Have you ever been faced with a business situation you couldn’t find an effective way of solving? If you are in business, I bet it has happened more often than not. It’s not the problems, though, it is how you solve them. In some cases, it takes a little bit of creativity to do so.

This sign was on the bathroom vanity of a Comfort Inn hotel I recently stayed at:

I thought this sign was brilliant, as it solves a business problem with the most positive spin to it.

What is the problem? People steal hotel towels. It probably happens more than anyone would want to admit. Rather than putting a sign in the hotel room stating all towels are accounted for and if you take them you will be charged, it solves the problem with a new opportunity – the towels are for sale. In doing so, it identifies the following:

• A service is being offered – towels are offered in the hotel room
• There are parameters of the service – the towels are to stay in the hotel room
• There is a value to this service – spelled out in the pricing of the towels

These rules came to me as I was staring at the sign while brushing my teeth – rules that could apply to a lot more situations that towel theft. Taking one measly towel may seem harmless, but it is a cost and loss of revenue to the business. The sign serves as a friendly reminder that you are not in business to give things away for free.

I have to be honest, these weren’t the best towels I have ever used, and I would never pay that much for them. Most likely the pricing is not for them to get into the towel business though and rather to thwart theft. But this was a Comfort Inn, not a Westin, and the room was priced accordingly. Needless to say, all towels were still int he room when I checked out.

The next time you are faced with a situation you’re trying to solve, think of what you need to put on a sign, and it may be all you need to get the point across and solve the problem.

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These days many businesses are doing belt-tightening, or in some cases their belt is more like a tourniquet. Depending on whatever it is you are analyzing, cutting it out of your plans and budget completely may be required. However, don’t forget the goals and reasons for those budget items, as there could be options to what you planned that can still lead to fulfilling those goals.

One example is wardrobe. Need a new suit or attire to wear to pitch to a new client? Perhaps shopping on The Magnificent Mile or Newbury Street are not in the cards any longer and even the outlet stores may be out of range, but the goal here is you need something to wear. Have you been to Goodwill lately? Many times people bring clothes to thrift stores like it and Salvation Army not because they are worn or tattered but because they don’t fit any longer. You can find bargains at a fraction of the price of new or the outlets, and after a trip to the dry cleaners it may be just the image you need to land the new client.

For my own Internet consulting business Dunkirk Systems, LLC, some clients and prospective clients have scaled back or altogether postponed Internet projects due to budgets. In these cases, I always talk to the client and discuss with them the original goals of the project. In some cases, postponement is a viable option. In other cases, revisiting them can help come up with options. Maybe a complete redesign of the Web site is out of the question, but additional content or enhancing a portion of the Web site will meet those goals. Looking at your entire operations may also be in order, as a postal mailing could be replaced by an email campaign for less cost.

In tough times a creative brain can costs just as well as a machete and still yield great returns.

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Let's be honest, you have bad days when you don't want to work. For entrepreneurs, you feel as though you are cheating yourself, yet you may not feel like doing anything substantive. There is a middle ground I have found - queue up some "mindless" tasks or things to do and be successful at, whether you are grumpy, sick, hungover, or some combination of all of those! Here are some I have on my list currently and others I have done in the past.

• Building your contacts in LinkedIn – You can go through your email address book for people who are not in your circle and invite them. Another way is to look at the connections for colleagues you have worked with in the past for people who are in their circle you are connected to – if you worked with them, you can request to be connected without knowing their email address.
• Scanning documents and business cards – Perhaps the paperless office in general is more myth than reality, but I am working to rid my own from as much paper as possible. With my Fujitsu ScanSnap I scan papers, documents and other items I would like to keep to PDFs.
• Clean out your email inbox – I am a true believer in managing your inbox to zero, where you read then file or delete all your email, only keeping in your inbox those messages to reply to at a later date. But sometimes our inboxes grow, and it takes a little time away from everything else to tend to it.
• Clean out your desk drawers – Being in a less than pleasant mood is perfect for cleaning out your desk, as it’s much harder to come up with a rational reason to keep half of the junk you have accumulated.
• Inventory your safe deposit box – Wondering where that contract or passport is? It may be in your safe deposit box. At least you made the first step to get a box, but it’s also handy to know what is in there.
• Write blog posts in advance – There’s nothing worse like your blog going dead for a few days or weeks, and by writing ahead of time non-date sensitive posts is a good way to clear your mind of things you’d like to share with others, and keep your blog publishing on a regular basis. What you are reading is one such example.

Hopefully these ideas will help. Are there things you do when you’re not feeling so great?

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One of the greatest frustrations of any entrepreneur or small business is working more in your business than on your business. Working in your business is when you are doing the mundane but vital tasks of running a business, everything from balancing the checkbook to selecting insurance and beyond. By being in the trenches, you can lose the big picture perspective of growing your business, but due to your size and headcount there is probably nobody else to do these things.

This reality of working on your own is the theme of the book Money-Smart Secrets for the Self-Employed by Linda Stern. The book guides the reader through starting their own business, from merely thinking about doing it, to the fears surrounding income to the tasks required to maintain your business. It was written in 1997, and was a recent gift to me from a friend who herself used it as a guide through breaking out on her own. Where some of the specifics are outdated (such as software products) much of the book is still relevant 11 years after it was published.

My greatest takeaway from the book is you need to understand the big picture of running your own business before you do so. There are many things you do when on your own you would not do as an employee of a larger company, such as marketing yourself and hiring people. You may not even know how to do some of these things, but understanding what is involved will help you determine if being on your own is for you, and what to expect to be doing.

My next takeaway from the book is to put together a semblance of a plan for your business and review it. Not every business needs a formal business plan. A comprehensive checklist will do for some, to outline what has been done and what remains. As life changes so does business, even more so when you are working for yourself. A plan is only as good as it is realistic, thus the need to revise it as your business evolves and hopefully grows.

A final takeaway from the book is to document the money. Whether you use a logbook, a spreadsheet or QuickBooks (I highly recommend the latter!) you need to keep track of the money. Not only will this benefit you personally but it will make it easier to deal with at tax payment time, which you will learn quickly is more than just once a year when you are on your own.

Money-Smart Secrets for the Self-Employed was a good read and motivational for someone starting out on their own. As I read it several years into my own business, it served as reassurance to some of the decisions I had made. Even though it came out over a decade ago, I would recommend it for someone thinking of going on their own or just starting, as it can help them with the logistics of their corporate operations.

Book Take-Aways • Business • (0) Comments • Permalink

It wasn’t until last fall that I realized the power of the blazer. My lovely wife and I were on vacation in Germany and when we checked into our hotel, the Westin Grand in Frankfurt, we found out that night was the hotel’s grand re-opening and as guests, we were invited. The event was going to be posh to say the least, and unfortunately I had nothing to wear. We shopped at a couple of stores for a blazer, but with high prices and extremely devalued US dollar, I decided to pass. Needless to say, I was the only male at the party without a blazer.

It’s not to say I was not presentable, as I had a button-down shirt and slacks and shoes - just no blazer. Even the photographer with the ratty t-shirt and unwashed hair looked more presentable with the blazer he was wearing. I do own a blazer, which at the time was hanging in my home closet, and I frequently wear it to networking events. Not only can a blazer add an extra touch to your attire, but it can be extremely functional as well. Pockets in the blazer allow you to carry extra business cards, separate received cards from your own, and carry schwag from an event… not to mention covering the spilled drink on your shirt.

Though my blazer has worked for me, my wife and marketing consultant have urged me to look for something new and more stylish. Though I always thought I look good in tweed, it is my one-and-only blazer and I agreed it was time to move on and look for another, a quest that was almost painful. My searches through men’s clothing and department stores gave me the same old blazer. In additional to style, I was seeking something very functional – namely more pockets – and wrinkle-free, so it wouldn’t require separate luggage to take it on trips. The more I looked, the more disappointed I got.

It wasn’t until I was on an Amtrak train reading the seatback pocket magazine when I saw it – the blazer I was looking for. It was from Duluth Trading, a mail-order clothing catalog featuring extremely functional clothing, namely for outdoors and hard labor. The magazine featured the Transatlantic Travel Jacket, a microfiber blazer with multiple pockets on the inside, including a separate pen pocket, plus one of the outside pockets zipping closed. Sweet! Though I don’t usually buy clothes online, their generous return policy reduced the risk and I ordered it.

So far so good for the blazer. I have worn it once and have several events where I will really put it to the test, including the Great Chicago Networking Extravaganza. I will also be bringing it with me on my next travels, just in case I need to upscale my look.

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