Make a Referral - Jump Start the Economy

As you all know, our economy needs all the help it can get right now. In my opinion and that of many thought leaders that I read, small business is the answer to solving the problem. Therefore I was very intrigued when I read about a program currently being promoted throughout the web, Make a Referral Week: A Small Business Stimulus Program sponsored by John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing.

'Make a Referral Week' is an entrepreneurial approach to stimulating the small business economy one referred business at a time. The goal for the week is to generate 1000 referred leads to 1000 deserving small businesses in an effort to highlight the impact of a simple action that could blossom into millions of dollars in new business. Small business is the lifeblood and job-creating engine of the economy and merits the positive attention so often saved for corporate bailout stories.

During the week of March 9-13, we will do everything in our power to get everyone referring leads to small businesses. A whole bunch of small business experts will share ideas, tools, information and resources to get you started. Look at the educational events happening during the week here.

You may think that this effort won't have much impact, particularly if it doesn't benefit you specifically, but I would ask you to remember that every effort to benefit small business in general will benefit every individual small business in some way. Your referral might hit someone's business right when they are considering shutting their doors, or they may be behind on their mortgage and staying up nights worrying about paying the bills. This economy impacts personal health, families, relationships and communities. It's something that can be fixed, one small business at a time; or in this case – one referral at a time.

For my part, I'm pledging to make a referral to a business I want to help as part of the national campaign to make 1000 referrals March 9-13. What a great small business stimulus plan - won't you join this effort? http://www.makeareferralweek.com/pledge

Here are other ways to participate:

• Sign up at the Make a Referral Pledge Page
  
• Spend the week referring the heck out of trusted friends/partners/colleagues
  
• Promote 'Make a Referral Week' in your blogs and your social networks
  

Do your part to stimulate the economy by telling your network about making referrals and 'Make a Referral Week' - you'll be in good company AND you'll be doing your part to help the economy.

Grow Your Business by Building Your Credibility as an Expert

In today's world of 5-person or less small businesses, oftentimes building demand for your business requires building demand for your expertise as the owner and a subject-matter expert in your field. With the many resources available today, online and elsewhere, the opportunities to showcase your expertise and build your personal "brand", as well as that of your company, are almost limitless. On our website find an article that will provide you with tips to utilize some of these opportunities to your best advantage for growing your business. Learn how to maximize the opportunities presented by blogging, social media, public speaking, teaching, portfolio presentation, and publishing in your efforts to grow your business.

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The author, Linda Daichendt, is Founder, CEO and Managing Consultant at Strategic Growth Concepts, a consulting firm specializing in start-up, small and mid-sized businesses. She is a recognized expert with 20+ years experience in providing Marketing, Operations, HR, and Strategic planning services to start-up, small and mid-sized businesses. Linda can be contacted at linda@strategicgrowthconcepts.com and the company website can be viewed at http://www.strategicgrowthconcepts.com/.

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Sam Walton – Rules for Building a Successful Business

In today's challenging economy small business owners are looking for inspiration to help them travel the road to success, and examples of the best ways to achieve that success. As part of our company's promise to provide information and resources to small business, I thought the article below about Sam Walton's 'Rules for Building a Successful Business' would provide some needed insight and the motivation to keep going in spite of today's economic hardships. Whether you're among those who love Wal-Mart, or those who despise them, there is no disputing what they've achieved by becoming the nation's #1 retailer less than 30 years after they started and maintaining that position yet today.

I urge you to review the '10 Rules' below and think about how they may apply to your business. Sometimes all it takes is standing back and looking at your business from a different perspective to enable you to "kick-start" your positive attitude AND your business. Can you be the next Sam Walton? Can your business be the next Wal-Mart? The answer lies in your hands!

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Sam Walton grew up poor during the Great Depression

, yet rose to start the biggest retail store Wal-Mart. In Sam Walton's "Running a Successful Company: Ten Rules that Worked for Me," learn Walton's winning formula for business.

Excerpted from "The Book of Business Wisdom"
Edited by Peter Krass

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Sam Walton: 10 Rules for Building a Successful Business

Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, grew up poor in a farm community in rural Missouri during the Great Depression. The poverty he experienced while growing up taught him the value of money and to persevere.

After attending the University of Missouri, he immediately worked for J.C. Penny where he got his first taste of retailing. He served in World War II, after which he became a successful franchiser of Ben Franklin five-and-dime stores. In 1962, he had the idea of opening bigger stores, sticking to rural areas, keeping costs low and discounting heavily. The management disagreed with his vision. Undaunted, Walton pursued his vision, founded Wal-Mart and started a retailing success story. When Walton died in 1992, the family's net worth approached $25 billion.

Today, Wal-Mart is the world's #1 retailer, with more than 4,150 stores, including discount stores, combination discount and grocery stores, and membership-only warehouse stores (Sam's Club). Learn Walton's winning formula for business.

Rule 1: Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else. I think I overcame every single one of my personal shortcomings by the sheer passion I brought to my work. I don't know if you're born with this kind of passion, or if you can learn it. But I do know you need it. If you love your work, you'll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you — like a fever.

Rule 2: Share your profits with all your associates, and treat them as partners. In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations. Remain a corporation and retain control if you like, but behave as a servant leader in your partnership. Encourage your associates to hold a stake in the company. Offer discounted stock, and grant them stock for their retirement. It's the single best thing we ever did.

Rule 3: Motivate your partners. Money and ownership alone aren't enough. Constantly, day by day, think of new and more interesting ways to motivate and challenge your partners. Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score. Make bets with outrageous payoffs. If things get stale, cross-pollinate; have managers switch jobs with one another to stay challenged. Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be. Don't become too predictable.

Rule 4: Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners. The more they know, the more they'll understand. The more they understand, the more they'll care. Once they care, there's no stopping them. If you don't trust your associates to know what's going on, they'll know you really don't consider them partners. Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitors.

Rule 5: Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. A paycheck and a stock option will buy one kind of loyalty. But all of us like to be told how much somebody appreciates what we do for them. We like to hear it often, and especially when we have done something we're really proud of. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free — and worth a fortune.

Rule 6: Celebrate your success. Find some humor in your failures. Don't take yourself so seriously. Loosen up, and everybody around you will loosen up. Have fun. Show enthusiasm — always. When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song. Then make everybody else sing with you. Don't do a hula on Wall Street. It's been done. Think up your own stunt. All of this is more important, and more fun, than you think, and it really fools competition. "Why should we take those cornballs at Wal-Mart seriously?"

Rule 7: Listen to everyone in your company and figure out ways to get them talking. The folks on the front lines — the ones who actually talk to the customer — are the only ones who really know what's going on out there. You'd better find out what they know. This really is what total quality is all about. To push responsibility down in your organization, and to force good ideas to bubble up within it, you must listen to what your associates are trying to tell you.

Rule 8: Exceed your customer's expectations. If you do, they'll come back over and over. Give them what they want — and a little more. Let them know you appreciate them. Make good on all your mistakes, and don't make excuses — apologize. Stand behind everything you do. The two most important words I ever wrote were on that first Wal-Mart sign: "Satisfaction Guaranteed." They're still up there, and they have made all the difference.

Rule 9: Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. For twenty-five years running — long before Wal-Mart was known as the nation's largest retailer — we've ranked No. 1 in our industry for the lowest ratio of expenses to sales. You can make a lot of different mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you're too inefficient.

Rule 10: Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there's a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction. But be prepared for a lot of folks to wave you down and tell you you're headed the wrong way. I guess in all my years, what I heard more often than anything was: a town of less than 50,000 population cannot support a discount store for very long.