I had an interesting conversation about my view that management control over employees is a myth. I have believed for some time now that an office is often a total waste of money and completely unnecessary. Most of the time I’m told it’s OK when you work by yourself, but not if you have employees, as they need to be supervised and somehow “controlled”.

I have now been working for almost ten years from home, and most of my staff works from home too. Apart from being an eco-friendly way to work, it saves people time and frustration to travel in and around London to come to an office, where we all sit in cubicles or offices. In the days of broadband internet, Skype and OnlineOffice, there is no need for an office, even to have meetings.

Offices, like cars are are often nothing else but status symbols - what other reason can there be for a small business to have an office? If that is true then how is the office helping with your business, it’s a big expense. Seriously, if you do not have clients coming thru your office doors several times every day, why have the office. Even if you have, do really all your people need to be in the office every day? I guess not!

We are in an economic downturn, what is more important - your ego or your business - ask yourself that every time you walk into your office. I’m sure there a good reasons for some micro businesses to have offices, even so I currently can’t think of any, but I’m convinced in most cases a healthy bootstrapping and outsourcing mentality would be more beneficial for your business.

Unless the first business goal is to feed your egomania, you need to have a good hard look at your cost structure to survive in these times. — ST.

I recently spoke with one of my readers about his small business, when she all of a sudden declared she felt like a business failure. I was somewhat surprised by her statement as I thought she had established a nice little business, was making enough money and had a good work/life balance. She explained that someone had started in her line of business and his business had grown faster and she felt she could not compete with this business, she still worked form home while this competitor had already opened the third shop in the the state. She almost declared herself a failure. I asked her what her intention had been for her business when she started.

She began to explain, that she wanted to work from home since she wanted to be home for her child and still have an income and not lose touch with the work she loved. It was always clear to her that she could only spend about 10 - 20 hours of work per week, but that would give her the income and the professional life she needed, while getting her work/life balance right.

As she was telling me about her business, she began to lighten up - as she realized she had done exactly what she set out to do - far from a failure she was a success. She had made the same mistake we all make from time to time, she had compared herself to a business that clearly had different goals. Sometimes our ego gets the better of us or in cases like this the worst of us, which is why I believe it important to write your goals down on a piece of paper and look at it each week, to help you to focus and realign your actions with your goals.

Any business is only a failure when it is literately failing, like running out of money failing, if that is not the case you are a successful business. Looking at the competition is all about seeing what is happening in the market and learning from the comparison how to achieve your vision and goals, not to limit yourself to what your competition is doing.

The vision for your business should go beyond comparing yourself to your competition, comparing yourself will often limit your vision. — ST.

I always enjoy the opportunity to meet entrepreneurs out in the field, during speaking engagements, trade-shows and other events. After 30 years in business I still get a buzz out of conversations with young and just starting business owners. Yesterday I had a very special experience in as much that I was kindly asked - thanks to Phyllis Mercer - to be a guest judge at the Year 2 BTEC National Business Course for their business plans. The event was held in the St. Francis Xavier Sixth Form College in London. This unit is being led by Janice Hurley and her very capable and dedicated team.

During the course of the day I listened to 16 business plans, I was supposed to be a bank manager (!) approving bank loans for the presented ventures. I might as well mention now that I approved each and everyone of these loan applications, and I do not believe that my actions would have resulted in anything like the Northern Rock or Bear Stearns debacle. But then my business education does not limit me to just ticking boxes on a form (-forgive me for this little side dig, but it had to be done!).

What have I learned yesterday? Here are some highlights:

• Bootstrapping is alive and well, a fair amount of business plans needed no external funding, due to good focus on the business essentials;
• not all businesses wanted necessarily to grow, but focused on an income based business idea with a high job satisfaction element;
• Home-businesses, was also mentioned more than once;
• strong family and friends connections and elements in the business ideas.

These guys must be reading my blog, each one of these ideas was achievable. The format of the business plans was very good too. Not too long and drawn out with irrelevant information and to the point:

• business idea
• entrepreneur details
• very basic market study
• cash-flow and break-even calculations
• SWOT analysis

Some had added some political, economical and other risk factor analysis, which let’s be honest, is difficult to asses given the greed and stupidity circulating in the upper echelons of our business and political world currently.

So here are my favorite small business start-up ideas:

• Natalie Douglas is going to continue in a good family tradition and open a child care nursery, keeping it small and personal for parents and children.
• Cohen Gordon-Swhyer is going to offer us a sleeping experience with good customer care in his high street bed store - Ikea take note - customer care is the way forward and a great small business differentiator.
• Valerie Iwenya is opening a African cinema with a cultural experience - what a great idea.
• Carlton Nicholson is offering to make your hatchback car into something special, at a price of cause.
• Farrah Smith is opening a music store with cafe and internet so you can download your music too.
• Emmanual Opanuga is opening a shoe store chain, focusing on customer care while understanding the price pressures in this business.
• Raphael Dobbin is not going to help me loose any weight soon with his idea of a West African restaurant, but he was going to offer me free fruit as a dessert option for healthier living.
• Ibilola Johnson presented her idea for an internet cafe for local youth, as a focusing point to get our kids off the road, great social engagement thru a well established business idea.
• Monica Osborne is opening a hair saloon, judging by her own hair style she will be doing very well.
• Jeffrey Owusu will be offering a chauffeur/taxi service with multimedia entertainment for longer journeys.
• Jose Ruales is going to entertain us with a Karaoke sing-along bar. Very professional presentation, I certainly committed all the banks funds for this idea.
• Fleurette Irakoze will offer all different genres of young generation attire in one convenient location.
• Koyinsola Quadry is helping ladies to buy better shoes, especially for bigger shoe sizes. Quality, customer service and a niche market, what could possibly go wrong.
• Lawrence Madukaife will focus on the college and university student with his telecoms offering.
• Meron Nour and his Underground Imports will import trendy cloths and shoes from Japan. He explained his company was called “Underground Imports” because it was situated in the basement of a building - no other reason.
• Juan-Carlos Valverde will continue breeding his puppies and make that into a business, from home and maybe part-time.

Sadly some business ideas will not be acted upon in real life since most of the presenters will go to university in Autumn, but then maybe some on them will end up running their own business in the future. Others, I believe, were outlining their plans for the future to me and I believe they will be successful in their ventures.

It is good to know that their will be enough good and solid small businesses in the future to bail the the big, greedy and egotistical business failures out, while at the same time punishing incompetence in public life at the polls.

For me yesterday was a great and above all reassuring day that I will remember for many years to come - or to say it in their language: Guys - you rock! Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. — ST.

Recently I ordered services and was very happy to have found a supplier. We had agreed prices, scope and timescale of the project. Later I received the contract by email and started reading it. Everything seemed to be as agreed, until I got to the payment terms. There I found an unusual insertion:

We will charge 2% extra for PayPal payments.

Te motivation is quiet understandable, Paypal will charge you 2% to process your inward payment. But should you really charge your client extra for this? I would think not, since this is a great business turn-off. More business is lost through little charges here and there, it generates the feeling in the buyers mind of hidden charges. While at the same time the buyer will wonder why he/she should pay for the suppliers bank charges.

I was given options to send a cheque or pay by bank-transfer. This makes the whole situation even worse, since you would be inclined to send a cheque, which would take weeks to clear through the banking system - this was a international transaction. You would certainly not use the bank transfer option since it would cost even more. The whole problem was no made easier by demanding stage-payments.

It seems to me the solution here is to increase your prices by 2% and don’t talk about it, or enquire before hand which payment method should be used. One needs to remember that getting payed is of the utmost importance for any small business, so PayPal seems a good way to go in this instance.

Look at your payment terms and do not create unnecessary business barriers. — ST.

What is business success? I guess it can be different things to different people, for some it may be the big pay day when they sell the business. For others it may be getting your business to tick over, generate a good income and still have time for your family. Have you asked yourself what business success means for you? It is a question worth asking and answering for yourself!

It occurs to me that being successful in business, whatever your precise small business goal may be, means one thing - Leadership! The simple fact however is that leaders will fail more often than others, so failure has to be part of your way to success. The sooner you accept this, the sooner you will get there.

        Success Is A Staircase of Failures.

Failure is a prize you need to pay for being successful, a leader will know that. If you look at what leaders do, you will understand that failure is an essential part of the course and not such a big problem as society at large will have you believe. The reason for this is quite simply the fact that any problem, in this case being successful, has not a single simple answer. Different strategies will have to be tested and some will not work. This is where you see the difference between a gambler and a leader, or risk-taker.

If you are running a small business, home business or any other micro business, you are probably already successful. Because, here is the thing, it is not the big pay day that is your success, but what gets you to your big pay day is success.

Being a successful small business owner requires commitment, passion and risk-taking, or as some would call it a pioneering spirit. So, don’t complain if the stepping stones to success bruise your feet. Have a great weekend. ST.

Have you ever wondered why people buy products and services from you or anyone else for that matter? Why do people love an iPod, why do they buy a Rolex watch? The reason is always the same, it makes them feel good. It helps people to feel calm and secure, or superior - these feelings are deeply satisfying to all of us.

Is that the only motivation why people buy, I don’t think so. The other reason is to avoid feeling bad. Feeling bad may have to do with feeling pain, losing money, loosing business, being hassled, feeling guilty and so on.

Bottom line? If your product and service does not do one of the two, you may have a problem. ST.

Don’t get confused about what you, the business owner of your small business or start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer- or Personal business, like professional, contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants, should be doing? You need to do both of cause!

Unfortunately working in your business, like answering the phone, writing bills, doing the wages, talking to customers and so on is all that most business owners do. Research shows that most believe that this is all their is to do! That is very wrong and also the reason why many businesses fail.

Working on your business means to looking at it from the outside, remembering all these little customer comments, imagining a new type of technology to be employed in the business, changing the way you advertise, in other words making changes to the business, the whole business:-

• that will improve performance,
• enhance external communication with clients,
• improve the clients experience,
• cut costs out of your business,
• and many other aspects of your business.

That is in reality the most important part of what a business owner should do - plan the future. Working in your business, will make sure you you can pay your bills next week or even next month. Working on your business is all about still having a business next year or the years after that - that has to be the most entrepreneurial thing you can do.

Have a vision for the future - work on your small business - have a future! ST.

When hiring people, what are you looking for? Knowledge about your industry, high IQ, many years experience? All these personal traits are important, but not as important as EQ - emotional intelligence - which means people who have natural warmth, are optimistic and can empathize with the plight of other people.

Who would you rather deal with, someone who seems cold and distant, or someone who understands your problems and can suggest solutions or ideas on a services/product level, but also on a more emotional and beneficial level. It is with everything else in life, we like dealing with friendly and warm people.

So when you hire, ask about faults, ask about being told off for getting something wrong, ask how they felt when someone else got told off at work? Listen to their answers, if they have no faults, if they never make mistakes, or think others are just not good enough, than they are obviously perfect.

Never hire perfect people, they are deeply flawed or inhuman, and nobody will want to deal with them, including you! ST.

Many worries in a small business are centered about sales and the need to earn money in order to pay for over-heads like rent, wages and so on. Especially in a technology driven company this can often be a problem. Often you try to sell to your clients as if they are industry insiders who understand exactly what you are talking about. While in reality they are customers and don’t know what makes this widget so special.

You need to sell the benefits of the widget, that is what customers want, benefits. Know who you are talking to, if you are talking to an industry insider, tell him all the technical details, because he understands enough of the technology to understand the details, and then work out the benefits for himself/herself. If you are talking to a customer who wants to use your service or product to gain a benefit from using you, let him/her know what the benefit is.

One word about not being able to show a benefit, I would openly say to my client that there is no benefit from using our product, you may not get a sale, but you will get someone who will respect you and come back, because he/she trusts you. You may also get referrals this way.

By the way, woman are far more benefit talk driven than men. Or as my wife will say to me and my son, talking about the latest gadget, stop talking “klingon” (the star trek species)! ST.

When you talk about business, small business or even micro business, eventually the talk always turn to making money. How to make it, how to make some more and how to make sure the business keeps making money in the future. Most often than not people are surprised by my simple answer:

If you are passionate about what you business does, you will make money. If you are only after making money, you won’t.

I can proof that to you, too. My wife will always ask me why I can’t give up work, she will say you don’t have to do anything, why not stop? Answer: Passion. Why would people like Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Rubert Murdoch carry on working, after they amassed not millions, but billions? Answer: Passion.

We are not driven by making money, but by making a difference, leaving a mark. We can’t wait to tell people about our “brilliant ideas”, even if they turn out not so brilliant sometimes. I got up today at 4:00 am, because I have a great meeting set up today, with some people I wanted to meet for some time, and I can’t wait to tell them my ideas about the future of our business, so I’m going over my presentation again.

I’m sitting here at 5:15 writing my daily postings to you all, you may think I’m nuts. Or you may think I’m driven by the idea to make small and micro businesses more successful, but whatever you think, it is not “my god is this guy greedy!”

Greed is NOT the same as passion! So be passionate about your business and your customers will love you for it. ST.