Bridging The Gap : SME and Export

The growth of small and medium-sized companies (and the effect on job creation) is an important challenge for the economy of the Philippines.

 

The coming Asean Economic Integration in 2015, the single market between 10 economies in South East Asia, with (nearly) free movement of goods, people and services, offers many opportunities for growth, development and sustainable job creation. But there are still a lot of obstacles for the SME to overcome in order 'to be part' of this -competitive- Asean market. Coping with this obstacles is of strategic importance, as discussed below,  for our country whose economy is largely export dependent.

 

Lack of international trade skills

 

One of the biggest obstacles for SME to expand their markets internationally is a lack of people with suitable international trade skills. International market research, export offers, delivery terms, how to write an export business plan, export sales strategies are just some examples of this issue as explained in Strategy 2000 of Oxford Research).

 

The gap between 'knowing and doing'

 

According to an article in the February 2012 'Harvard Business Review', the 'knowledge-doing' gap between colleges/universities and SME is another obstacle. Knowledge must be turned into practical skills and brought into action in an SME. Knowing how to write an export business plan or to do export market research is not enough; you have to do it in a real life situation when operating an export venture. To achieve this, SME can benefit from an export coach with international business experience.

 

Lack of international networks for trade

 

An international trade network of colleagues, experts and potential customers is as important as the trade knowledge required to be able to grow internationally - especially for SME interested in entering new markets. Much of the international trade training today is within a single country, and such national offering limits the possibility of creating an international network. That is why initiatives as the partnership of the Davao Chamber of Commerce (through the Small Business Development Center)  with the Dutch government agency CBI is so important for the (would-be) exporters of Mindanao. This program offers (and subsidies) trainings overseas for selected exporters with the objective to bring their products to the European market.

 

Lack of a qualification system 

 

The export profession is not yet recognized as such. A professional designation is needed to give an identity and recognition to colleagues, clients and employers. That is why the Davao Chamber of Commerce, through the Small Business Development Center, and TESDA XI joint forces and are working on training curricula and assessment tools (NC III and NC IV) for the export profession It is obvious that the SME will be consulted to find out what specific skills and competencies in the export field is lacking on the market.

 

The outcome

The need for international trade competence within SME has never been more pressing given the Asean Integration in 2015. A review in the Swedish newspaper Dagens Industri of an international trade training program indicated that an investment of 10,000 Euro actually gave a return of 500,000 Euro of increased exports! The message is clear that we have to put international trade training on the agenda to support our SME and to create sustainable jobs and growth.

 

 

Raf Vlummens, MFin, CRA

Entrepreneurial Coach

Pick The Entreprene​ur Lifestyle Alternativ​e For You.

You are an aspiring entrepreneur, eager to dump the corporate grind, and work to the beat of your own drummer, but you can’t come up with that killer idea to save the world. What are the alternatives that will give you the independence you crave, and challenge your business acumen?
Technically, I believe an entrepreneur is anyone who manages his own profit and loss, and doesn’t meet the government tax definition of an employee. Beyond the traditional new product or service model, you can always buy an existing business, purchase a franchise, join a multi-level marketing (MLM) company, or simply go out on your own as a consultant.
Of course there are a million variations which can make the difference, like work at home versus an office, or online versus storefront, but these are secondary to your basic role. In deciding which of these startup models is right for you, the best place to begin is to ask yourself why you want to own a business rather than be an employee:

• You have the technology to change the world. If you want to nurture a product into full bloom, a traditional startup is your best bet. Of course, you get the challenge of filing patents, developing a product, and defining the revenue model. With an existing business, MLM, or franchise, the technology and process are already set.

• You really just want to be the boss. If your answer is that you want to own your own business because of the freedom it will bring you to manage an operation, try a franchise or join an MLM. The base organization will define what you have to do, when you do it, and how you do it, but the success is all in the execution. Don’t look for an investor, since they can be the toughest boss you ever had.

• You want to make lots of money. New startups build from scratch, and go for broke. Many end that way, but a chosen few do make lots of money. Franchises, on the average, make less money than other types of businesses, but they have higher success rates. Consulting businesses rarely scale, so you may do well, but are not likely to make lots of money. MLMs are like the lottery, minimal investment, with low odds of any success, but a few people hit it really big.

• You are doing it to satisfy someone else. Too many people are running a business because their father always expected them to take over for the family, the spouse has been nagging you to do it for years, or they want to prove something to a sibling or peer. If you have a choice here, at least pick a less risky franchise, or a minimal investment MLM.

• You're looking for something to keep you busy. If you have startup funds in hand, you are one of the lucky ones who can start or buy any business you want. If you lack hands-on experience, a franchise may be ideal for you, because you'll get help with everything you need to set up your business. On the other hand, if experience is your strong suit, why not highlight and share it through consulting?

Whichever business model you pick, you need to make a serious commitment to the effort, or you will likely fail. I have a friend who starts a new business every couple of years, sort of like a hobby. After a few months, she gets tired of the grind, or runs up against a couple of tough problems, so she rationalizes that the economy turned bad, or someone misled her, and she walks away. A different business model probably won’t solve this problem.

If you still aren’t sure where you fit, I recommend working for someone else for a few years to gain knowledge, contacts, capital, and learn more about yourself. Then take the plunge with one of the above business models. You will soon know whether you are having fun, and that’s the most important criteria for any aspiration. Enjoy. ( by Marty Zwilling)

Adopting Good Work Habits Beat Dropping Bad Ones

Most of the entrepreneurs I know realize they have some bad habits, like maybe procrastination or not listening well, so they focus on dropping these. New studies indicate that a more productive approach would be adopting new good habits and behaviors that clearly move your business forward, like good time management and implementing customer recommendations.
These two approaches may sound similar, but actually require different skill sets. For example, learning to stop smoking may leave you with a gap to fill, but finding activities that remove your urge to smoke really gets you where you want to be. I recommend the following six techniques for solidifying good habits from “The Compound Effect,” by successful entrepreneur and writer Darren Hardy:

1. Set yourself up to succeed. Any new habit has to work inside your life and lifestyle. If you want personal healthy think time at a gym, don’t find one that is thirty miles away, because you won’t go. For better time management, tell everyone that you will be closing the door to your office during specific times of the day, and ask for their support.
2. Think addition, not subtraction. Instead of focusing on what you have to “sacrifice,” think of what you can “add in” to improve your business effectiveness. For example, most founders find that adding good customer discussions has a more satisfying payoff than just eliminating expensive marketing consultants.
3. Go for a public display of accountability. Put your commitments of a new good habit, like rewarding good performance, on public display by announcing a recognition event to be held each week in the office. Now you will be motivated to follow through, and the whole team will give you the positive feedback you need to keep it going.
4. Find a success partner. There are few things as powerful as two people locked arm in arm marching toward the same goal. If your bad habit is staying late at the office, link with one or more of your other key executives to retire to the gym at 5pm sharp three times a week. You will all get out of the office, feel better, and make more decisions.
5. Use both competition and camaraderie. There is nothing like a friendly contest to whet your competitive spirit and immerse yourself in a new habit with a bang. It’s easy in a new business to inject a fun rivalry and a competitive spirit into improving your marketing programs, or improving production cycles.
6. Celebrate each small step of success along the way. All work and no play is a recipe for backsliding. You’ve got to find little rewards to give yourself every week or every day, even something small to acknowledge that you’ve held yourself to a new behavior. Measure results and promise yourself a real pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Change is hard. That’s why so many people don’t either give up their bad habits, or adopt new good ones. Successful entrepreneurs are the extraordinary ones that make the changes anyway. They just do it, and keep doing it, and the magic of compounding rewards them handsomely.
Another challenge is that your brain is not designed to make you happy. It is programmed to seek out the negative and optimize survival, and is always watching for signs of “lack and attack.” That’s why every entrepreneur spends so much time worrying about failures, lack of customers, and competition. We have to teach our minds to look beyond these, through discipline and being proactive about what we allow in.

But learning and discipline without execution is worthless. In the big picture, the habits you develop and nurture shape your destiny. Little everyday habits will take you either to the life you desire or to disaster by default. Spend more time instilling good ones, and the bad ones will disappear for lack of attention, making you a more savvy and successful entrepreneur.

(by Marty Zwilling - more of Marty: http://blog.startupprofessionals.com)

One of This Days, You May Not Be An Entrepreneur.

If I had a Peso for every time someone has said to me, “One of these days, I’m going to start my own company,” I’d be rich. If this day ever comes for all these people, we will be overrun by startups. Yet I don’t lose any sleep over either of these possibilities.
Most people procrastinate from time to time, but I suspect that the challenge here is somewhat deeper than that. So I did my own informal survey of business books, to gather the key reasons why most people never start the journey. If you recognize yourself in any of these categories, you may be more of a “wanna be” than a real entrepreneur:

1. You are a dreamer, not a do-er. Most people in this category actually prefer to think of themselves as “idea people,” rather than implementers. In my view, the dreaming part and the idea are the easy parts, and the hard part is building a workable plan and making it successful. A strong vision is required, but that’s different from the dream.
2. Unable to learn the new skills. This starts happening to people immediately after school, who think that academia is where skills are acquired. Actually, schools are only for learning how to learn. Specific expertise is self-learned from experience, not books. The ability to learn doesn’t decline with age, unless confidence and interest declines.
3. Unhealthy fear of failure. A wise man I once knew said “He who is never afraid, he’s a fool.” Successful people overcome their rational fears, and move on to get the job done. Others are debilitated by their fear, and never start. Expecting some failure, and learning to deal with it, is one of the most effective ways to learn. Investors know that all too well.
4. Hidden fear of success. Believe it or not, many people fear success, and stop short if they see it approaching. There is, in fact, plenty of evidence that it takes a strong person to manage their life after success – note the many failures after success in winning the lottery, or after topping the charts in their chosen profession.
5. You are a perfectionist, not a pragmatist. A new product or service will never be perfect in a rapidly changing world, so why start? At the other extreme, I know inventors that have been working on the same idea for thirty years, and have nothing to show for it. A proven path to success in business is to get something out, and iteratively improve it.
6. Not focused, or easily distracted. Successful entrepreneurs have a strong vision, and don’t let anyone or anything lead them astray. In business, this means you have to keep your priorities straight, and separate the important from the urgent. Learn to commit, focus, organize your work, and delegate when appropriate.
7. Always finding excuses. The first principle of entrepreneurship is that “the buck stops here” – you have to accept ultimate responsibility for whatever happens, good or bad, Excuses are artificial barriers for not starting something, or ways of convincing yourself that someone or something else is responsible for your failures. Neither is productive.
8. You are not a self-starter. If you need someone else to tell you when to develop your business plan and organize your time, then “one of these days” will probably never come for you. With the entrepreneurial lifestyle, it’s up to you to set the standards, be the model, and actively do the follow-through.

According to Psychology Today, some twenty percent of people identify themselves as chronic procrastinators. Among wishful entrepreneurs, I think the percentage is nearer to ninety. If that is your current state, it need not be a life sentence by default. Some of you will change your outlook and your behavior, one of these days. When will you get around to it?

Marty Zwilling (more of Marty: http://blog.startupprofessionals.com)

 

Team Member Competency is Critical!

Most people think that the Peter Principle (employee rises to his level of incompetence) only applies to large organizations. Let me assure you that it is also alive and well within startups. I see startup founders and managers who are stalled transplants from large organizations, as well as highly-capable technologists trying to start and run a business for the first time.
Forty years ago, in a satiric book named “The Peter Principle”, Dr. Laurence J. Peter first defined this phenomenon. The principle asserts that in a hierarchy, members are promoted so long as they work competently. Sooner or later they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent, and there they remain, unless they start or join a startup to get the next level.
In all environments, the move to incompetence often occurs when competent technical people try to step into management or executive positions, for which they have no aptitude, interest, or training. How many technologists have tried to run startups and failed?
So what are the keys to avoiding this problem for yourself, and recognizing the signs and requirements in your own team, before the “level of incompetence” paralyzes your startup:

1. Focus on communication skills. The ability to communicate effectively and often to your team and to the outside world becomes more and more critical as you move up the role ladder. Practice and training are critical. If communication to others is not your forte, then stick to a highly focused non-management role.
2. Look for ability to direct, as well as act. Many people have trouble directing the task and not doing it themselves. Both are hard work, and both are valuable. Executives get paid for what they know, not for what they can do with their hands—for managing the job and not actually doing it.
3. Comfortable with a spectrum of responsibilities. As a manager, there will be many new responsibilities, most of which are a little fuzzy. A tech promoted to manager must change his mindset from one of focusing on a problem and solving it, to multi-tasking a broad range of responsibilities, and keeping them all moving.
4. Consistent demonstration of high-level competencies. You need ‘portable’ competencies—those that you can take with you to any level of the corporate ladder, and which you can tap into in a managerial capacity. For example: be solutions-oriented, able to balance both sides of an issue, and be a quick study.
5. Provide mentoring and formal management training. If you are seriously looking at shifting someone to a management role, make it top priority to get them formal training, not only on business management itself, but especially on people management and interaction skills. Talent and good intentions are not sufficient.
6. Evaluate passion and current position. A management position is not for everyone, and a specialist career may be much more exciting. Great technical gurus get paid very well, and have visible top positions like Chief Technical Officer (CTO) for prestige and respect. You can still be the founder, and bring in a CEO to run the business.

Another important point is to recognize and deal immediately with occurrences of the Peter Principle. If you are the CEO, and you tolerate ineffective people in important positions, they will suck the life out of your startup. The good people will fade away, and only the bad will remain. You will be tagged as the one with the Peter Principle.
It’s something that we all have to deal with, in our own career, and with other team members. In a small startup, everyone has to carry a maximum load for survival, and everyone sees the non-performers. If you are the last to see the problem, or the last to react, maybe it’s time to look in the mirror.


Marty Zwilling
more of Marty? blog.startupprofessionals.com

Move your marketing strategy from 'Hunting' to 'Gardening'

Have you noticed that more companies beg you to participate in their business today? It started with an email survey on your last stay at their hotel, but now includes requests for online product reviews, to social media input on the design of future products. They do it because engaged customers become loyal advocates and buyers. Welcome to the “Participation Age” of marketing.
Some say it’s happening today because it’s new, and technology makes it possible. Others say it stems from Intrinsic Motivation Theory, which asserts that people have always been motivated by a desire to join, share, take part, connect, and engage, and find that experience rewarding. In any case, your business needs it today to rise above the crowd and edge out competitors.
If you want all the specifics, you must follow the new wave of marketing experts, like Daina Middleton, and her recent book “Marketing in the Participation Age.” I’m most intrigued by one aspect that I believe relates to every business - the move from a hunter-based metaphor to a gardening metaphor – nurturing what we have planted, based on the following five rules:

1. Embrace test-and-learn values. That means constantly trying new marketing elements, understanding quickly what works, and immediately scaling, then moving on to the next alternative. Nurturing marketers reserve a minimum of 10 percent of their marketing budgets for testing and learning. It’s a dynamic customer environment out there.
2. Innovate; don’t perfect. The nurture approach leverages from the best of the moment, quickly adding value before someone else does it first. The concept of continual innovation is crucial, because the best may not last long. Pick something that is good enough and embrace the flaw as an opportunity to learn. Adapt quickly and move on.
3. Act quickly and motivate others, including participants, to act on your behalf. Motivate people, including your customers, to do something to improve your marketing today. Inspire your organization to act quickly and create an environment that rewards moving quickly. Estimate and act; because if you don’t, your competitors will.
4. Mix and blend; don’t invent. Partner with others to create unique solutions that might benefit your brand, product, or solution. Choose an agency partner who is pushing the envelope and remember to consider technology, media, and creative opportunities. Look for elegant blends of all three, not an elegant single media solution.
5. Embrace risks and champion failures. Prepare to learn from mistakes and accept that failures are inevitable in finding success. Partner with agencies that are willing to put skin in the game and get paid only if they deliver results. It often takes several failures to find opportunities that yield the best results.

In the current world of escalating change and information overload, marketing is not a luxury, and participative marketing can be the key to success, even for very technical solutions. We often see a mediocre product with effective marketing outperform a good product with little or poor marketing. Big marketing budgets alone and single blockbuster campaigns don’t assure results.
The message is simple. Ask your customers and partners for ideas, try them all, measure results, and scale up the ones that work. The participants, not the marketers, are in control, and they are demanding a relationship, not just a marketing message. If they don’t find value in the relationship, they move on. The choices and opportunities are theirs.
The situation is not unlike the attraction of current major social media sites, like Facebook, successful multiplayer game sites, like Activision, and today’s real world sports and politics. Gen-Y members were born participants, and they are a major force in every business domain. People thrive on continually learning, feeling empowered, and providing input to the world they live in.
So if you are a startup, or even a mature business, you need to nurture these intrinsic desires and develop more meaningful customer relationships that yield greater revenues. Marketing is no longer a one-way conversation. Does your marketing include listening as well as talking?
Marty Zwilling
more of Marty on http://blog.startupprofessionals.com

Starting a Business with Your Spouse

When she was 24 years old, writes Allie Siarto in her article, she started a business with my fiancé (now husband) and one of our best friends. Three years later, our business and marriage are stronger than ever, but not without a few bumps along the way.

If you’re considering starting a business with your spouse or significant other, or if you already have a business and you’re considering bringing your significant other into the mix, run through this checklist to avoid major headaches down the road:

1. Create an emergency fund.

   Money is the number one reason for divorce, and cash flow tends to be the number one challenge for new businesses. When we first started out, we waited months to get our business cash flow in order and get paid. But we didn’t stress, because we had saved a personal emergency fund ahead of time.

2. Get office space.

   You shouldn’t run out and get an office right away, but start budgeting for an office or co-working membership as soon as possible. We spent the first year of our business working from home, but we also joined a co-working group and got together with other entrepreneurs twice a week at a local coffee shop just to get out of the house and find camaraderie. Co-working spaces, as the co-working center of the Small Business Development Center of the Davao Chamber of Commerce offer flexible part-time solutions that will give you a more budget-friendly opportunity to get out, meet new people and maintain sanity.

3. Know your personality types.

   I tend to draw my energy from being around other people, while my husband draws energy from focused time by himself. I am more focused and energetic in the morning, while he works best late at night. I am very focused on the big picture, while he does better with the details. By understanding our individual strengths, we are better able to find areas where we complement each other. Consider taking a personality assessment to figure out your individual strengths and how you can best work together.

4. Define management roles.

   Along with knowing your personality type, you should have clearly defined roles within the company. Write job descriptions for yourselves and set clear expectations about who will take on which tasks for the business.

5. Engage in separate hobbies.

   When you are starting out, you will be spending a lot of long hours working together to get your business off the ground. It sounds strange, but it’s important to schedule activities apart. When we started our business, I got involved in the local photography community, while my husband got more involved with the organizations in the local startup scene. This added some balance to our lives and gave us something new to talk about outside of work.

6. Discuss risk tolerance.

   Because our business is our main source of income, my husband and I tend to be less risk-averse than we might be if we worked separately. We decided early on we wanted to take a “slow and steady” growth path with no debt, loans or investments, but we reevaluate our views on tolerance for risk, regularly.

7. Balance praise and constructive criticism.

   Make a point to thank each other for a job well done, and be kind about how you approach constructive criticism. In a close relationship, we often forget these basic rules of business.

8. Have a sense of humor.

   Don’t take yourself too seriously. Take time to find humor and happiness in the little things each day. For example, I’ve been known to break into song and dance during the work day.

Starting a business with your spouse can be one of the most challenging and rewarding things you will ever do. There will be tears and laughter. There will be celebrations and frustrations. But in the end, there’s nothing like sharing the payoffs of working together toward a common goal with your life partner.

Allie Siarto is the co-founder of Loudpixel, a social analytics company focused on social media monitoring, insights, measurement and infographics. She also runs a project called Entretrip, a co-traveling experience for location independent entrepreneurs, and a digital marketing innovation podcast called The Apt Marketer.

Article published on YFSMagazine.com

10 Qualities every future business needs to have

The reigning theory in business has long been that “alpha” leaders make the best entrepreneurs. These are aggressive, results-driven achievers who assert control, and insist on a hierarchical organizational model. Yet I am seeing more and more success from “beta” startup cultures, like Zappos and Amazon, where the emphasis is on collaboration, curation, and communication.

Some argue that this new horizontal culture is being driven by Gen-Y, whose focus has always been more communitarian. Other business culture experts, like Dr. Dana Ardi, in her new book “The Fall of the Alphas,” argues that the rise of the betas is really part of a broader culture change driven by the Internet, towards communities, instant communication, and collaboration.

Can you imagine the overwhelming growth of Facebook, Wikipedia, and Twitter in a culture dominated by alphas? These would never happen. I agree with Dr. Ardi’s writing, that most successful workplaces of the future need to adopt the following beta characteristics, and align themselves more with the beta leadership model:

1. Do away with archaic command-and-control models.Winning startups today are horizontal, not hierarchical. Everyone who works there feels they’re part of something, and moreover, that it’s the next big thing. They want to be on the cutting-edge of all the people, places and things that technology is going to propel next.
2. Leaders of tomorrow need to practice ego management.They should be aware of their own biases, and focus on the present as on the future. They need to manage the egos of team members, by rewarding collaborative behavior. There will always be the need for decisive leadership, particularly in times of crisis, so I’m not suggesting total democracy.
3. Winning contemporary startups stress innovation. Betas believe that team members need to be given an opportunity to make a difference – to give input into key decisions and to communicate their findings and learnings to one another. Encourage team-members to play to their own strengths so that the entire team and organization leads the competition.
4. Put a premium on collaboration and teamwork. Instead of knives-out competition, these companies thrive by building a successful community with shared values. Team members are empowered and encouraged to express themselves. The best teams are hired with collaboration in mind. The whole is thus more than the sum of the parts.
5. In the most winning companies, everyone shares the culture. Leadership is fluid and bend-able. Integrity and character matter a lot. Everyone knows about the culture. Everyone subscribes to the culture. Everyone recognizes both its passion and its nuance. The result looks more like a symphony orchestra and less like an advancing army.
6. Roles, identities and responsibilities mutate weekly, daily, and even hourly. One of the big mistakes entrepreneurs make is they don’t act quickly enough. Markets and needs change quickly. Now there is a focus on social, global and environmental responsibility. Hierarchies make it hard to adjust positions or redefine roles. The beta culture gets it done.
7. Temper self-esteem and confidence with empathy and compassion. Mindfulness, of self and others, by boards, executives and employees, may very well be the single most important trait of a successful company. If someone is not a good cultural fit, or is not getting it done, make the change quickly, but with sensitivity. Pain increases over time.
8. Every individual in the organization is a contributor.The closer everyone in the organization comes to achieving his or her singular potential, the more successful the business will be. Successful cultures encourage their employees to keep refreshing their toolkits, keep flexible, keep their stakes in the stream.
9. Diversity of thought, style, approach and background is key. Entrepreneurs build teams, not fill positions. Cherry-picking candidates from name-brand universities will do nothing to further an organization and may even work against it. Put aside perfectionism, don’t wait for the perfect person – he or she may not exist. Hire track record and potential.
10. Everyone need not be a superstar. It’s about company teams, not just the individual. In case you hadn’t noticed, superstars don’t pass the ball, they just shoot it. Not everyone wants to move up; it’s ok to move across. Become their sponsor – onboarding with training and tools is essential. Spend time listening. Give them what they need to succeed.

Savvy entrepreneurs and managers around the world are finding it more effective to lead through influence and collaboration, rather than relying on fear, authority, and competition. I believe beta is rapidly becoming the new paradigm for success in today’s challenging market. Where does your startup fit in with this new model?

Marty Zwilling (more about Marty on http://blog.startupprofessionals.com/)

*** First published on Entrepreneur.com on 10/29/2013 ***

10 Key Steps For Aspiring Billionaire Entrepreneurs

Everyone recognizes a great entrepreneur when they work with one, but most entrepreneurs don’t know what to look for in themselves that will drive that perception by others. In my experience, there is no magic gene involved, just simple good habits executed consistently and convincingly until everyone around you in a startup wants to follow your example.
This leading by example is easy to say, but not so easy to put into action. Most leadership gurus, including John Baldoni, have provided generic recipes, like his book from a while back, “Lead By Example: 50 Ways Great Leaders Inspire Results.” The points are great, but can be made even simpler and more actionable by adapting then to the world of the entrepreneur:

1. Demonstrate character. In the dictionary definition, character is said to be “the stable and distinctive qualities built into an individual’s life which determine his or her response regardless of circumstances.” Steve Jobs of Apple had character, and the people around him knew what he stood for in good times as well as bad.
2. Be accountable for your actions. In a startup, things don’t always work, and it’s easy to blame someone else, the poor economy, or just bad luck. Thomas Edison made no excuses for ten thousand light failures. Challenged by his contemporaries, Edison soberly responded: "I have not failed. I have just found ten thousand ways that won't work."
3. Check your ego at the door (and keep it there). For an entrepreneur, this is often evident in the willingness to be coached, by outside experts or by your own team. We all know too many people who won’t listen to any advice from anyone. That’s just hubris, and it doesn’t inspire anyone.
4. Promote resilience. There is no shame in getting knocked down; it’s getting back up that matters. In a startup, pivots and problems will happen. Learn to anticipate change, bounce back stronger, and teach others to do the same. Dean Kamen, while still struggling with the Segway Human Transporter, holds 440 other device patents.
5. Get in the habit of asking questions but do not expect easy answers. That includes taking a hard look in the mirror, and facing reality. Howard Schultz, who grew Starbucks to 13,000 stores by 2008, decided to step back in as CEO when the economy was killing his stores, and refocus everyone on the customer. Now he has over 20,000 stores.
6. Manage around obstacles. We’ve all seen the entrepreneur who is struggling to keep the business alive by tackling the daily obstacle. No one is looking around the corner to see the next one. Richard Branson, now worth about $4.2 billion, offers this advice: “Obstacles and challenges are healthy for everyone.” He is always looking ahead.
7. Drive innovation. Great businesses these days start with innovation. Entrepreneur examples include Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Google, who turned a new search technology into a tool that most of us couldn’t live without. Encourage everyone on the team to think and act creatively. Good ideas can come from anyone at any time.
8. Encourage dissent about issues but promote civility around people. Receptiveness to dissent allows for corrective feedback to monitor ineffectual startup practices, poor and unfavorable decision making, and insensitivity to team needs and desires. This is positive, but a loss of civility more than negates all these positives.
9. Create a winning culture. Entrepreneur leaders drive values, values drive behavior, behavior drives culture, and culture drives performance. High performance makes new leaders. This is the self-reinforcing circle of excellence every startup needs for success. Winning business cultures, like at Apple, are set from the top.
10. Teach others “the how.” Then get out of the way and let people do their jobs. Great entrepreneurs are mentors to everyone on their team. Effective entrepreneurs are not afraid to “get their hands dirty” working with the troops. Bill Gates of Microsoft, even late in his career, wasn’t afraid to jump in and write some code to illustrate a point.

Being an entrepreneur may start with that million dollar idea, but turning that idea into a great startup is all about results. The quickest way to great results is to build a great team, and let it multiply your productivity. Using the actions described here as a model, take a look in the mirror to see how well you are leading by example.

Marty Zwilling (more of Marty at http://blog.startupprofessionals.com/)

10 Cash-Flow surprises that could kill your Startup.

The sad truth is that cash flow surprises kill many startups, even though they should have been adequately funded to survive. Overall, 90% of small business failures are caused by poor cash flow, according to the D&B Small Business website. Cash is king when it comes to the financial management of a growing company, so this is not the place for shortcuts and sloppy practices.

Good cash flow management, in simple terms, means understanding every inflow and outflow of cash, and never delegating this function. In principle, you must delay every outlay of cash as long as possible, while incenting everyone who owes you money to pay it as rapidly as possible. Surprises are unanticipated lags between these two events, as well as unplanned cash outlays.

I will outline here ten key principles and disciplines that every entrepreneur must understand and practice to minimize surprises and failures in this area:

1. Failure to document cash flow projections is a disaster. No matter how small your company is today, there are more moving financial parts than you can manage dynamically in your head. Of course, you can’t predict everything, but writing down what you know will identify existing problems sooner, and allow other team members to help.
2. You can be on budget, and still run out of cash. In the real world, spending seems to happen fast, and money coming in happens slowly. Thus your monthly budget may balance, but if planned income comes later than planned expenses, you have a short-term cash flow surprise shortage. Neither banks nor investors will help you on this one.
3. Your startup may be profitable, but broke. Profits don’t necessarily translate into cash. You can make profits without making any money, since the first priority of most startups is to reinvest everything back into the business for growth. There are lots of accounting tricks to make you profitable, but it takes real cash to pay the bills.
4. Seasonal sales fluctuations eat cash. Fluctuating sales means more inventory is required to cover the ups and downs. Every dollar in inventory is a dollar less in cash available, maybe even two dollars less if your gross margin is 50%. If you try to vary the number of employees to match, that costs even more cash for hiring, firing, and layoffs.
5. Unanticipated expenses and emergencies drain cash. The chance of unanticipated expenses, in my experience, is close to 100%. It could be a natural disaster, like a flood or wind storm, or loss of key personnel, equipment failure, or a major customer complaint on the Internet. Every startup has an unplanned pivot, and these all drain cash.
6. New businesses don’t get “normal” terms. It’s easy to forget that your new office rent asks for first, last, and security; new utilities require an escrow account; and new vendors want immediate payment for the first couple of months, before they offer the normal net 30 terms. On the other side, your new customers expect a free trial period.
7. Sales volumes are still ramping up while marketing expenses are at max. In the early days of a new business, and every time you make changes, sales volumes slip just when you need them most to cover the extra marketing expenses and new infrastructure. Your old “cash cows” are dying, while the new ones are still being fed heavily.
8. Even good customers don’t always pay on time. The Kauffman Foundation reports that late payments are among the biggest challenges facing startups. According to the Receivables Exchange, small businesses now wait nearly 50 days on average to get paid. If you are dealing with distributors, that wait can easily be four or five months.
9. Higher than anticipated growth has put you in cash flow hell. The faster you grow, the more cash you need, to build product, facilities, staff, and service. These are “up front” costs that can’t wait the four or five months before the sales and revenue catch up. If you can’t deliver to match the growth, your house of cards comes tumbling down.
10. Bankers and investors hate negative surprises. If your execution doesn’t include the expected cash flow management, investments can get withheld, and executives lose their jobs. I recommend that you buffer your initial requests for funding by 25%, and then add a line of credit, to cover contingencies and minimize the chance for negative surprises.

Then there are the Founders that overreact. They pay just the smallest bills and let the rest slide. Or they stretch out all payments until vendors complain, reduce your discount, or eliminate your credit. If payroll is late, morale and confidence go down, the good people leave, and your startup spirals into the ground. For all these reasons, it’s worth your focus to prevent cash flow surprises.

 Article by Marty Zwilling -http://blog.startupprofessionals.com
*** First published on Young Entrepreneur on 07/12/2013 ***

The secret to Entrepreneurial Happiness

During our childhood years, measuring success was as simple as counting gold stars and smiley face stickers. In high school and college, we relied on report cards. But how do we determine success now, as entrepreneurs?
In Southern California’s bustling startup scene, known as “Silicon Beach,” many professionals leave the comfort of a steady paycheck to pursue the American dream of starting something they can call their own. And after numerous conversations with like-minded entrepreneurs, we found that many of these entrepreneurs measured their venture’s success not in dollars, but by their own satisfaction or happiness.
It’s no secret that money can’t buy happiness. In fact, according to an off-sited study by Stanford University economist Angus Deaton and psychologist Daniel Kahneman, once you’re pulling in a salary of $75,000, any additional dollar earned does nothing more to increase personal life satisfaction.
So if happiness cannot be bought — and yet we use it to measure our business success — what can we do to attain it? Over the last decade, researchers in Positive Psychology have discovered a number of behaviors that boost happiness. To boost your own, practice these four behaviors:

1. Create a social circle of like-minded entrepreneurs.

Two heads are better than one when it comes to problem solving. A team of entrepreneurial peers can see what escapes our own attention, point out pitfalls ahead of time, and become a sounding board for critical decisions and actions.
Commit to creating a circle of like-minded entrepreneurs in which no money is exchanged between members.

2. Give your time away.

Many entrepreneurs think that devoting every waking moment to their company will ultimately be the key to success. But when you spend time helping others instead of yourself, your sense of time expands.
Professor  Cassie Mogilner, a researcher on happiness and time management atthe Wharton School, explained this recently: “The results show that giving your time to others can make you feel more ‘time affluent’ and less time-constrained than wasting your time, spending it on yourself, or even getting a windfall of free time.”
Whether it be through mentorship, volunteering, showing interest, or lending an ear to a friend, giving time to others expands your sense of time and results in greater life satisfaction.

3. Set attainable goals.

The art of goal-setting can take years to master. As entrepreneurs, we all have big goals, and to experience success we have to learn to break large goals into smaller goals that are within our daily reach.
Try creating one goal per day that you want to accomplish outside of your day-to-day emails and meeting commitments — then do everything in your power to turn this into a lasting habit.

4. Practice gratitude.

There are a variety of ways to practice gratitude that entrepreneurs can easily incorporate into their daily routine. One approach is to set aside time every week to write thank you notes, sent via snail mail or over email.
If you thank a client, that’s expected. But if you thank someone for an unexpected task, research from Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky at the University of California suggests that your mind becomes more sensitive to positive interactions — and less sensitive to negative ones.
By practicing gratitude, you will begin to cultivate a chronic state of happiness.

Happiness is the new gold standard.

The traditional gold standard for measuring professional success is money, yet entrepreneurs almost always cite happiness as the highest-priority goal for attaining success.
Do you already practice any of these four happiness-promoting behaviors? If not, try integrating them into your daily practice today.
And guess what? Happiness can also lead to better health, more energy, productivity, and yes — more money.

Dmitriy Katsel is the founder of Spring Theory, an organization that matches corporations with universities in semester-long collaborations to explore solutions to big challenges. Sara Gershfeld, behavior analyst and founder of LoveMyProvider, also contributed to this article.


Read more at http://under30ceo.com/the-secret-to-entrepreneurial-happiness/#11p2d9U8JPmb7sAV.99

8 Key Focus Elements Will Attract Startup Investors

One of the most common failures I see in startups is lack of focus.
Unfocused entrepreneurs boast that their new technology will generate multiple disruptive products for consumers as well as enterprises around the world. Investors hear this as trying to do too many things with limited resources, meaning the startup will not shine at anything, and will not survive the competition.
For example, just last week, I received a startup executive summary, requesting Angel investor funding, that touted technology for a line of new medical devices, also to be offered in a new military radar device. Even a company with unlimited money and people shouldn’t try to step into those two domains for the first time at the same time.
Other elements of startup focus are a bit fuzzier, so let me zoom-in on some key ones here:

1. Type of business model. Startups that try to mix a non-profit entity with a for-profit entity to share resources don’t work, and scare off investors. Providing shoes for the poor is a laudable goal, but quite a different business than Zappos, which sells clothes profitably, and provides free shoes for the needy due to social consciousness.
2. Solve one problem really well. Focus means starting with a problem that is painful, rather than a technology, and showing how you can solve that problem better than anyone else. Later in the pitch, you can show that you are not a one-trick pony by prioritizing related solutions in your long-term plan.
3. Limited goals and priorities. No organization can manage more than 3 to 5 goals and priorities without becoming unfocused and ineffective. Keep these balanced and aligned between people (customers, employees) and process (quality, service, revenue), and keep the scope realistic (eliminating world hunger is too broad).
4. Segment the opportunity. Targeting all the people in China as your opportunity gives you big numbers from a small penetration percentage, but will be seen as lack of focus by investors. Narrow the scope more realistically to people with specific age, income, and education demographics, that you can realistically reach with your marketing plan.
5. Keep your value chain consistent. Your value chain is your preferred business model, like premium quality, high service. If you mix that model with some commodity items, with no service, that will be seen as a lack of focus. Your team, customers, and investors will all be confused, leading to a lose-lose situation.
6. Simplify product scope. Your product will never have enough features to satisfy everyone, and it will never be perfect. Focus means creating a minimum viable product (MVP) first, and validating it in the marketplace. Feature-rich products take too much time and money to build, are hard to pivot, and will likely be slow and difficult to use.
7. Realistically frame the competition. If you really believe that IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle are your competition, you probably don’t have a business. It’s better to focus on a niche that none of them do well, and build your plan around that opportunity. Claiming you have no competition also implies lack of focus, or you don’t have a business.
8. Prioritize marketing channels. For a startup, it’s impossible to run an effective Facebook, Twitter, content marketing, and Google AdWords online campaign all at the same time. Focus on one channel at a time, measure results, and then move to the next. Offline, it’s not credible to talk about direct marketing, distributors, and integrators all in the same breath.

I certainly understand the pressure add more of everything to your plan, as you listen to more and more people, all with their own priorities and biases. But in the long run, you need a narrow and memorable focus to build a strong company. Even in the short term, customers and investors alike will help you carry a simple and clear focus all the way to the bank.
Marty Zwilling
more of Marty on http://blog.startupprofessionals.com

10 Surprising Assertions From Elite Entrepreneurs

Most people agree that entrepreneurs have to think differently and take risks to have much chance of building a successful business. Yet I have found that serious entrepreneurs usually go way beyond these platitudes in their actions and thinking, and often won’t volunteer their real views, for fear of alienating “regular” people, and being branded a fanatic.
In his new book “The Entrepreneur Mind,” by serial entrepreneur Kevin D. Johnson, he outlines 100 essential beliefs, insights, and habits of serious entrepreneurs. Most of these are predictable, like think big and create new markets, but I found a few, like the ten below, that will likely raise the hackles of many people outside this lifestyle, and many “wannabe” entrepreneurs.
Yet, based on my own years of experience “in the business”, mentoring many entrepreneurs, and following stalwarts like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, even these potentially controversial mindsets ring true to me:

1. All risk isn’t risky. Entrepreneurs surely understand the high probability of failure, but they don’t necessarily like to gamble. Instead, they take calculated risks, stacking the deck in their favor. They must have enough confidence in themselves, supplemented by expert knowledge, solid relationships, or personal wealth, to see the risk as near zero.
2. Business comes first, family second. This view isn’t a selfish one, but a recognition by serious entrepreneurs that family well-being is dependent on the success of the business, not the other way around. This is why airlines ask you to put on your oxygen mask first. Should you forego closing a million dollar deal to attend a ball game with your son?
3. Following your passion is bogus. Look for a good business model first. Your passion may be for a good cause, like curing world hunger, but it may not be a good business. In any young business, you inevitably find things that are not enjoyable, but need to be done, like cold calls or firing unproductive employees. Just doing fun things is a myth.
4. It’s not about being your own boss. Great entrepreneurs aren’t interested in being bosses at all. People who crave the freedom to do what they want when they want generally make terrible entrepreneurs. In order to be a successful entrepreneur, discipline is a must, and accept your new bosses as investors, partners, and customers.
5. Fire your worst customers. We have all had customers who take advantage of us, to the detriment of other good customers. The best entrepreneurs are quick to make the tough decisions to bypass bad customers, with proper respect, to minimize frustration, resource drain, and reputation loss. You can’t please everyone all the time.
6. Ignorance can be bliss. It’s great to be highly familiar with the industry in which you plan to compete, but many times people see too many challenges, and never start. In other cases, entrepreneurs are opening up new business areas, so no one yet knows the challenges. Serious entrepreneurs trust their ability to beat a new path to the opportunity.
7. You’re in no rush to get an MBA. If you are already an entrepreneur, more education, including an MBA, will only slow you down. Consider it a waste of time. If you plan to become an entrepreneur, and already have business experience or an undergraduate business degree, skip the two-year delay and cost of the MBA.
8. You are odd, and it’s OK. Entrepreneurs, especially those in technology, usually don’t start out as well-rounded, well-adjusted leaders. In fact, being odd is quite the norm. According to other studies, attention-deficit disorder (ADD) is common, as well as host of other personality disorders. It’s actually cool to be a geek in this lifestyle.
9. A check in hand means nothing. Every entrepreneur remembers their naïve days when that first customer check bounced. When you receive a new purchase order, a check, a verbal agreement, or even a written agreement, don’t get too happy and excited. Save the celebration until you have cold cash in hand, or the funds are verified.
10. There’s no such thing as a cold call. If you are an elite entrepreneur, you don’t go into anything cold. With the Internet and a plethora of other resources, you can warm up any call quickly, and not waste your time or theirs. Doing your homework first is one of the best ways to get an advantage over your competition.

If you think Johnson is on the right track, see his book for 90 more challenging insights. Even if you disagree with some of these, try to open your mind to the value of the seemingly backward way of thinking required to be a great entrepreneur – others seek refuge, they take risks; others want a job, they want to create jobs; others follow the market, while they define the market.
Have you caught the entrepreneur bug yet? If so, prepare for a lifetime commitment, and learn from the elite. There is no turning back.

Marty Zwilling
http://blog.startupprofessionals.com

Why hire an Entrepreneurial Coach?

If your reason has to do with time or money, then my response is: you can’t afford to be without one.

In an era of stiff competition both on domestic and global scales, no family business or any enterprise owner needs to be an island. Even the CEO of Google once said, ‘Everyone needs a coach.’

There are generally three problems for the typical business owner/entrepreneur:

-You are overwhelmed with ideas and information and you need a trusted source to help you design and implement a compelling action plan to take your business to the next level.
-You need to learn more business and marketing skills so you can increase revenue and grow your business.
-You know what you need to do – but simply can’t find the time to juggle all the responsibilities of owning a business.

Without support and knowledge in running a business, you’ll end up struggling to make your business a success, and all your passion and enthusiasm will drain away. Presuming you know all the basics, what else can an Entrepreneurial Coach do for you?

Let’s go to sports. If we examine the word ‘coach’ and think of sports, we ask how coaches function to enhance the performance of their athletes.

One way is by imparting new skills, tricks of the trade that they learned or figured out for themselves, that aren’t intuitively obvious to their players. Coaches get their players to play harder. They do this through all kinds of means, among them goal setting and encouragement, to name a few.

 

Coaching addresses the loneliness of business owners who just don’t have anyone they can turn to in order to discuss their challenges. Left on their own, struggling entrepreneurs or start-ups will be tempted to kick back, especially after achieving only moderate success. This can lead to backsliding and to a downward cycle of achievement. With a business coach, they’ll get a prodding, pushing, and occasional kick in the pants that they need to reach peak performance.

Hiring an Entrepreneurial Coach will:

-Help business owners and CEO’s clarify their vision and goals;

-Craft a cohesive action plan for growing your business;

-Turn breakdowns into breakthroughs;

-Show you how to accomplish more by working smart and not just working hard;

-Identify and put into action: what‘s working, what’s not working, what’s missing and what’s next;

-Develop momentum and keep one from diverting from one project to another before completing the previous one;

-Create a culture of accountability by holding the owner accountable for the goals he/she sets and never let reasons or excuses justify weak performances;

-Manage/resolve conflict and build teams;

-Show the owner ‘the forest through the trees’ more clearly by identifying effective, as well as ineffective behavior patterns that others might not see or be aware off;-

-Improve communications throughout the entire organization;

-Generate substantial increases in sales and profitability;

-Increase revenue and profits;

-Provide a complete toolbox of coaching skills for managers to use to inspire employees.

 However, let me point out that entrepreneurial coaching is not consulting. What’s the difference between an Entrepreneurial Coach and a Consultant?

Like a sports coach, an entrepreneurial coach works on bringing out the best that’s already inside you. In small business coaching, you will be asked to focus on the ‘bigger picture’ of what it is you want to create for your business (and your lifestyle), and talk about what will keep you motivated to move forward on your dreams, goals and tasks.

A consultant will tell you what to do regardless of whether it suits you and it’s up to you to put the plan in motion. Very often, clients do not implement the plan because they have no motivation or they do not like the plan. An Entrepreneurial Coach will help you figure out what you do best, make a plan, push you to do more, and will stay with you as you implement the plan. It’s no accident that professional athletes have coaches – they know the value of partnership.

Entrepreneurial coaching is not a quick fix. Rather, it’s a partnership between coach and client lasting from several months to several years. Building a business takes time and energy. True success comes from doing the work necessary to achieve results. You must be ready to do the work that will maximize your potential.

There is a good analogy that illustrates the difference between an Entrepreneurial Coach and a Consultant:

-An Entrepreneurial Coach will help you understand how and why you ride a bicycle, help you to determine what’s holding you back from riding properly, and jog along next to you as YOU ride;
-A Business Consultant will explain you why one bike is superior to another, teach you how to ride the bike, and if necessary, ride the bike for you.

Which one is best for you is based on your needs, values, as well your time constraints and deadlines.

Professor Enrique Soriano III (Ateneo de Manila University)

Article first published in Franchising.PH

How Entrepreneurial Instincts Can Boost Your Career

 

The days when you locked and loaded your career in school, and then blasted away down that same narrow path the rest of your life, are gone, never to return. Career survival today requires thinking and acting like an entrepreneur starting a business, staying nimble and resilient, willing to pivot, and supersensitive to the market realities of supply and demand.
Over the years I have spent mentoring entrepreneurs and startups, I often notice the similarities between successful professionals managing their careers and successful entrepreneurs building a business. Reid Hoffman, cofounder of LinkedIn, helped me crystallize these similarities with his book “The Start-up of You.” Here are key survival skills for both lifestyles:

1. Adopt the mindset of a permanent beta. Finished ought to be an F-word for all of us. We are all works in progress. Each day presents an opportunity to learn more, do more, be more, and grow more in our lives and careers. Keeping your career in permanent beta forces you to acknowledge that you have bugs, and intend to improve yourself.
2. Regularly assess and refine your competitive advantage. Your competitive advantage is the interplay of three different, ever-changing forces – your assets, aspirations and values, and the market realities of supply and demand. Smart professionals constantly assess the market, and strengthen and diversify skills.
3. Plan to pivot as you learn. Change is the only constant in this world, and every change is an opportunity to learn. Plan to adapt, and start it every day on the side. Don’t wait for something to fail before you learn, or before you consider a change or pivot. The best pivots are to take advantage of an upside, rather than avoid a downside.
4. Build and use your network. World-class professionals don’t try to take on the world alone. People playing a solo game will always lose out to a team. Successful entrepreneurs are ones who put together the best teams. Build your network with people smarter than you. With effective networking, who you know is what you know.
5. Pursue breakout opportunities. Success begins with opportunities, but these mean nothing unless you execute on them. Others taking breakout opportunities can be dismissed as lucky, but more often it’s the result of their work to be at the right place at the right time, with the right mindset. Be curious, confident, and willing to learn.
6. Take intelligent risks. We are all risk takers. But we are not all equally intelligent about how we do it. In a changing world, minimizing risk is one of the riskiest things you can do. The most intelligent risks are those where the potential downside is limited, but the potential upside is virtually unlimited. Those are the risks every business jumps to take.
7. Maintain that sense of urgency. Entrepreneurs know that in business, change overtakes the best of big companies, and even startups have to maintain a sense of urgency to stay ahead of the curve. For every professional, opportunities come and go at an astonishing speed, so only a continuing sense of urgency will keep you alert.

In addition to you and the network around you, there is a broader environment that shapes your career potential. It’s the local culture and society around you. So think carefully about where you choose to live and work, or where you choose to start a business. Your maximum potential may be in another place in the global environment, or as a volunteer versus an employee role.
In the bigger picture, I’m convinced that we were all born as entrepreneurs, with the instincts listed above to survive, grow, and prosper. How many of these career survival instincts have you used lately to deal with the changes we all see?
Marty Zwilling

http://startupprofessionals.com

The Basics of Branding

Learn what this critical business term means and what you can do to establish one for your company

 

Branding is one of the most important aspects of any business, large or small, retail or B2B. An effective brand strategy gives you a major edge in increasingly competitive markets. But what exactly does "branding" mean? How does it affect a small business like yours?

Simply put, your brand is your promise to your customer. It tells them what they can expect from your products and services, and it differentiates your offering from your competitors'. Your brand is derived from who you are, who you want to be and who people perceive you to be.

Are you the innovative maverick in your industry? Or the experienced, reliable one? Is your product the high-cost, high-quality option, or the low-cost, high-value option? You can't be both, and you can't be all things to all people. Who you are should be based to some extent on who your target customers want and need you to be.

The foundation of your brand is your logo. Your website, packaging and promotional materials--all of which should integrate your logo--communicate your brand.

Brand Strategy & Equity

Your brand strategy is how, what, where, when and to whom you plan on communicating and delivering on your brand messages. Where you advertise is part of your brand strategy. Your distribution channels are also part of your brand strategy. And what you communicate visually and verbally are part of your brand strategy, too.

Consistent, strategic branding leads to a strong brand equity, which means the added value brought to your company's products or services that allows you to charge more for your brand than what identical, unbranded products command. The most obvious example of this is Coke vs. a generic soda. Because Coca-Cola has built a powerful brand equity, it can charge more for its product--and customers will pay that higher price.

The added value intrinsic to brand equity frequently comes in the form of perceived quality or emotional attachment. For example, Nike associates its products with star athletes, hoping customers will transfer their emotional attachment from the athlete to the product. For Nike, it's not just the shoe's features that sell the shoe.

Defining Your Brand

Defining your brand is like a journey of business self-discovery. It can be difficult, time-consuming and uncomfortable. It requires, at the very least, that you answer the questions below:

What is your company's mission?

• What are the benefits and features of your products or services?
• What do your customers and prospects already think of your company?
• What qualities do you want them to associate with your company?

Do your research. Learn the needs, habits and desires of your current and prospective customers. And don't rely on what you think they think. Know what they think.

Because defining your brand and developing a brand strategy can be complex, consider leveraging the expertise of a non-profit small-business advisory group or a Small Business Development Center  like  BETA – Business & Entrepreneurial Training Academy.

Once you've defined your brand, how do you get the word out? Here are a few simple, time-tested tips:

• Get a great logo. Place it everywhere.
• Write down your brand messaging. What are the key messages you want to communicate about your brand? Every employee should be aware of your brand attributes.
• Integrate your brand. Branding extends to every aspect of your business--how you answer your phones, what you or your salespeople wear on sales calls, your e-mail signature, everything.
• Create a "voice" for your company that reflects your brand. This voice should be applied to all written communication and incorporated in the visual imagery of all materials, online and off. Is your brand friendly? Be conversational. Is it ritzy? Be more formal. You get the gist.
• Develop a tagline. Write a memorable, meaningful and concise statement that captures the essence of your brand.
• Design templates and create brand standards for your marketing materials. Use the same color scheme, logo placement, look and feel throughout. You don't need to be fancy, just consistent.
• Be true to your brand. Customers won't return to you--or refer you to someone else--if you don't deliver on your brand promise.
• Be consistent. I placed this point last only because it involves all of the above and is the most important tip I can give you. If you can't do this, your attempts at establishing a brand will fail.

John Williams is the founder and president of LogoYes.com, the world's first do-it-yourself logo design website. During John's 25 years in advertising, he's created brand standards for Fortune 100 companies like Mitsubishi and won numerous awards for his design work.

Source Entrepreneur Magazine : http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/77408#ixzz2OGgKINXt