Recession-Proofing Your Business

850, Northwest Florida’s hot new business periodical, gives some valuable ideas for sustaining your business during tough economic times.  Highlighting several entrepreneurs that are finding success during an economy that is taking its toll on even the most stable players, the article focuses on methods that work in EVERY market.  The article, “Recession-Proof Ingenuity,” follows five area business owners as they work to build their business using a few tried-and-true techniques, as well as new approaches.  The capstone of the article is this list of no-nonsense hints to help you, too, thrive in difficult times:

Don’t Just Survive, Thrive!:  Tips for Small Business Owners During the Recession

• Ramp up your business development. Visibility, credibility, profitability. Get out there and keep hunting for business.
• Get clear on your niche markets. Don’t just assume because you have a business people will buy from you. You must define the markets you service and get in front of them consistently.
• Form strategic alliances. Who sells complementary products or services to your market? Look for ways to align yourselves to add value to your market.
• Build champions. Champions are people who know what you do, the type of client you service and refer business to you on a regular basis.
• Get creative. Use social media such as blogging and podcasts or social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to build strong networks in exchange only for your time.
• Check your mindset. Are you buying in to the fear or rising above it? There is a lot of low hanging fruit out there if you’re prepared to weather the storm.
• Use measurement tools to manage your business development. Sales funnels and profit models are great to keep you on track to reach your goals.
• Shed dead weight. If you have to let staff go because they don’t fit the business model, or you need to move away from colleagues who are getting dragged in to the ‘doom and gloom,’ do whatever you have to do to surround yourself with positive, opportunistic, hard-working people.
• Systemize all areas of the business that you can. Take all the guess work out of your business development. Use seamless, consistent processes that are measureable.
• Use your financial statements to assess the health of your business. Review them at least once a month.

Tips courtesy Heather White, ghost adviser for Ghost CEO

Sue A. Evans

Florida PTAC: A Business Cure for Hard Times

A couple weeks ago I sat at a meeting of IT professionals next to a man named Richard.  Richard is an IT specialist who presently works as a civilian for the military.  Richard’s dream is to eventually start his own business, contracting government work.  I will tell you what I told him:  Richard!  You are in a perfect position to go into business for yourself…what is stopping you?  Richard explained that he just doesn’t know how to get started and finds the whole procurement process a bit intimidating.

Down the hall from my office is the office of Laura Subel, Program Manager for Florida PTAC.  PTAC, loosely translated, stands for Office of Doing Business with the Government.  Laura is the one who will lead you down the path.   The Florida PTAC Office educates businesses on what the government requires to be a government supplier of goods or services.  It takes jumping through a few hoops, but considering that the government is one of the few customers buying in this economy, it is well worth it.

Laura has this sage advice to small businesses:  “We don’t care what you call us, just call us!  The acronym we want you to remember is HELP.  The PTAC is here to HELP you do business with the government. “

Laura said that the PTAC (which really stands for Procurement Technical Assistance Center) provides the following services at no charge:

• One-on-one counseling sessions such as Bid/Proposal Preparation, Marketing, and more
• Assistance with 8A and HUBZONE certification applications
• Free access to resources
• Referrals to the HAAS Center for Business Research
• Training Events on related topics

Laura promises that selling to the government can be  easy IF you follow the rules and work with the PTAC office to learn the rules.  They will provide guidance through the maze of rules and procedures.  Just one phone call is separating you from a client who spends over $40 billion a year doing business with small businesses, and who is in the market for every service or product that you can imagine.  Make the call.

Sue A. Evans

Making Your Business the Best

Have you ever heard the story of Thomas Edison?  When trying to invent the light bulb, he created over 1000 failed models before he created the prototype for today’s indispensable device.  When asked, “How could you go on after failing over and over?” Edison said, “Well, I just learned 999 ways not to make a light bulb!”

So running your business is learning process. You are learning 999 ways NOT to finance your business or 999 ways NOT to build a hard-working team.  Today, take the time to learn how to do one thing better in your business.  Instead of recreating the wheel every time you need to make a business decision, build on the knowledge that other business owners have gathered through their successes and failures.  Building on the knowledge of other business owner’s experiences is called adopting “best practices.”  The process of researching and adopting best practices is a valuable tool suggested by many top business consultants.  In fact, part of the process of winning the coveted Malcolm Baldridge Award (http://www.quality.nist.gov/) and the Florida Governor’s Sterling Award (http://www.floridasterling.com/) includes adopting best practices.

The Northwest Florida Business Information Clearinghouse (BIC) is an excellent resource for gathering best practices information.  Hundred of articles, written by business experts, can inform you on important business topics that are outside of your level of expertise.  The BIC was designed as a free resource to help entrepreneurs find the information they need to start a business or to run their business well.  Besides articles, the BIC also has demographics, a directory of local resources, a business calendar, and a number of customized articles especially applicable to doing business in Northwest Florida.  Explore the Northwest Florida BIC site (see link on side-bar) today to begin learning 999 ways to build business success!

Sue A. Evans