile, are more likely to follow a brand on social media so that they stay up to date about deals.

Take a look at the infographic below for more details on how men and women see the mobile technology world differently. 

From Entrepreneur