I won’t be blogging this week. My mother passed away today and I need to head down to Florida to be with my father.
God Bless you, Mom. I’ll miss you…
Focus
My column this week at the Tennessean is on focus:
Focus. That is what I find myself saying to entrepreneurs time and time again.
The most important tool to help get focused is a mission statement. A good mission is a short statement that clearly defines what we do (our product or service), whom we do it for (our market) and how we do it (our business model, such as retail, manufacturing, Web-based etc.).
Social Enlightenment
I read an interesting post at the blog Escape From Cubicle Nation. Pam Slim states the following:
I have a theory I am postulating in The Book that once people disconnect from the “my corporate job sucks and I am trapped in cubicle hell” world and start a successful entrepreneurial venture that they naturally become more compassionate and interested in social change.
I like to ask my students what they would do if they had enough money to take care of all of their financial needs for the rest of their lives. The majority talk about such things as giving back to parents who have supported them, focusing their time and resources toward addressing social problems, and giving to their church.
I see evidence every day — from my students and from the entrepreneurs I meet in the community — that supports Pam’s assertion.
F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “Optimism is the content of small men in high places.”
I could not disagree more. Optimism is the content of free people who have been empowered to make change.
Once entrepreneurs are freed to make economic change through their ventures, their desire to turn that energy toward making social changes makes perfect sense.
Still Blogging
Let me start this post by saying thank you to all of you who visit this website. Thanks to all of you who send me ideas for posts. Thanks to my lovely wife, Ann, for taking on the role as my editor and sounding board for this blog.
Five years ago today, under the patient guidance of blogger Bill Hobbs who I also need to thank, I launched this blog. I had just recently started teaching at Belmont University. Bill wandered into my office and asked me if I wanted to be a “blogger” for the University.
Poor Bill — he had no idea what he was in for when he recruited me.
I had never been to a blog, and really had no idea what one was.
As I understood what he was saying at the time, it was a forum to write about my passion — entrepreneurship. People would come to the site and read what I have to say and hopefully it would create some interesting dialogue.
At first I struggled. I had a hard time getting this blogging thing. I struggled with my writing style and I struggled on what exactly I should write about day after day.
Bill told me to be patient. More and more people would find their way to the site. Eventually I would find my “voice” for the blog.
I thought, “What the heck. I’ll try if for a little while and see what happens.”
Well, 2024 posts and five years later I am still trucking along.
I often think that my time as a blogger is coming to an end. It is hard work. I keep thinking another forum or technology will take its place. But, every time I think it might be time to hang it up, something always seems to happen to renew me as a blogger.
It might be an e-mail from a reader, a thoughtful comment posted at the site, or kind words from someone I meet who is a regular visitor to the blog.
Entrepreneurship has probably never been more important in our economy than it is today. The US is an economic super power that has a weak and aging economic foundation. Entrepreneurship is the key to re-inventing this economy. The world is increasingly turning away from government solutions and looking to the free market as the means for prosperity. Social entrepreneurship is being viewed as the key to finally finding real solutions to our social ills. Entrepreneurship really does matter. So I will keep on blogging about it. I will keep on talking about ways to help entrepreneurs succeed in their risky endeavors. And I will keep on talking about how we can break down governmentally created barriers that inhibit our entrepreneurial economy.
Will I be blogging on September 10, 2013? Who knows! But, I will be blogging tomorrow. We’ll see where that post takes us.
Top 25!
I am pleased to announce that Belmont University’s Undergraduate Entrepreneurship program was just named to the Top 25 programs by Entrepreneur magazine — Princeton Review in their 2008 rankings.
GO BELMONT!
New Business Valuation Site Launched Today
There are two financial goals tied to entrepreneurship. One is generating income. The other is creating wealth.
For most entrepreneurs wealth is generated through the value they can create in their businesses. But, what a business is really worth is often hard to determine.
Today a new site was launched called BizEquity that offers business owners a tool to help estimate the value of small businesses. (Note of full disclosure — I am an unpaid advisor for this project).
What does the site offer?
And it is all free to the user.
There is also a companion blog that offers more information on business valuation.
Decisions within the Murky Grayness
I received information about a study that reminded me once again that business ethics is messy.
We would like to think that being ethical is a simple process of deciding right from wrong. Although sometimes it is, more often it seems to take us into a murky gray of ambiguity and seemingly irresolvable dilemmas.
The study was conducted by Experian, a global information services company. The study examines the payment behavior of the small-business owner in relation to the current mortgage crisis. The study found that business owners with a severe mortgage delinquency were more likely to pay their business obligations instead of their mortgage. It seems that because of deteriorating equity, high mortgage payments and limited refinancing options, business owners chose to ensure the business’ survival, preserving their source of income at the risk of losing their home. For the report, Experian compiled a sample of 2.7 million business owners and analyzed the payment behavior of those owners with a mortgage over the course of one year.
New entrepreneurs often struggle with the need to put their house at risk to help start a new venture. This study suggests that once the business is operating they will tend choose their business over their home.
What an agonizing choice this must be for most of these business owners.
Keep your business afloat, but lose your home. Keep your home, but risk losing your business. Ethical choices are not always as clear cut as we would like.
NFIB Survey Differs from ADP Report on Jobs
Although the ADP jobs report that I blogged about yesterday showed some job growth in small businesses, the NFIB’s monthly survey is not as rosy. Here is a statement from William C. Dunkelberg, chief economist for the National Federation of Independent Business on August job numbers based on NFIB’s monthly economic survey that will be released on Tuesday, September 9. The survey was conducted through August 31, 2008 and reflects 812 small business owner respondents:
“Seasonally adjusted, small business owners reported basically no new job creation over the past few months in the August NFIB survey (an average loss of -0.04 workers per firm, essentially no change). Eleven percent of the owners increased employment by an average of 5.7 workers per firm, and 15 percent reduced employment at an average of 3.7 workers per firm. Overall, this was a better performance than in recent months, but job growth will be negative again, and the unemployment rate will rise.
“Forty-six percent of the owners hired or tried to hire and 76 percent of those trying to hire reported few or no qualified applicants for the job openings they were trying to fill. Fifteen percent (seasonally adjusted) reported unfilled job openings, well below the 34-year average of 22, and down two points from July, suggesting a higher unemployment rate for August. Nine percent of the owners reported that the availability of qualified labor was their top business problem, well below last September’s reading when openings were reported by 25 percent of all firms, and 17 percent complained about the lack of qualified labor.
“Over the next three months, 13 percent plan to create new jobs, and 10 percent plan workforce reductions yielding a seasonally adjusted net 9 percent of owners planning to create new jobs – a solid improvement over recent readings.
“Not seasonally adjusted, more owners plan to cut employment than planned to increase jobs in the retail trades, agriculture and construction industries (winter is coming). Job creation plans are most frequent in professional services and manufacturing businesses. Regionally, more firms plan cuts than increases among firms in New England, the East South Central states and the Mountain states. In the Mid-Atlantic and Pacific states, about as many owners planned to cut jobs as planned to increase employment.”
Entrepreneurs and Discipline
I wrote a recent post on Entrepreneurial A.D.D. As a follow-up, my graduate assistant, Joe Ormont, found a very good post at Court’s blog that offers some tips on getting focused:
- Do it doucement (slowly, very slowly) (not sure whether this is a Bond movie line actually). We often fail when we try too hard. Take it one step at the time and incorporate necessary tasks week by week.
- Don’t measure yourself against others in competition. Use them as a guideline if all. You will only set yourself up for early failure when you try to compare what they have and you haven’t achieved.
- If you run a business besides working a day job, buy topiramate uk invest more emotional energy into your business. After all, it is your future and deserves your full attention.
- Don’t be put off by setbacks, keep persisting!
- Do something for your business every single day, regardless how tired you are.
- Use personal visualization techniques to day dream. They are very powerful.
- Don’t spend your time with negative people and business dream wreckers. They are poison, especially in the early (failure) stages of your business.
- Be proud of your achievements, however small they seem.
- Learn from your setbacks and mistakes and do it better next time round.
- Don’t try to complicate things – keep it easy.
- Have fun.
Some good thoughts to reflect on at the end of the week.
Mixed News on Small Business Job Creation
Some partially good economic news for a change.
The August ADP National Employment Report and ADP Small Business Report showed that small businesses (businesses with fewer than 50 workers) added 20,000 jobs during August.
If we look at just the service sector, we see an increase in 36,000 jobs.
However, of some concern to me is that goods-producing small businesses lost 16,000 jobs. These jobs tend to be better paying.