The scientist then put another monkey into the cage. The second monkey also trying the grasp the banana and the first monkey was trying to stop it. But the second monkey nonetheless manage pull away and rush to the banana. Again it hands were burnt by the steam released by the scientist. After a few tries and burnt, the second monkey also gave up.

The scientists then put in the third monkey. Again the third monkey also wanted to rush to the banana, but this time, both the first and second monkey would pull it back. Each time, the third monkey wanted to try to move toward the banana, the first and second monkey would pull it back. After some many tries, the third monkey without knowing the reason, also gave up on reaching the banana.

The scientists then removed the steam pipe and leave the banana in the cage,but non of the monkey would even lay an eye of the banana. They simply just gave up trying.

If you are a business owner, do you have such monkeys in your organization which were in fact shaped by you without you realizing it. When ever there is a new idea or new way of improving your business performance  proposed by your employee, you simply shoot it down without giving the proposal a thought and testing it out to see it feasibility.  This might go on from one employee to another and after sometime, any new employee who may have some good ideas trying to propose to you will be stop by your existing employees without knowing what is the reason behind.After sometime, your organization will be fill without employee who have no motivation to improve themselves or your organization. Those who have ideas and wanted a place to let them show their talent, will find a company who provide the opportunity to let them perform.

Remember this, when you hire people with less talent than you, you organization will shrink to be like dwarf. When you hire people better than you, your organization will grow to be a giant.

To be a Giant or Dwarf company, the choice is perfectly yours.

Small businesses actually formed the backbone of many countries, while most bigger corporations are scrambling for government bailout, there are many more small businesses who are able to weather through the rough water and doing thriving businesses.

The Harvard Business Publishing has suggested the following strategies for small business to outperform the economy

1. Action
2. Planning
3. Innovative Financing
4.Give the people what they want
5. Test, Measure, Refine, Repeat.

Read here to see How Small Businesses Win Big in Tough Economies

“How do you propose to increase your income?” Ask any small business owner, you will receive thousand and one different answers on their plans or strategies to increase their income. And if you continue to ask, “Why do you think all these plans and strategies of your will increase your income?” You will receive another one thousand and one different answers on how they are sure their plans and strategies will works.

It is not surprising and uncommon to see when a small business owner runs a sales campaign which increases their sales revenues; they often do not generate enough profit to sustain the downturn after the sales campaign. While the plans and strategies work well to increase their income, their expenses and cost also escalated.

Many small business owners whenever they run a sales campaign to generate sales, they often focus on the transactions rather than the customers whom they dealt with. They are so engrossed in concluding the sales and make the profit and forgotten about the source of the income.  As a small business owner, you must always remember that a dollar earned from sales will not give you a dollar in profit, whereas a dollar saved from expenses will immediately add a dollar to your profit. While this is not to say that small business or any other business should not spend to generate more income,  you must always know where the money goes to and how much income your generated from that dollar spend to conclude the transaction that bring in the sales or income.

Always bear this in mind, the source of any income for your come from your customers, without customers, there will be no business for you, period. So your focus should be on your customers and not the transaction. For the long tern benefits if your business, there are two factors that you must monitor;

1. The acquisition cost of your customer; this is the amount of money you spend to bring in that customer. Simply put, say if you run a newspaper advertisement which cost you one thousand dollars and bring in twenty new customers, your acquisition cost per customer will be fifty dollars.
2. The value that one customer will continue to bring to your business after the initial transaction. Assuming that that one customers will continue buying from your for the next couple of years; the life time value of the customer.

If you are not aware of the two factors, you may continue to run your sales campaign to generate sales but realized that at the end of the day, your expenses had eaten up all your profits.

The ultimate aim of any business is to generate profit, regardless of what the owner or entrepreneur said it. Without profit, no business will survive for long, let along growing. Ask any one with a basic accounting knowledge, he or she will tell you that the profit equation is very simple.

Profit = Income – Expenses

The profit equation is so simple that business owners, top executives often conveniently pass it over and complicated it. Evident can be seen through the recent credit crunch which sent many of the Blue Chips CEOs to their knees and many companies, including banks and financial institutions out of business for good. A year after the crunch, many big corporations are still scrambling for ways to stay afloat. Most of these companies who are falling have inevitably and conveniently forgotten that while rapid expansion with escalating cost into non-core business might give them huge revenue to pump up their profit to justify their high pays and perks; the cost will eventually caught up and sink them. A lesson learnt and should not be forgotten.

There are only two variables in the profit equation, income and expenses. Small business owners must always focus on these two variables

1. To generate income from your core business; be it sales of products or providing services to their customers. You must not get distracted into other non-core business operation or income especially when you are on the infancy stage of your business operation. Any distraction can be easily dictated by your customers, dilution of product or service quality will give your competitor an opportunity to snatch them away. Once they are gone, you may need more cost to ring them back.
2. As small business owner, you must realize one very important aspect of the profit equation. While generating income is the utmost task for your business to grow. You must always keep an eye on your costs or expenses. A dollar generated from sales may only bring you a fraction of may be 20% of profit after all the expenses incurred from your operation. A dollar saved is definitely representing a dollar profit. Always find ways to reduce cost while maintaining your products or service quality.

Statistic in Small Business Administration shows that much new startups could not survive the first 5 years, in order not to be one of the statistics, while mapping your small business strategy to grow your incomes; you must always keep a close watch for the expenses. Always remember the simple rule of profit variables; keep your cost low while increasing your income; and you will be on a very smooth path to a great business.

SK Wong, A Chartered Marketer of The Chartered Institute of Marketing UK; graduated with an MBA in Finance. He is also a Certified NLP Sales Trainer and a Certified Member Trainer of Junior Chamber International. Currently SK is working as Manager in a Risk Management & Insurance company. He is in charge of Business Development, Operation and Management of his unit. SK has conducted many training for his teams of Financial and Insurance Consultants on Motivation, Goal setting, Leadership Development, Marketing & Sales and Management Effectiveness apart from product knowledge training.

So you wanted to start your own business or  may be you have started one and fulfilling your Entrepreneur’s Dream. Congratulations for taking the first step toward controlling your own life and financial freedom. After all, the Journey of a thousand miles start with the first step. And this first step is the first step to more frustrations, works and  worries. Believe me, I knew what’s it like.

Michael E. Gerber in his follow up book on his Best Selling Classic “The E-Myth Revisited.” wrote in the first few paragraphs of the introduction ….”And what we discovered is that the people who won small businesses in this country work far more than they should for the return they’re getting.”

Looking at the statistic of Small Business Administration on Small Businesses, one wouldn’t be surprised; in 2005, there are 20.4 million small businesses out of 27.2 million are without employee. If you are one of them, you are playing Entrepreneur, Manager, Accountant, Book keeper, salesperson, clerk deliver person and peon. There is now a term coined to express a business owner who are in this category – Solopreneur.  You are everything in your business, the business is you!

How do you know that you are suffering from Entrepreneur Burnout,

“You may be on the road to burnout if:

• Every day is a bad day.
• Caring about your work or home life seems like a total waste of energy.
• You’re exhausted all the time.
• The majority of your day is spent on tasks you find either mind-numbingly dull or overwhelming.
• You feel like nothing you do makes a difference or is appreciated. (source – helpguide.org)“

You probably need to stop and think for you and your business future. Here is a good piece of article on How to Avoid Burnout out.

It is rather sad that every year many people match into the business world set to fulfilling their dream of becoming an entrepreneur but also many people just throw in the tower. One has to be clear between the distinction of owning a business and owning a job. I personally like the definition by Robert Kiyosaki on business, it says that If you can go for a vacation for a month without manning the business and your business is still growing, then you have a job; if not, you just own your own job i.e. Self Employed.The minute you stop, you income stop.

So the best way of avoiding entrepreneur burnout for your business, and I means real business; is to get into the root of the problem. Build a business, not your own job. Create a System and start to leverage on other people effort, time and money, of course the ethical way, and fulfilling your entrepreneur’s dream.

Just Remember

“Pressure is a word that is misused in our vocabulary.”
When you start thinking of pressure,
it’s because you’ve started to think of failure. ”
Tommy Lasorda

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…