Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Think, for a moment…what did you have planned for this week? What about for today? What about before lunch? Tell me…do you dictate your schedule, or does your schedule dictate you. I tell you what, if your schedule is the one that is making the rules, you are leading yourself to a life of stress and ineffectiveness.

Time is a constant. It is something that either works for you or works against you, depending on your ability to utilize it. If you are able to effectively block out times to get things done, and are actually working on those things at that time, you are well on your way. If you have decided that you are going to do things liaises-faire, you, too, have at least addressed time. If you find that you are constantly running out of time, running, late and not accomplishing what you'd planned to accomplish, you guess it…you are not using your time more effectively.

How you get things done is going to be based on your personality. Your personality is something that you have to truly own in order to be the most effective you that you can be. Nicole Greer, from Team Laurie Beth Jones, is a consultant in that area, and breaks personalities into four basic elements: Wind, Earth, Fire and Water.

If you are a blustery (windy) person that has to have a million balls in the air at one time, creating more of stir than anything else, you won't do well with a very rigid schedule…you need more of a liaises-faire scheduling - which means that you've got a number of things that you must do in a given time - schedule yourself some flexibility so that when it is time to focus, you can do so.

If you, on the other hand, are a person that has a LOT to do, and is always sparking up something new (Fire), how do you slow down to focus on those things that are Important but not Urgent? I suggest you begin to schedule time, every week, to do this. For me, this is blogging, scanning papers, business development. I have several hours during the week that I put into each area to ensure that they are not getting overlooked or pushed to the side.

Of course, there are many extremes to personalities, and many different needs of different people. However, it all goes back to, "how can I use my time most effectively to focus on what I need to be done?" The first thing, I submit, is to know yourself.

At Aepiphanni Business Solutions, we are dedicated to serving the needs of small business owners. We specialize in helping you develop strategies for your organization, and are committed to your success. If you have further questions about creating your strategy or developing your vision, please give me, Rick Meekins, a call at 678-265-3908, or email us at info@aepiphanni.com.

Labels: Business Growth Strategies, Business Path, Management and Leadership

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Do you remember in school when your teacher told you to think about what you wanted to do when you grew up? Do you remember that she told you to write a story about it? If you remember bits and pieces of the story, you'll remember that bits and pieces stayed with you - you added here, tweaked there, and simply got rid of some of those things. If you think about it, this was the first time you put your dream on paper. Inevitably, even if you didn't become Hershal Walker, Mean Joe Green or Nadia Comaneci, there were some elements that went with you, be it a love for football, competition, focus or motivation.

Your business has a future with a story as well. As a matter of fact, when you started your business, you had a story about what it would look like at some point, be it when it was successful, when it made you rich or when it had its IPO (Initial Public Offering). While it seems a bit rudamentary, creating a story about your business is one of the basic steps in creating a strategy for your business. Believe it or not, with some supporting evidence, your story can help strengthen your business plan and make it something that is practical for your business!

While this may be challenging, depending on your personality and interests, this is a vital, cleansing tool that helps you think through the business planning process. Once you get started, it is something that sticks with you until you feel like you've gotten everything down. It helps you stay focused and avoid being distracted by naysayers. At the same time, you can begin to see how diffrerent areas of your business work together.

Here are a couple of pointers:

• Don't necessarilly start with an outline. For some, an outline will be the only way to go. However, if you feel like your creative juices will be muffled by an outline, start out with your story. Either way, you will want to go back later and update, expand, etc.
• If you do choose to work from an outline, use bulletpoints or another brainstorming process to gather your thoughts. This will keep you from getting bogged down trying to figure out how certain parts of the story fit together. You will see that you have Aepiphannis while in the shower, on the road or listening to your spouse that will fit into your story. :)
• Don't write to publish. When working on your story, keep in mind that you'll want to substantiate your story. Substantiating your story will be the art of putting your story to the test - is it marketable? could it be profitable? is there a need for this? how will it fit into the marketplace - will it replace something? will it fill a void?
• Don't keep your story to yourself. While there are certain parts of the business - the core of your business - that you will want to remain focused on, there are other less material parts of the business, such as the process, market, etc, that you will want to accept input on. Focus on the end, then the means. Share your story and see where others can provide you additional perspective.
• Don't consider the final draft as the final draft. Just as your business is a living, breathing entity, your business's story will be, too. You will look at the end of each year how you've done things a bit differently then you originally planned. Update your story and continue to move forward.

This, unfortunately, is only the 'tip of the iceberg' when working on your strategic planning or business plan for your business, but it is a start, and one that you will find of value for your business. Remember, as Dr. Steven Covey postulates, "Begin with the end in mind," then build your strategy from there.

At Aepiphanni Business Solutions, we are dedicated to serving the needs of small business owners. We specialize in helping you develop strategies for your organization, and are committed to your success. If you have further questions about creating your strategy or developing your vision, please give me, Rick Meekins, a call at 678-265-3908, or email us at info@aepiphanni.com.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Skills conversion key to business success in Africa

Written by Macharia Waruingi and Jean Njoroge


Artisans at Gikomba Jua Kali market in Nairobi. The art of discovering what local people know is the first step in knowledge conversion.
July 17, 2008: The competitiveness of a company depends on the ability of the workers to convert and exploit knowledge. In fact, the rapidity with which an organisation can convert and exploit local knowledge is critical to the success of the organisation. Indeed, ability to convert and exploit local knowledge fundamentally determines whether the company will succeed or fail. At a higher level, a nation’s ability to convert and exploit local knowledge is critical to its development. This argument establishes the critical nature of the art of knowledge conversion in business and national development. Peter Senge, the author of the Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organisation referred to organisations that master the art of converting and exploiting knowledge as learning organisations. [Rest of article…]

Forstmann: Credit Woes to Worsen
Wednesday, July 16, 2008 1:52 PM
If you think the credit crunch is bad now, wait — you ain’t seen nothing yet.
So says Theodore J. Forstmann, co-founder of Forstmann Little & Company, a private equity firm which was once the world's most successful. Until 2005 Forstmann was also a member of the elite Forbes 400 richest Americans list.
"We are in a credit crisis the likes of which I've never seen in my lifetime," Forstmann told The Wall Street Journal in a recent interview. [Rest of article…]

Great Article!!

Mirror, Mirror
By The Star Makers Group Marilyn Lustgarten
ROCKLAND (July 16): In the early 20th century, G.K. Chesterton, historian, literary and social critic, and one of the most prolific writers of the time was invited, along with several other eminent authors, by The Times to write an essay on "What's Wrong with the World?" His now famous essay was brief, "I am." Sincerely yours, G.K. Chesterton.
Unfortunately, when things go wrong in an organization, a typical reaction is to blame everyone else rather than take an introspective view of the consequences of our own behavior and decisions. Interesting, when you consider so much has been written and concluded about the wisdom of doing just the opposite! For example, Stephen Covey's now classic list of Seven Habits of Highly Effective Leaders starts with "be proactive, trust others, blame yourself" [Rest of article…]

The art of leadership
AL LOCK
I'm hearing a lot of interest in leadership development these days. Last year, both The Economist and Fortune magazine ran articles on the importance of building leaders in organisations. Not too long ago, I was meeting with a friend who has been in the HR field for many years.
She told me that she thought many companies looked for and tried to develop leaders in a certain mold. I think she is right, many companies do just that. And I think they are short-changing themselves when they do so. [Rest of article…]

Standing out in the crowd is key to building your brand, but knowing when to say no to growth is equally important
Posted July 16, 2008

—By Robert Kiyosaki, who is the author of the Rich Dad series of books, is an investor, entrepreneur and educator whose perspectives have changed the way people think about money and investing.
Much has been written about the importance of brands, especially in this crowded, competitive world. If you're not a brand, you're just a commodity: There are computers, and then there are Apple computers. Two types of brands exist: corporate and entrepreneurial. An example of a corporate brand is Lexus, the brand for people who want to pay more for their Toyota. Examples of entrepreneurial brands are Michael Dell, Enzo Ferrari, Henry Ford, Ferdinand Porsche and Donald Trump. For these entrepreneurs to build their brand, they must first be the brand. Their unique character is projected through their business, products and brand message. When I meet with Trump, the moment I enter the lobby of Trump Tower, my senses are overwhelmed by the Trump message, Trump experience, and ultimately, the Trump promise. [Rest of article…]

At Aepiphanni Business Solutions, we are dedicated to serving the needs of small business owners. We specialize in helping you develop strategies for your organization, and are committed to your success. If you have further questions about creating your strategy or developing your vision, please give me, Rick Meekins, a call at 678-265-3908, or email us at info@aepiphanni.com.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

States Give Small Business More Health Care Help
Initiatives include subsidies, tax deductions and more-affordable plans.

By Martha Lynn Craver, Associate Editor, The Kiplinger Letter

July 15, 2008
RELATED FORECASTS
Employers Attack Health Care Costs -- and Find Success
HELPFUL LINKS
National Conference of State Legislatures
EDITOR'S PICKS
States Give Small Firms Health Care Help
Public Not Ready for Major Health Care Changes
More states aim to help small business owners provide health insurance to their workers. But they'll forgo ambitious, sweeping reforms and opt instead for modest measures. With more than half the states reporting budget shortfalls, less costly efforts are all they can afford until the economy improves and state revenues pick up. Here's a rundown of what's happening:
New Hampshire will make insurers offer a more-affordable plan to small businesses with up to 50 employees. The plan, expected to be available by October 2009, will be designed by a committee that includes small business owners. The goal is a premium at or below 10% of the previous year's median wage, which currently would be about $262 a month. Premium costs will be controlled by focusing on wellness efforts, such as promoting preventive care and best practices, and managing chronic illnesses.
Florida will allow insurers to offer bare-bones policies to employers with 50 or fewer employees. These policies will be affordable for employers because they will not include the dozens of mandated benefits that other plans in the state must include and that often push the cost beyond reach. Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Rhode Island and Washington state already have similar programs for smalls.
South Carolina will allow smalls to band together to increase their bargaining clout so they can get lower rates when buying insurance coverage for their employees. A group of at least 10 small firms can join together and negotiate cheaper rates. Previous state law allowed businesses to do this but set a minimum of 1000 employees. The new law lowers the threshold to 50.
Oklahoma will expand its program to help small employers so that it includes firms up to 250 workers. The old limit was 50. The state pays 60% of the cost, with employers paying 25% and workers, 15%. The law also expands eligibility in the program to workers by raising the income cap.
Maryland has a new program that offers subsidies to smalls to offset the cost of providing coverage to their employees. Eligible employers must not have offered health coverage to their workers within the past 12 months. They must also meet certain low-wage requirements, have between two and nine employees and establish a Section 125 payroll deduction plan to allow for pretax premium contributions.
Alabama will provide employers with a tax deduction. Effective Jan. 1, 2009, small business owners with fewer than 25 workers will be able to deduct 150% of the amount they pay for employee health insurance premiums from their state income taxes. The new law also allows wage earners of small businesses, who earn $50,000 or less annually, to deduct 150% of what they pay for health insurance from state income taxes.

At Aepiphanni Business Solutions, we are dedicated to serving the needs of small business owners. We specialize in helping you develop strategies for your organization, and are committed to your success. If you have further questions about creating your strategy or developing your vision, please give me, Rick Meekins, a call at 678-265-3908, or email us at info@aepiphanni.com.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Thursday, July 10, 2008

I walked in Dollar General the other day and decided, pretty quickly, why it was called DG. There were literally thousands of things all over the place that were, for the most part, inexpensive. Of course, they had their treasures - those toys you saw on TV that you weren't going through the hassle of purchasing, or were interesting, just not credit-card worthy, at the moment. As I browsed the shelves, looking for something for one of my kids birthday parties, I realized that DG has exactly what I am looking for: something inexpensive with no frills.

On the other hand, I wanted to buy my wife a new pair of sandals. I don't think the thought even occurred to me to go to Dollar General…it was Macys all the way. I could have gone to Target or any number of stores, but I chose Macy's Why? Because of the reputation Macy's has for quality products. Because when I tell my wife I got it from Macys she understands that this means that she is special to me.

This is branding.

Think about this, for a moment…where do you suppose most of your clients get the most in-depth view of you? Consider this…the people you could be selling to have opportunity to buy your products and services from any given number of companies. Why? Because of the internet and web trafficking. 80% of homes in the US have computers, and 80% of those people use the internet to research any company they do business with.

When is the last time you looked at your website - I mean, really looked at it with a critical eye? Have you had any of your clients, associates or trusted advisors take a look at it and offer you some suggestions on what you could do with your site? Is your copy up to date? Your website is the first place people look. Even if you get a referral, that person or company will look you up, then look up four of your competitors. Why shoot yourself in the foot?

A few tips from SetWeb Global about websites:

• Get your website up to date.

• Do not look at what other people in your industry are doing, look at where your clients are shopping and their expectations.

• Hire a copyrighter. It will make all of the difference in the world.

• Market your website - when you can, use an internet marketing consultant

• Do not just put a site up, consider your return on investment. You want money back from every dollar you put into the site.

• As you make money from the site, like anything else, put money back into it. (Marketing, updates, copy updates)

• Update the site - constantly. Make a practice of doing something to it. Have your web designer build the site on WordPress so that you can update it yourself with interesting company news, articles and products.

• Use appropriate pictures. If you use poor pictures, expect poor results.

• Make your organization as transparent as feasibly possible! The more information you can convey about your company, the better purchasing decision your prospect can make, and the cleaner your leads will be.

Your website is often going to be the front door of your organization. You need to project the proper image. Your website needs to make you money. Be the Macy's or be the Dollar General, and do it well.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Publication Date: 7/2/2008 7:39:47 PM

HARVEY SCHACHTER

Special to The Globe and Mail; harvey@harveyschachter.com

July 2, 2008

TRANSPARENCY

By Warren Bennis, Daniel Goleman and James O'Toolewith Patricia Ward BiedermanJossey-Bass, 130 pages, $24.99

Print Edition - Section Front

In organizations, the flow of information functions like a central nervous system. It links all the parts, allowing for effective, healthy operations. That flow of information requires candour and a culture of openness. Followers must feel free to speak, and leaders must welcome such openness.

Most companies claim they have such transparency. But some leadership experts insist that's nonsense. "No matter the official line, true transparency is rare," Warren Bennis, Daniel Goleman, and Patricia Ward Biederman write in Transparency, a short book of interrelated essays that feature their ideas and those of University of Denver ethics professor James O'Toole.

Transparency, Mr. Bennis argues in the preface, has become an urgent issue because of the emergence in the past decade of ubiquitous digital technology that makes transparency all but inevitable. "The leaders who will thrive and whose organizations will flourish in this era of electronic tattle-tales are the ones who strive to make their organizations as transparent as possible. Despite legitimate moral and legal limits on disclosure, leaders should at least aspire to a policy of 'no secrets,' " Mr. Bennis, Mr. Goleman, and Ms. Biederman write in their joint essay.

But the reality is, some leaders will fight against transparency. Prof. O'Toole, in his essay on Speaking Truth to Power, recalls challenging the factual basis of an assertion made by Donald Rumsfeld in the 1990s, when he was an executive before being named U.S. defence secretary. Mr. O'Toole says Mr. Rumsfeld came after him with bone-chilling intensity: "No one questions me! Do you understand that?" And he added, apparently with total conviction: "I am never wrong."

Speaking your mind to the powerful is, Prof. O'Toole writes, one of the oldest ethical challenges. It can be terrifying because the punishment can be brutal, whether you're an opposition figure in Zimbabwe or a middle manager in a modern, supposedly humane North American corporation.

He tells of the time in the 1980s when he was invited to meet with top executives of Cowles Media Corp. to discuss the corporate culture. He started by asking the management team for short, descriptive phrases that best described its culture, only to be greeted by silence. He asked again. More silence.

Finally, he was passed an unsigned note that read: "Dummy, can't you see that we can't speak our minds? Ask for our input anonymously, in writing." So for the next two hours, he would ask them questions about their culture, the answers would be written on slips of paper, and he would read them back to the cowering Cowles executives. He found the meeting pathetic, but was later told by some it was the best session they had experienced under the chief executive officer at the time.

By comparison, in the late 1970s Prof. O'Toole addressed the management team of then-startup Federal Express Corp. on the subject of worker productivity. He was about 10 minutes into his presentation when a young manager interrupted to pose a challenge to his colleagues: "The professor has made an interesting point that runs counter to a major decision management made a couple of weeks ago. I suggest we re-examine that decision now in light of what we have just learned."

That interjection was amazing enough. Even more mind-boggling was that the group then began a no-holds-barred debate of the issue, in which lower-level managers forced those at the top to defend their decision. When it became clear the policy couldn't be defended, the younger managers asked their bosses to change it - which they did.

At the end, they all went to lunch without a trace of hard feelings, or a sign that anyone had won or lost face, power or status. The openness and willingness to raise tough questions and challenge accepted wisdom was simply part of the culture. He seemed to be the only one in the room who found the exchange unusual.

Cowles went down the tubes. FedEx soared.

"The lesson I drew at the time from these experiences was that managers in companies with healthy cultures are constantly willing to rethink even their most basic assumptions through a process of constructive dissent," Prof. O'Toole says. "And my experience over the next 30 years confirms in my mind that companies get into moral and competitive hot water when their leaders are unwilling to test their operating premises about such often-taboo subjects as the nature of the working conditions they offer employees, the purposes of their corporation, and their responsibilities to various stakeholders."

The essays are well constructed, and the arguments compelling. But the readers drawn to it will be in agreement and those who need to be converted to transparency will be unlikely to pick up the book. While the arguments are strong, and the anecdotes often striking, candour starts at the top and there's not a lot of advice readers can take away from the book on how to prevail against bosses who resist transparency.

In addition: In Outsmart (Financial Times, 188 pages, $24.99) James Champy, chairman of Perot Systems' consulting practice, starts with Darwin's survival of the fittest and argues that corporations will only continue to exist if they outsmart their competition. To find out how to do that, he profiles a number of fascinating companies - mostly startups, but also Smith & Wesson, the gun company that was near death at 155 years of age before a savvy chief executive officer turned it around. Mr. Campy pulls out from them some lessons we can apply to our own company. The problem is that the lessons are disparate, and although at the end he tries to bring them together into some general rules, those are already well known. But the profiles are excellent, of companies whose experiences are not regularly recounted in business books, and they will offer inspiration and no doubt the occasional idea you can import to your own situation.

Just In: Love 'Em Or Leave 'Em (Berrett-Koehler, 306 pages, $27.95), the bestseller by Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans on engaging and retaining talent, is out in an updated fourth edition.

Consultant Jill Lublin shows how to build a client base by making a name for yourself in Get Noticed ... Get Referrals (McGraw-Hill, 217 pages, $18.95)

In Microsoft 2.0, (John Wiley, 285 pages, $30.95), journalist Mary Jo Foley looks at Microsoft in the coming post-Gates era.

*****

Piece of mind ...

with peace of mind

Speaking your mind to the powerful can be virtuous, but James O'Toole, a professor of ethics at the University of Denver's Daniels College of Ethics, says the act must meet several criteria:

It must be truthful.

It must do no harm to innocents.

It must not be self-interested. The benefits must go to others, or the organization.

It must be a product of moral reflection.

It must come from a messenger who is willing to pay the price.

It must have at least a chance of bringing about positive change (there is no virtue in tilting at windmills).

It must not be done in spite or anger.

Harvey

Labels: Business Development Strategies, Business Path, Transparency

Labels: Business Development Strategies, Employees, Recession Buster