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Blowing your chances, one call at a time

Filed in archive Philosophy on July 29, 2010

Blowing your chances, one call at a time
© malias

Telephone calls are a fact of life for the busy entrepreneur. The stereotype has the small businessman glued to his iPhone, either texting or taking a call every couple of minutes, or whipping it out and speed-dialing in an instant when something comes up. You call to sell, call to hire, call to make deals, call to send or receive vital information. Many entrepreneurs live and die by the phone... which makes phone conversations a must have skill for most.

David Siteman Garland has an amusing story (or maybe it's just cringe-inducing) of one phone call that certainly didn't have quite the results the businessman probably had in mind.

If there is a key to avoiding this sort of cold-sell hell, I think it is probably empathy. The gentleman making the call obviously was trying to fake it, and that just doesn't work. You really, genuinely have to understand and care about the concerns of the person on the other end of the call. If you're not giving them something to address all that, if the call is entire about what can happen for you, then no matter how much language you throw in to make it seem mutually beneficial, the person on the other end of the line is probably going to sense it.

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It's the logistics, stupid

Filed in archive Bootstrapping Thoughts on July 19, 2010

flickr_4165856025.jpg
© The National Guard

Bob Sutton paraphrases the classic "Amateurs study strategy. Professional study logistics." in his latest post "Strategy is for amateurs, logistics are for professionals" discussing how the execution matters more than the strategy that calls for it.

Execution is, of course, of greater importance in the grand scheme of things and Bob is exactly correct that an imperfect strategy, executed well, can beat a perfect strategy that has been executed poorly. Execution, making things happen the way we want, is the underserved area of business operations. It's easy to write about strategy, or even tactics; it's difficult to put that knowledge and information together in a way that applies to execution for the average reader.

But while these are all fine concepts borrowed from military thinking, Bob is off the mark a bit on what the saying means. Logistics isn't about execution; it's about putting all the resources in place to allow the execution of a strategy. Talking about execution is premature if you haven't figured out your logistics first. And they may be radically different processes, not wholly dependent upon one another. But the organization that has figured out it's logistics is going to have a far easier time executing its strategy of choice, because it will have all the pieces available to make it happen, when it needs to happen. That's why professionals study logistics.

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Going global, the small way

Filed in archive Bootstrapping Trends on July 12, 2010

Going global, the small way
© ToastyKen

With my background in tech, it's sometimes hard to see where trends that have been common in information technology for years are starting to break in the larger marketplace. This article on Smallbiztrends.com "Introducing the Tales of Micro-Multinationals" is a sign that the outsourcing phenomena that has been allowing small high-tech companies to compete way above their headcount for years is starting to trickle over into mainstream small business.

The story isn't new; the confluence of remote work, global job markets, and Internet-based marketing, sales, and payment systems that make physical location all but superfluous for most purposes, is well-known and possibly even over-hyped in business reporting. What is new is that it's getting easier and easier to use all these things, and they are starting to be designed expressly to support non-tech businesses. And that is leading to an explosion of potential, even as the economy as a whole still finds itself on rocky ground.

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Small business loans drying up

Filed in archive Bootstrapper News on July 5, 2010

Small business loans drying up
© Bidgee

For all the talk of small business being the real job creation engine of the country, little more than lip-service has been paid to helping small-business owners with that vital task in these troubled times. The big-money bailouts and stimulus funds have ended up mostly in the hands of big businesses, which have all set about disproving most theories of trickle-down economics by reaping profits and not generating a lot of new jobs or enriching suppliers in the process. Banks, also beneficiaries of government largesse on a broad scale, have also been remarkably stingy with loans and other support for small businesses.

Now, one of the critical mechanisms left for small-business funding outside the private sector is also running into trouble: the Small Business Administration's allocation of stimulus funding for backing small business loans has run out, and the loans are starting to dry up. Bankers already concerned about lending out capital who were assuaged by SBA guarantees aren't keeping up the pace to get small businesses off the ground. In an economy with an increasingly gloomy jobs picture, this state of affairs is not likely to offer any near-term improvement.

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To contest or not to contest...

Filed in archive Bootstrapping Thoughts on June 28, 2010

To contest or not to contest...
© tequilamike

At our local Chamber of Commerce, it seems like there is always some contest or other designed to entire small business owners to sign up and try to win something that is usually just an extravagant marketing package of some sort. There are also more legitimate contests, "Small Business of the Year" and so on, that are provided by the promoter as a venue for the small businesses to market themselves. Most are pitched as some combination of the two, like this Office Depot contest.

Either way, it seems to me that these contests take up a lot of time and put some constraints on your business... yeah, it's "no purchase necessary" but the expectation is that you're going to start shopping at Office Depot more frequently.

My question is, do you see the value in these, or do you just think they are a waste of time? So far I have been on the time-wasting side of the question, but they remain pretty popular (probably, I'm guessing, for the same reasons lottery tickets are still big sellers) so maybe I am missing something.

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