Coming together is a beginning.  Keeping together is progress.  Working together is success.  ~Henry Ford

Almost every business starts with an entrepreneur working alone. Even if you started with a partner or two there comes a time when you divide up the work and are head down working by yourself. Those early hours (or days, or weeks, or months…) alone are a crucible; do you really want it, are you willing to keep working to make it a success? The strength of many business owners comes from those early days of gutting it out.

When a business matures and there is starting to be a team in place, or even when it grows and there’s a strong team around the founder, there is still a part of his or her heart that is alone. There are things the founder sees, but can’t share. How can you tell your team you don’t know how to solve some of the problems your team faces? Where do you go to talk about your shortcomings, your fears, your failures?

But the flip side is also true. When you figure out a particularly difficult issue, or find a way to get the client to agree to a new deal, who do you tell then? It’s a lucky entrepreneur who has a spouse who’s interested and understands all that’s going on; most don’t. Your friends haven’t been through these experiences either.

In the early days of my business I had a few close friends that I turned into my “kitchen cabinet” I sent them weekly reports so that they would know all that is going on. They held me accountable to my goals, and celebrated my successes. They didn’t always understand why I was so excited, but they got excited along with me.

Friends are great, but there is a special community when business owners get together, let down their guard and start asking each other real questions. I was lucky enough to find a group of  business owners who met together, all looking to improve their business. When that group ran out of steam I found another one.  I have found so much support and generosity in those groups. Problems that were thorny to me, were cake walks for others, and vice versa. When I finally overcame those issues that the group had helped me with it was great to show them the solution and have them appreciate it for what it is.

Who is your community? Who’s got your back? Who tells you your ideas stink, or your communication needs to improve? Who can understand and celebrate your wins?  We all need it. Where’s yours?

If you need this kind of business owner community, check out Anchor Advisors’ Peer Groups.

July Autos Sales Up, Yet Economic Concerns Persist‎

Big media’s profits defy gloomy outlook, for now

Debt relief replaced with recession fear

US Stocks Fall as Dow Has Longest Slump Since 1978

Obama and Bernanke out of ammo to boost jobs, growth

Take a look at economic news anywhere and what do I get, a load of bummer. Washington is messed up, Europe is crashing, stocks are sinking, and on and on. There is a lot of bad news out there, and to make things worse, most if it is outside our control.  That’s right, your business is being buffeted by negative economic forces that you cannot control. So what should you do about it?

I say ignore it.

That’s right, I said ignore it. Every second you spend reading scary economic news, making contingency plans, talking it over with your advisors, and even lying awake at night worrying is time that is wasted. Instead spend that time building a new product, developing a some compelling content, reaching out to talk to current and past customers, encouraging your staff, but please don’t spend it worrying about the economy.

For most small business people “the economy” is relatively irrelevant. Most of us rely on a relatively small number of clients. We don’t need the whole economy to be doing well, we just need those clients to be doing well. And if the economy hurts those clients’ businesses we need to find a few more. Your best defense against economic uncertainty is to keep your head down and get your best work done.

Visit https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/bizownersurvey to take our survey that will compare, in a quantitative way, the attitudes, actions and results of business owners across a wide range of variables. Everyone who takes the survey will get a copy of the results, so they will be able to compare their answers against the answers of other business owners.

This survey is totally anonymous (we do ask for your email address, but only so that we can send you the results and give you a Kindle, more on that later). The report you will get will show you the typical responses along with some insights we gained by slicing the data every which way.
We hope to uncover some ideas and practices that are unique to those business owners who are growing and making more money than their peers; and if you take the survey, we’ll share them with you.

It only takes 10 minutes, so hope over to https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/bizownersurvey and answer some questions.
Oh, about that Kindle. We are giving a Kindle (or an Amazon Gift Certificate if you already have a Kindle) to one lucky respondent (that could be you!) chosen at random from those who complete the survey.

This is one of those things where the more respondents we get the better the results, so feel free to pass this along to any business owners you know. Feel free to tweet, Facebook, or Plus it up! (There’s a share widget at the top of the right hand column, try that out. It’s cool!)
Thanks for your help, and watch this space in September for a review of some of our key insights.

Over at Anchor Advisors we’ve ventured into the age of YouTube, Vimeo and streaming video online and the results have been amazing. We are just 4 months into our YouTube experiment and have already logged over 1000 views! In particular we’ve had an overwhelming response to our new testimonial video collection. We’ve had a bunch of folks ask how we did it, so Devan and I created a post to so you can make your own. Here’s how:

Pick a client – and be picky!

Let’s face it – most of us are not born to be in the spotlight or on camera. You may have a great client, but would they come across well in a testimonial video? The best video testimonials come from clients who love the camera, or are very personable and articulate. You may have had a superb client, but they’re not very comfortable when facing a camera lens, or it’s hard to pull words out of their mouth in normal conversation. Before calling them up, make sure the client you’re asking the favor from is comfortable doing the video, and would be good for it. You don’t want to spend time and money on a video project that’s not going to work well, or that you won’t end up using.

Prepare!

This is super important. Make sure you brush up on the case with them and prepare a set of questions in an order that makes sense. It’s best to start off with a broad set of questions in the interview, such as talking about their background and their company. Even though you know you probably won’t use their responses in the final cut, it takes off some of the initial anxiety and pressure for having them talk about things they know best.

Don’t look at the camera!

Do not have them look at the camera! It makes for a superrrr awkward video. Sit at their level and right next to the camera. If you’re standing, their eyes will be looking up, which makes them look like they’re talking to a ceiling.

Make them feel comfortable.

Remember not to respond to them while they’re speaking, but give them lots of nods, smiles and reassuring body language. This makes it feel more like a conversation for them and they don’t feel like they’re talking to a wall. The more comfortable they are, the better the footage will come out.

Have them prepare… but not too much.

Send them a broad set of the questions you’ll be asking them so they have a gist of what to expect, but you want their responses to be genuine, not rehearsed. If they over prepare it’ll sound like a horrible late-night infomercial… and no one will take it at face value.

Don’t let the shoot go more than 20 minutes.

Try to collect no more than 15 or 20 minutes of footage. Otherwise it makes editing a pain! You’ll end up cutting the video down to 1-3 minutes as is, so if you have more than 20 minutes, it’ll take you forever to edit everything down. And besides that, there’s only so much they can say and you want to avoid rambling.

Don’t be afraid to have your interviewee repeat something.

You want to make sure you represent the client the best way possible, just as they want to represent you in the best way possible (otherwise they wouldn’t be agreeing to do the video!) Sometimes they’ll say something really really great, but it wasn’t very articulate. Have them say it again! They’ll want to say it again so they can come across better, and you’ll have better material. If they stumble over a sentence, have them pause and start over again – no one will know but you.

Lighting – the brighter the better!

You can’t always control it, but lighting makes a huge impact in the image quality of your video. It’s best to have natural lighting, but if it’s a cloudy day, you’ll see that the room will get darker and lighter, which makes for an inconsistent look in your final video. It’s something I found out the hard way – so be extra cautious of the space you film in and the quality of the lighting.

A word about tools

We shot our videos using a point-and-shoot video camera, an inexpensive tripod and edited with iMovie. So, you don’t need high cost tools to get good results. But, make sure your camera can shoot HD (even an iPhone can do that these days) and if you want that extra level of professionalism, use an external microphone to minimize background noises.

Video can be a great addition to your website and social media accounts. If video production seems too daunting for you to handle on your own or if you’re just too busy to do it yourself, Anchor Advisors is happy to help. Call us at 773-282-7677 or email us.

For the last four months I have been working at Anchor Advisors, Ltd as their marketing intern.  Part of the work I did was conducting video testimonials with past clients, develop a new marketing plan, create a book and company promo video, and start the planning for a new product offering (Shhh! It’s still secret.).

1.  There is no handholding in the real world.

The first day of my internship, I was worried about what to wear.  I asked Brad about what is the norm at the office, and I remember in that same conversation he said he dresses casual around the office, but when he meets with clients, it’s business attire.

My first assignment was conducting a video testimonial with one of their clients.  The morning of my first interview with a client, I threw on business attire because I remembered what my boss had told me when I asked about the dress code at the office.  I realized that I’m meeting with his clients and representing the company this time around, not him.  I wasn’t told to wear business attire; I just knew that I should.  It was one of the first moments I realized that I don’t have my professors telling me everything to do anymore, and I need to think for myself.  There’s no handholding in the real world.

2.  Give your boss reasons to hire you.

Another assignment I worked on was a marketing plan for the business. With online marketing constantly evolving; I wanted to find new tools and ideas to bring to the table.  I sought out one of my contacts that worked in the communications department at my past job and does a lot of social media work there.  We talked about the company and what they are currently doing, and I shared my ideas and asked him for feedback and some new suggestions.  I was so glad I did – he sharpened my ideas and gave me some new ones.  It also showed my boss that I was applying myself outside of the 9-5 by seeking out new ideas.  Even if we don’t use all the ideas, my boss appreciated my curiosity and initiative.

3.  Keep an active log of your progress.

I write everything down because sometimes my short-term memory fails me.  I wanted to make sure I got the most out of my internship, and the business got the most out of me.  By keeping a running log of what I did each day and what I worked on, kept myself in check and on task, and it really helped me see my progress throughout the day, and week-to-week.  I also noticed a difference in my productivity when I slacked keeping up with it.  It also made it easy for me to report on my progress, but most importantly, it kept me on target.

4.  Listen.

I learned so much by just listening at the office.  I saw how my boss and his business partner engaged with their clients; how they approached conversations, what businesses they were dealing with, what situations they were working with, what type of advice to give and how they gave it.  I also learned about the tools they used, little tips and tricks for productivity, more about the industry. Really there was always something to learn.  Being curious and an active listener has been one of the most valuable things about this internship.

5.  Ask questions!

Maybe this seems obvious, but the more I asked, the more I learned.  And by listening, I had more questions.  By asking questions, I got to engage with my boss and his business partner in conversations about the clients they were working on, and offer help if I knew they needed an intern, or a connection at a company where I knew someone.  This enabled me to show more value, and get gigs for some friends.

They say that curiosity killed the cat, but in this case it made my internship. Having the courage to be curious, to ask questions, listen and learn made this more valuable for me, and for my employer.

Devan Perine is a Graduate of Columbia College , and is working as Marketing Coordinator for Anchor Advisors, Ltd.

1. Pick a Good One

I found Devan when she sent me a blind email asking if I’d be interested in an intern.  It just so happened that I was looking for an intern at that time, but still I was suspicious. I knew that if I took on an intern it needed to be the right one. After putting her through our extensive interview process we confirmed that she had tremendous potential, work ethic and drive.

2. Get Rid of Those Nagging To-Do’s

There were a number of things on my to-do list that had been there for more than 52 weeks. Yep, they were things I was for sure committed to, I know that they could help grow my business, but I never got them done.  One of the first things I did when Devan came on board was to turn those over to her!  She didn’t get them all done, but the ones she did get done have been terrific. And it’s roughly 100% more progress than I made in the last year!

3. Try Stuff (Inexpensively)

I wasn’t totally sure of Devan’s capabilities, she didn’t have much of a track record doing things that I needed done. So I threw a lot at her, and made sure to check in frequently so that I could redirect her if we weren’t making good progress.

There were some things that we got stuck on. She didn’t know how to get what I wanted, and I didn’t have time to train her. OK, move on to something else. Using this approach we hit on a couple of things that she did a terrific job on.

For several years I have thought about, and planned to create, video testimonials. Short videos that let our clients tell the story of the great stuff they achieved working with us. I gave Devan an inexpensive point and shoot video camera, an old tripod from my closet and a copy of iMovie and told her to shoot some testimonials. For a total investment of just a few hundred dollars I had a pretty swank Video testimonial (Check them out).

4. Once you find something that’s working, Ride it!

It turned out that Devan was great at creating the video testimonials. She was fast, got good content, and really knocked them out of the park. So in four months she created 7 videos.  The 5 we have released have already generated over 200 views. That was something that had been on my mind forever, and now it’s done and working!

5. She’s a keeper

Devan has been such an asset to Anchor Advisors we are finding a way to make sure that we continue to be able to get help from her. Not just on videos, but she’s taking a big role in a new product that we are working on. Just like with the videos, she’s knocking out pieces that have been on my to-do list for a long time.  Yipee!

This internship process has really sold me on having some inexpensive, hardworking, talent as part of the team, it’s moved us forward toward our goals and has freed me from a bunch of tasks that I just wasn’t getting done.

“I’m FREE!”

But what does that mean? Why does it feel so freeing to step away from that large organization and into the unknown?

“No one is telling me what to do.” – Yes, now YOU have to figure that out.

“I don’t have to carry a bunch of lazy co-workers.” – Instead you have to do everything yourself.

“I don’t have to work late just to show ‘face time’.” – Right, but now you have to work late in order to meet your client’s needs.

“No one is holding me back. My success is up to me.” – Ah, now we are onto something.

One of the most motivating things we can experience is the feeling that our efforts, our work is making progress. Bonus points if we are making progress to a big goal that matters to us (Daniel Pink and HBR do a great job explaining this).

Entrepreneurship creates just that kind of situation. We define the goals, we work hard and each day (hopefully) we get to see progress. Having control over that feeling makes us feel free!

We want to create an organization where every person get’s to experience that? Because leaders who do that almost always have extraordinary teams.

1. Connect the work to something bigger.
If your work, the work of the company and every person in it is connected to a REALLY BIG GOAL. One that’s people care about (no one cares about making you more money); work has more meaning. For Google it’s “Organizing the World’s Information” , for Starbucks it’s “to inspire and nurture the human spirit”  These are big goals, that people can get behind and care about.

2. Create measurements and systems that reveal the progress that’s being made.
How does a finance analyst at Google know that reconciling that ledger helped to “Organize the World’s Information”? Why does the person buying paper bags at Starbucks feel that connected to nurturing the human spirit? They will only feel that connection if their boss and organization helps them to connect the dots. If the Big Goal is important to everyone, they will all be paying attention to what is helping to make progress and what’s not. If that purpose matters to them, they will make decisions and set priorities that will move the organization toward that goal.

3. Recognize effort that created progress.
When people’s efforts are making a difference you should say thanks. If people’s efforts are making a big difference you should say thanks in a very public way.

4. Don’t hold people back.
People want to make progress, the want to use their judgment and creativity to make a difference. To the extent that they have demonstrated that they have good judgment, and their work has produced results, get out of the way.

How are you connecting your organization’s purpose to the progress that individuals are making every day?

The short answer is because they aren’t you. You started this business because it’s your passion, it’s what you are made to do. All of the growth and profit are yours! You love this business more than anyone else does; no one is going to be as committed as you are.

But that doesn’t mean that our people can’t have real commitment to our enterprise. There are two things we can give them that really help build that willingness to go above and beyond; a sense of purpose and a way to measure progress.

If you are asking people to stay late so that you can go on a nicer vacation, or buy a bigger house, that’s not very motivating. Measuring your business success in terms of how much money it’s making for the shareholders doesn’t result in heroic acts by your team members. But if your business is about more than making money, if you have a higher purpose that your business is there to achieve, and if that higher purpose aligns with the values of your team members, people will heroicly rise to that challenge. You don’t have to take my word for it, Jim Collins has a terrific article about it too.

But just as they need a strong purpose, your people need ways to see that they are making progress or impact. As the owner you can pretty easily see the impact you are having on your small business. Each day you can weigh the gains and losses and decide what the score is. Do your employees have those same measurements? How do they know that those extra two hours in the office are achieving the goal and purpose you have for the business? How can they see the results of their extra efforts?

What can you do to more effectively communicate your purpose and a sense of progress to your team?

Here are three ideas, that we have seen work for our clients.

1. Educational Seminars

The premise is simple. You create a presentation on a topic that your clients have a need for. You invite your clients & prospects to attend the seminar. Your prospects come and hear how smart you are on that topic, your clients tell them you really are as smart as you sound and they hire you.

Making it work: You need to have a strong house list to fill a room. My rule of thumb is that if you invite 100 people who know you and like you, 20 will RSVP and 15 will come. If you are inviting strangers you might need 50 times that number. I have often partnered with another firm to put these on where their house list plus my house list would produce a strong turnout. That way in addition to moving my prospects further down the sales funnel, I’m also exposed to the other firms “fans” as well.

2. Strategic Referral Partner Lunches

There are those referral partners that I know could provide value to my clients, but I never seem to find the “right” time to make the introduction. Or maybe I just don’t have the “right” words. Do you wonder if those partners are doing that with you too?  Sometimes an indirect approach can work better. Invite your referral partner to think of 2-3 people that they have been thinking might be prospects for you. You come prepared with 2-3 of your contacts that might be a prospect for your referral partner. You each agree to invite one of those to lunch and the four of you get a chance to meet. Do this 10 times and you will have a robust pipeline. Bonus if your guest and their guest get value from meeting one another.

Making it work: You need a referral partner who’s target market has a solid overlap, so that their prospects are also likely prospects for you. Make the lunch somewhere nice and make sure there is value in the lunch for your contact immediately (either from meeting the guest, or the referral partner). Lastly, you need to follow up with the person you are meeting after the lunch to get the appointment to tell them more about what you do. Bonus idea: Make it more than a lunch, hit a ballpark, golf course, or other social event.

3. Stalking

There are always those dream clients, companies that you would love to work with, that you know you could help. Ideally companies that would catapult you to a new level. Make a list of those companies, then dedicate time each week to getting one step closer to those them. Search LinkedIn to find the decision makers, and do your research so you know what are the most important challenges and opportunities that they face. Identify who in your network could introduce you, and script the value proposition that you have to offer them that offers a clear answer to their challenges and opportunities. Then ask your network to make the introductions that you need to get you in front of those ideal prospects.

Making it work: You need to have a strong network and be able to clearly articulate why your company, and only your company, can make a big difference for this prospect. If you can’t do that, move on to another prospect (or work on your differentiation). Don’t forget about social media, many of these prospects have blogs, or twitter accounts where you can interact and make an impression (by demonstrating expertise) so that you aren’t a stranger when your network introduces you.

That’s it, three strategies that I see working for my clients. Pick one and start working on it today. The faster you get started the more quickly you should see results!

What new business tactics have been working for you?

What measurements or indicators do you look at to measure your business performance?Small business owners tend to have an intuitive sense for how their business is going. Is the phone ringing? How’s my bank balance? What’s the mood in the office? Everything that they do gives them feedback about how their business is performing. However, there is a problem with relying on intuition. Our intuition is a way that our brain uses to short-cut the prefrontal cortex (thinking part of the brain). It uses our past experiences to “filter” the data we are seeing and fit it into a pattern we’ve seen before. So that gut instinct is usually pretty accurate as long as the data we are looking at is similar to a pattern we’ve seen before. The problem lies when the pattern doesn’t fit, when you are entering into a situation when your past experience isn’t a good fit. That’s when you need to have a better handle on the actual data, and use analysis of that data to guide your decision making.

We find that our clients often fit into this category, as their business grows there is just too much data to take in through osmosis. With a more varied and active customer base it’s too difficult to keep track of every customer, and each transaction. Finding ways to aggregate that data into reports, and analyze those reports using charts and graphs becomes essential to staying on top of how your business is performing.

What reports to we need to see?

1. Monthly Financials

At least monthly review your full financial statements. Income Statement (Sometimes called your P&L), Balance Sheet and Cash Flow.  Your Income Statement should tell you if you are making money, if you compare your actual performance to your budgeted performance you can see how each of your spending and income categories are doing compared to your prediction at the beginning of the year. Is your income up, but your expenses are also up? That’s probably OK as long as the growth in income is greater than the growth in expenses. But if your income is below expectations, then your expenses better be too!

Your balance sheet tells you if you are a debtor or a borrower. How are your receivables? They are going to grow if your sales are growing, but how much is too much. By calculating your Receivable Days Outstanding you can get an index number that will tell you about how well you are doing at collecting your receivables regardless of your sales growth. When your A/R Days go up you are not collecting as efficiently as you should, when it goes down you are collecting more quickly.

Also check your cash on hand, or borrowing capacity; do you have access to the cash you will need to grow? A Days Cash on Hand calculation can help you to get a handle on it. Total up your cash needs for the next 90 days and make sure you have cash on hand to cover it (If you are growing you need more cash than you did in the past!)

Last, make sure you aren’t taking out too much money! You need to maintain a healthy positive net worth (called Total Equity on your balance sheet). You can do that if you make sure to leave some of your profits in the business to operate it.  Your Cash Flow statement gives you an overview of what cash is coming in and going out. This is really the amount of money you have to operate your business. You can have positive earnings, but a negative cash flow if you aren’t getting paid for the work you are doing, or if you are taking out too much in shareholder distributions.

While financial indicators are important, it’s easy to get lost in all the numbers. I recommend using Trailing Twelve Month charts (TTM) to graphically display the trend in your sales, and profits (at a minimum).

2. Sales Indicators

Financial Indicators give you a good idea of what happened in the past, but you need to look at some leading indicators as well. Your Sales Manager or CRM system can provide a nice look at what those would be. How many leads have you received (compared to last month, or last year)? What are the value of those leads and how are they moving through your pipeline? The number  and value of proposals issued (compared to last month or last year) is also important. Lastly, closed new business (from existing clients and from new clients) is a more immediate indicator.

Each of these directions have issues (how accurate is your forecast, is there a lot of “junk” in the pipeline, etc.) but every business needs to choose a path, and start tracking at least some of those numbers; dealing with the issues as they come up.

3. Internal Efficiency Measures

Now that we have looked at what’s coming in, we need to look at how well we are doing at delivering that. For a service firm Utilization (billable hours/total hours) is a key efficiency measure. However, so is on time delivery. In a software or product company, tracking the cost of quality is key (time spent fixing problems or dealing with customer complaints and issues divided by sales). For other firms they can track project profitability, or contribution margin by project. These measures are usually more unique to your business. What can you look at that gives you an indicator of how much time or effort you are putting in to delivering on any particular piece of business.

4. Community Measures

Your business is not just a profit machine, it also has employees, and community members who care about your success as well. How do you measure your effect on those resources? Do you survey employee sentiment? Do you engage in community improvement projects? How do you know that these things are having a positive effect? Employee turnover is one sign (but it’s a lagging indicator, one you see it you already have a problem). What else can you measure?

Lastly, you need to talk about the frequency of these measures. I worked for a very seasonal business that tracked leads and orders by day and the whole company knew what the number for that day should be. Other measures like employee satisfaction are difficult to measure frequently and you might only check them annually.  The key is that you spend time each week/month and quarter looking at the numbers that your business creates, deciding what they mean, and taking action based on the results. Your business will be healthier and you will worry less.

What measurements or indicators do you look at to measure your business performance?