A small business quote a day keeps you thinking, inspired and entertained 

“I want Britain to be a nation of entrepreneurs, a nation where talent and ability flourish.”

Tony Blair (b. 1953) former British prime minister 

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A small business quote a day keeps you thinking, inspired and entertained 

“I believe Mrs. Thatcher’s emphasis on enterprise was right.”

Tony Blair (b. 1953) former British prime minister, The Economist (1999) 

To find previous Quotes of the Day look here 

A small business quote a day keeps you thinking, inspired and entertained 

“I used to do a hell of a lot of cross selling. Before they knew it, they had spent a fortune.”

Vijay Patel (b. 1950) Kenyan entrepreneur, Sunday Times (September 2000) 

To find previous Quotes of the Day look here 

A small business quote a day keeps you thinking, inspired and entertained  

“Is your company so small that you have to do everything for yourself? Wait until you’re so big that you can’t. That’s worse.”

Michael Bloomberg (b. 1942) US entrepreneur & Mayor of New York City 

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.

When my wife went to university in London in the eighties one of her professors was of the opinion that the education was wasted on women, since they would leave university, get married and have children. While nobody says these things anymore in public, we still seem to have the same mentality.

Today I travel around the world and speak with all kinds of people about micro-business, like home-business. Often the conversation includes the so called “skill shortage”, felt especially hard in Australia these days. When I question this alleged shortage, I’m always surprised about how little consideration is given to well skilled and educated parents - mainly women - sitting at home looking after the family.

After one of these conversations today, I was reminded of this professor and began wondering if he was right with his opinion in the final analysis? Trivially, his assertion that educating women is a waste, is completely nonsensical, but the final result to the economy seems to suggest his analysis could be right. How else can it be explained that we ignore this massive “skills resource” sitting at home.

The technology we at WinWeb have developed allows for work from anywhere at anytime, others have done the same in other areas? Where is this “skill shortage”? The truth in my opinion is more the fact that we often block this remote working possibility from our minds, but why?

If you consider the skills potential of parents, if each parent would only contribute one hour on average per week to their learned professions. This would be a staggering number of man hours per week.

The benefits for the home working parent would be very tangible too. They could show a almost uninterrupted work history, stay in touch with their profession and would therefor find it much easier to get back into full-time employment after the kids have grown up.

To often my conversation partners look somewhat bewildered at my initial suggestion, but then often admit they had never thought about this possibility.

It is not a waste to educate women or any parent, it is however a waste to treat parents as if they do not exist in work terms. I consider it an insult to each parent and unbelievably damaging for our economy. — ST.

An important consideration for a small business owner when looking towards the future is the possibility that the ownership of their business may change. In fact, a third of privately owned businesses in the UK expect that this will happen to them within the next ten years, a slightly higher amount than the worldwide average.

Over half of all business owners in South Africa and New Zealand expect a change of ownership, the highest level in the world. At the other end of the scale, only about a tenth of Russian and Indian businesses expect a change. Businesses in the Phillipines, a rapidly developing nation, have in the past two years gone from almost no expectation of ownership change to nearly half of all business owners thinking it will happen to them. This is in contrast to the UK where the figure has remained the same since 2003, although if the anticipated crackdown on capital gains tax relief happens then a large increase is expected.

The reason for different countries having such huge differences is thought to be related to low interest rates, banks willing to lend and successful businesses with high profits creating an entrepreneurial culture. This is particularly true in the high levels of anticipation of business ownership change throughout the western world.

For many businesses in the UK it will be useful for them to have some form of an exit plan in case the day comes when it seems like the right time to sell. This is because:

• It will be one of the most important decisions you ever make, both for the company and your own finances
• In order to continue the success of the business following a transition of ownership meticulous planning is required
• You will wish to make as much money from the sale as possible!

With this in mind, the commonest forms of ownership change in the UK are:

• Trade sale – over half believe that they would sell their business to someone else when the right time arrives
• Management buy out / buy in -16% of UK business owners believe they will sell their business to the management team within ten years
• Private equity investment – 13% feel they are likely to be bought out by investors, lower than the global average expectation of 20%
• Flotation / IPO – only 8% feel they are likely to make a public offering in the next ten years

Hat-tip to Robert Moore from Business Data International Limited

I have been reading about Ray Kroc the founder of McDonald’s, these stories can tell about figures like that can tell you a lot about the way business does work.

He was fifty-two years old when he found that funny shaped hamburger stand in San Bernardino in California. At fifty-two and suffering from diabetes he found his business idea that would transform the way we look at fast food. He was not a young entrepreneur or grey suited corporate type, no he had been a salesman for most of his live. He had also earned his living with playing music in bars, in short things were not always easy.

But now at fifty-two, when our society has decided you no longer represent prime employee material, Ray Kroc knew the best part of his live was still ahead of him. Ray’s life teaches us many lessons for our private and professional lives. Not only is his live a lesson in perseverance, as it is often the case, perseverance is something that just happens out of necessity, but about the fact that it is never to late to make your mark or find your niche and change your life.

You need to keep an open mind and understand challenges as opportunities - read Ray’s story and see this mindset in action, it is utterly compelling. — 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.

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.