IRS May Give Some a Break

Review a recent interview with IRS Commissioner, Douglas Shulman, discussing his plan to authorize front-line staff to be easier on those currently in financial hardship. The article also discussions his plans for increased enforcement efforts on high net worth individuals, U.S. businesses with international operations, and large corporations.

But Shulman quickly added that they won’t get a “free ride,” just a break, and that such grace is directed toward people who have been tax-compliant in the past. “We want to help people who have always been upstanding,” he said. There’s not just an altruistic goal here. This is still the IRS. Shulman said his goal is to keep “compliant taxpayers in the system.”

Could this benefit small business? Time will tell, but I would venture to say that we’ll all be watching! Read the complete article via our website.

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.

The Small Business State of Your State

For those of you interested in working with other small businesses in some capacity, or needing small business knowledge to help with the development of a business and/or marketing plan, some very useful information has recently been issued by the U.S. Small Business Administration. The data is provided in a national and state-by-state format. A brief overview of the report is shown below. Click on the "compiled data" link and it will take you to a PDF document which provides you with that state-by-state information. Additionally, the links at the bottom of the article will take you to additional small business resources that may be helpful to you.

The Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy has compiled data for each U.S. state and territory, giving an excellent snapshot of each region's small business activity (in 2006, the most recent year for which data is available).

For example, California had 718,220 small businesses in 2006 and created 87.6 percent of the state's net new jobs from 2004 to 2005. (The SBA defines small businesses as employing fewer than 500 people.)

The health care and social assistance industry was Louisiana's largest small business employer in 2006, while the construction industry was Virginia and Maryland's biggest small business employer that year.

The report pulls together information on each region's number of firms, demographics of business ownership, small business income, banking, business turnover, industry composition and employment gains and losses by business size.

It's worth a visit to check out that status of small business in your state.

By Sharon McLoone, The Washington Post January 27, 2009; 8:00 AM ET Data Points
Small Business Resources

Forbes – Entrepreneur’s Guide to Public Resources

Interesting article in Forbes magazine recently about a wide variety of resources for entrepreneurs. Includes information about gaining access to Angel Investors, programs from the SBA (Small Business Administration) that can assist you with loans and other services, a group that can direct you to the best Venture Capital firms, and information about city and state grant and tax incentive programs. Also links to 11 sectors of business still being invested in by Venture Capital firms and 9 ways to make money online. Click on this link to go directly to the article

http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/09/small-business-sba-ent-manage-cx_mf_0109publicresources_print.html or get a PDF version of the article on our website at http://www.strategicgrowthconcepts.com/marketing.php?info=Marketing+Information+Resources_I12

Five Ways to Fail at Attracting and Retaining Customers in 2009

Earlier this week I offered an article written by Paul Segreto which focused on ways to overcome your fears of business failure and not let them paralyze you to inaction. Today I thought we would explore business failure from another perspective – those business owners who choose to believe that they have all the answers, that the customer should learn to properly appreciate them instead of the other way around, and that their business is so successful that it's not possible for anything to cause its' failure. Do you know any of these business owners? Have you worked for any of them? How many businesses do you know that are (or were) successful until the owner's ego got in the way?

For those of you who can relate to these questions and are right now thinking of a certain business that you are currently aware of (or one that used to exist), you are likely to enjoy the irony of the article I read in a recent issue of the MarketingProfs newsletter; the article was entitled, "Five Ways to Fail at Attracting and Retaining Customers in 2009". This article takes a sarcastic approach to trying to help you understand the actions you need to take to insure that your business continues to grow and achieve success. I know as I read it I was reminded of several companies in my history that could have been case studies for the article. Read for yourself at the following link and see how many companies you know that could use this reminder – hopefully you're not one of them! http://www.marketingprofs.com/9/ways-to-fail-at-attracting-retaining-customers-difrisco.asp?sp=1

Facing the Fear of Business Failure

Recently on LinkedIN I posted a request in my groups to receive submissions for various topics of interest that group members would like me to write about in this blog and elsewhere. One of the topics that had a high level of interest was 'what to do if you think your business is in trouble', likely a topic of wide-spread interest given today's economic climate. However, before I could even start thinking about what I would write to address this request, one of my networking friends sent me an article that he had written which I believe to be a very strong first step to saving your business. This particle article is directed toward franchisees, however, it equally applies to any small business owner and I think all will find it of value.

Facing Failure

I can personally relate to the trials and tribulations of owning a small business as I have "been there and done that" and have experiences on both ends of the spectrum from achieving overwhelming success to dealing with bitter failure. I have definitely come to understand the fine line between success and failure in trying to nail down the American Dream.

I know it is sometimes counterproductive to even mention failure which is why the subject is always avoided and never discussed. Yet, it's out there and it's real. Once business owners face the possibility of failure and its very real consequences they can be motivated to understand that failure is not an option and commit 100% to a plan that addresses immediate problems and provides solutions accordingly. Even if it's necessary for the plan to be quite drastic or aggressive due to prevailing circumstances, business owners that unequivocally realize that failure is not an option are prepared for immediate action.

Let me emphasize one point. Business owners (entrepreneurs) should not view poor sales and disappointing profits as either potential or immediate failure and stick their heads in the sand. I made that mistake in the past and suffered the consequences. Instead, they should build upon the courage it took to become a small business owner and recommit to success as they did when they first took the entrepreneurial plunge.

They need to remember their wishes, hopes and dreams that prompted the decision to own their own business? They need to remember the admiration of family and friends when they heard about the new venture? They need to remember the excitement when they actually signed their first lease?

Let me clarify something. I failed in business ownership as a franchisee. Not because of anything the franchisor did or didn't do but because I put and kept my head in the sand and did not face reality. I could go on and make excuses about things that happened around me but at the end of the day I could have turned things around if I got my own head out of the sand, made some difficult decisions and took full, immediate responsibility.

Unfortunately I was scared of failing. I was afraid of what people would think. I was ashamed at what other franchisees, ones I put in business, would think of me. I couldn't even think of facing my family. All lame excuses for not taking responsibility. Maybe a hard swift kick you-know-where would have helped.

Did I mention that I previously ran the franchise company where I failed as a franchisee? Did I mention I was elected by fellow franchisees, President of the National Advisory Council? Did I mention that I owned and operated five franchise units?

If I had clearly understood the implications and consequences that were looming on the horizon and if I was able to get my big ego out of the way and address things head on, maybe I could have survived. Maybe I could have at least implemented an exit strategy that would have, in some small way, paid back the loyalty and support of my employees, family and friends.

In the end, I may not have survived because it may very well have been too late when and if I finally took action and responsibility. But maybe I could have at least exited with some dignity. Also, I could have saved many innocent people a great deal of hardship, embarrassment, wasted effort and ill-spent resources if I did face reality. This includes my family, my employees and yes, my franchisor; all who believed in me. Yes, it was a tremendous learning experience but not one I would bestow or wish on anyone.

As we've entered 2009 in the realms of economic uncertainty, I'm certain already difficult situations have been compounded but I'm confident a snap back to reality could only help. By facing the failure head on, the path to success will be clearer than it's been for some time. I once read "the greatest achievement in life is to stand up again after failing." How very true.

Paul Segreto is Founder and President at 21st Century Franchise Coach with over twenty years' senior level management, marketing and development experience exclusively within the franchising industry. Paul can be contacted by email segreto.paul@gmail.com. Company website can be viewed at www.21stCenturyFranchiseCoach.com.

Personal Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurs

• An overpowering need to achieve, as opposed to a need to be liked, or to exercise power.
  
• The trait of following through on a commitment, not quitting half-way through when the going gets tough. In short, perseverance.
  
• Positive mental attitude, or the ability to remain optimistic in difficult situations, which essentially grows out of being self-confident about one's abilities.
  
• Objectivity. The ability to accurately weigh and assess risks associated with a particular course of action, as well as being realistic about one's own abilities and limitations.
  
• A respectful attitude toward money, but a tendency to look upon money as a means for accomplishing things, or a way of keeping score in the game of business, rather than as a thing to be sought as an end in itself.
  
• The tendency to anticipate developments and to make things happen, rather than constantly reacting to problems as they arise.
  
• Resourcefulness. The ability to solve unique problems in unique ways, to be able to handle things that come up for which the entrepreneur has no previous experience to rely on as a guide.
  
• Personal relations. The successful entrepreneur usually has an emotionally stable personality, is cheerful, cooperative, and usually gets along well with (without necessarily being close to) employees and associates.
  
• Communication skills are well developed, both in oral and written presentations.
  
• Technical knowledge is usually well-rounded, and the successful entrepreneur generally is knowledgeable about the physical process of producing goods and services, or at least can effectively utilize information regarding the physical process.