The Weaknesses and Threats, outlined below, seemed manageable. Many of us have been dealing with them for years. On the other hand—and perhaps surprisingly—the Opportunities for innovation and new offerings are plentiful. Leveraging university press strengths to create training materials, continuing education, and internet publishing stands out for me. For example, the collaborative nature of the university press industry means that there are many opportunities to monetize open-access free content such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) through value additions. In other words, something akin to the “freemium” model.

You can find the list from our industry SWOT mastermind discussion below:

Strengths

• Peer review of scholarship
• Acquisition of content
• Curating university publishing—quality control
• Project management and teamwork
• Content development
• University branding
  • Alignment with university mission
  • Outreach of university-branded content to communities
• Passion for scholarship—advancing the careers of scholars and developing their credentials
• Flexible business model exploration—a willingness to explore new ways to deliver content to stakeholders
• Niche market ownership
• High-quality design and production
• Qualitative data analysis
• Data management

Weaknesses

• Underfunded
• Understaffed
• Limited market reaches outside of established areas
• Niche markets
• Little to no economy of scale benefits—don’t see unit-cost declines or distribution expansion like larger book markets
• Hamstrung on projects by host institution
• Limited marketing budgets for internet publishing

Opportunities

• Agencies willing to fund specific initiatives
  • Digital publishing
  • Shared infrastructure
• Collaborative ecosystems—presses, libraries, universities, scholars, etc.
• International growth for books and other content
  • Opening of closed distribution systems
• Educational materials
  • High-level credentials and research-enhanced
  • Teaching teachers
• Training materials
• Continuing Education Credits
• Affordable textbooks movement
  • Become part of mandated system of university and legislation to provide free textbooks
  • An unfunded mandate
  • Opportunity to bundle textbooks with tuition, like certain medical schools are doing
• New audiences
• Sell our publishing skillset to university departments as a service provider
• Aligning press with host university strengths
• Internet publishing
• Restructure education organizations and accreditation to create new formats and business models
• Fundraising for initiatives from donations and grants
• Monetize non-sale content
• Open Access—processing collaboration to add value for free content

Threats

• Best-selling authors go to commercial publishers
• Piracy
• Amazon
• Role of scholars among consumers is decreasing while among scholars it’s increasing
• Library budgets shifting away from books and journals
• Confusion about library versus press publishing roles
• State budget cuts
• Internet publishing—if we do nothing
• Open Access
  • Decrease of backlist revenue
  • Revenue challenge

Now that you have an industry SWOT overview, I encourage you to have a SWOT discussion with your team. You can encourage positive change by guiding the discussion more toward your Strengths and Opportunities than your Weaknesses and Threats. The integration effect and the mutual progress toward your goals are well worth the time investment. I use this tool as a precursor to business planning processes in private industry.

I believe in the university press industry in its mission to share quality knowledge and scholarship. In the spirit of collaboration, I invite you to have a free 30-minute discussion with me to help achieve your goals and progress your mission.  We might discuss

• Feedback on the SWOT for your press
• Ways to move forward on opportunities
• Staying unstuck while you innovate
• How industry research applies to your press
• The next steps or the plan for your press
• Business therapy anyone? Just kidding.
• Other?

Send me an email at john@pioneerbusinessventures.com and let me know a couple of times when you’re free—or use my online schedule by clicking here. Thank you for choosing me as your facilitator. Here’s to planning for your success,

John

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

John J. McAdam is the author of The One-Hour Business Plan (Wiley), an instructor in Strategic Business Planning at The Wharton Small Business Development Center, an association workshop speaker, and business advisor. For more information, visit www.pioneerbusinessventures.com 

Jacob Winterstein and his partner founded Camp Bonfire (http://campbonfire.com/ ) in 2015 to provide affordable adult summer camps enabling grownups to relax wholesomely with nature.

Before committing to the business, Jacob wrote his business plan in The Wharton Small Business Development Center’s Strategic Business Planning (SBP) workshop with Instructor John McAdam in late 2014.  Equipped with a conservative plan, Jacob and his partner were very successful, profitable and able to pay themselves in their first summer camp season. Regarding their business start, Camp Bonfire started after SBP in 2014 and was profitable in their first year.  Jacob told us, “We hired over a dozen independent contractors, plus the host camp had over a dozen staff on site during camp weekend.” Sales and Income projections are on track in 2016.  Therefore, Jacob and his partner plan to work full time in this business in Year 3 (2017).

“SBP spurred us to invest more in advertising and publicity so that we could widen our reach beyond our current networks and make the case that our camp is worth the price tag.” “We had customers from over 10 states. We brought money into a Philadelphia-based business. The summer camp we rent is in Pennsylvania and owned by a family in Philadelphia. My partner and I have created more financially stable lives for ourselves. We’re building jobs around our passions to the point where we can work for ourselves rather than for someone else.  We started small (as our Instructor John McAdam advises), with our own savings. The Wharton SBDC made our success more likely and helped us keep our families more financially secure. The Wharton SBDC’s Strategic Business Planning course gave us the foundation on which to build what we hope will become a national company that will always be based in Philadelphia.”

Do you want to relax like a kid again? There is still time to register at http://campbonfire.com/register/.  We’re certainly tempted.

As the calendar turns to a new day, week, month, or year, do you ever get the feeling that you should start something new? While the need for something new might be the strongest for many of us at the beginning of the New Year, perhaps we should revisit our business goals more frequently than that. For annual goal setters who are fortunate, business transactions flow along, progress takes place, and business continues to grow. At the other extreme, daily goal setters may change their goals multiple times per day, based on who spoke with them most recently, or maybe their largest problem of the day. Is this you? I hope not. We all have to confront short-term problems eventually, but for some people this ‘priority of the day’ mentality seems to be part of their personality. For example, a creative person may inherently avoid planning or committing to a schedule because they feel it constrains freedom and creative expression. They rely on the latest emergencies to provide focus for what to do next. This is a tough way for most of us to run a small business. So how often should we revisit our business goals and establish new priorities? Rather than suggesting an optimal time interval (such as weekly, monthly, quarterly or semi-annually), let’s explore some common business disruptions that should naturally prompt us to reconsider our goals. Gaining or losing a large customer – Customers are like kids: they all eventually grow up and move away. When we lose a major customer, our business focus will logically shift to sales and marketing to replace the lost business. On the other hand, acquiring a new large customer can be just as disruptive to your business, and they often require additional attention to serve well. Key employee turnover – Losing a key employee demands our attention, for large and small businesses alike. For example, if you have ten employees and lose one employee, then 10% of your workforce is lost! When you have fewer than ten employees and lose one, the results can be even more dramatic, particularly for the remaining employees. Recruiting, hiring, and training a new employee to restore your business to normal becomes a high-priority business goal. Note, however, that an opportunity might exist to restructure, reassign, or outsource responsibilities when employees transition. A major product sales decline – Almost all products and services have a product life cycle, which means they inevitably decline. When they do, more focus is needed for extending the life cycle, managing the decline, developing new products organically, or acquiring new offerings. Industry competitor or regulation change – Having a new competitor enter your market should shake you up. Having an existing competitor make a new offering similar to yours demands attention. You should compare value propositions, since your customers will be asked to. On a similar scale, when a government agency decides to add regulations in your industry, it’s time to comply—which also affects your attention. A major operating breakdown occurs – If you make a product, perhaps the production process stops or slows. If you provide a service, the quality of delivery might not meet quality standards. Either way, both situations require more attention when they occur. Business funding disruption – One example is that sometimes our customers don’t pay us on time, which decreases our cash flow and demands that more attention be paid to managing accounts receivable. Another example might be a new customer delaying a purchase from us, which interferes with expected cash flow. Additionally, our bank might lower our line of credit when we need more funding. Any of these funding problems rightfully demand more attention than normal, which takes attention away from our business goals. It’s OK to shift your attention. You just need to be mindful before changing your business goals. Take the time to change focus and solve the problems that accompany major changes in customer base, employees, competitor offerings, industry changes, operating problems, or business funding disruption. These are all strategically important for your business. The point is, once the problem becomes less of a priority, you should revisit your business goals. Your goals might stay the same, or they might need an adjustment to accommodate a major change in your business. How often should we revisit our business goals? While the timing is not as important as knowing when it’s OK to change our priorities, we should check ourselves at a minimum of once a year. Some of the most successful businesses revisit business goals semi-annually or quarterly. I see monthly adjustments to goals when the business is new, going through a turnaround, or experiencing a major disruption like the aforementioned events. Avoid abandoning your goals just because you are experiencing business problems, because they happen. We might need to add new goals or even replace them. In all likelihood, most of us need to simply refine our goals after we manage a major business disruption. May you achieve all or your goals after a business interruption by restoring your focus and clarifying your direction.

You know you need more business. Obviously, the first step is to make your offering available for sale. If you’re like me, you probably want those sales already made yesterday! You do have choices available to you, however, regarding what you sell and who your target customer is. Let’s start by answering the title question: What is the easiest sale to make today?

1. A new product to a new customer
2. A new product to an existing customer
3. An existing product to a new customer
4. An existing product to an existing customer

What’s the answer? We entrepreneurs love big ideas. But if we’re not careful, promoting new ideas can consume too much of our time. Eventually we must ask ourselves if promoting our new big idea is the best use of our time. Let’s say we have the goal of getting the most reward for the least amount of effort. We’re not lazy, just a little greedy. Plus, we have other things to do. Let’s review each of the following choices we make regarding what to promote and who the audience is: A New Product to a New Customer Arguably the most difficult product to sell is a new product to a new customer. Why? Imagine the situation from the new customer’s perspective. The new customer doesn’t know you, your company, or your new product. Is the new customer comfortable? Probably not. It’s not an impossible sale, but it’s definitely the most challenging. You like challenges sometimes, though, right? New Product to an Existing Customer Here, the customer knows you and already buys other products from your company. Half the battle is won. Now all you have to do is convince the customer that the new product benefits them enough for the price. OK. You can try that. An Existing Product to a New Customer You are very comfortable with your product and your company—however, your new prospective customer isn’t quite as comfortable. You’ve sold your product before and had many satisfied customers. Unfortunately, the new customer doesn’t know you. They might have heard of your company, but not you. The task here is really to get them comfortable with you first and then your product afterwards. Make sense? An Existing Product to an Existing Customer Ding, ding, ding! If you answered “D,” then you are correct. The product has substantiated its value to a number of customers over time. Your customer already decided to buy an existing product from you. Therefore, due to their comfort with you, your product, and your company, you will encounter the least resistance—making this the easiest sale. For those of you that have been in business for a while, you probably already know this. But how do you use this knowledge? Why do so many experienced businesspeople get out of balance with their sales and marketing efforts? In my travels I observe the majority of sales and marketing time being spent on marketing new products to new customers. The rationalization that I hear most often is, “That’s how we grow our business.” That’s true if existing customers continue to buy your existing products with minimal customer attrition. In other words, don’t give up existing customers to acquire new customers unless you absolutely have to. In conclusion, it’s easiest to sell existing products to existing customers. They know you, you know them, and the value exchange has been proven. The hardest sale is a new product to a new customer. The other two options fall somewhere in between on the effort meter, depending on your situation. My advice is to make sure you’ve handled the existing products and existing customers before branching out to new products and new customers. When acquiring a new customer, the unfamiliarity creates a challenge. Having both a new product and a new customer makes for a very difficult sale. By taking care of our current customers today, we are in a much better position to take care of our new customers tomorrow. I hope that you find the balance between new and existing products and customers that suits you best.  

Eventually we all need legal advice in business with key legal areas. When your first form or acquire your business, you should have counsel review all documents to represent your best interests. When key contracts arise with customers, suppliers, employees, investors or new partners, you need legal counsel. Basically, any time a significant agreement becomes necessary to grow or change the way you do business, you should seek counsel to help you stay out of trouble. Have you ever hired a lawyer and felt like the process was getting out of control? For me, there have been times when the bill provides a shocking reminder that I need to manage my lawyer, just like any other service provider. No one is going to tell you that your lawyer is out of control. You are going to have to recognize the signs. Here are some that I’ve learned: Money: You engage with a lawyer, the bill arrives and you find yourself surprised by the size of the invoice. You weren’t keeping track of the time you and your lawyer were talking, but your lawyer sure did. Now it’s time to pay the bill. Time: Sometimes legal matters become extraordinarily time-consuming. Lawyers get paid to manage risks for their clients and keep them out of trouble. Since lawyers get paid for their time, a natural incentive exists to spend as much time as can possibly be necessary on a legal matter. Focus: I find that some lawyers lose sight of the main objective of the legal engagement. Despite good intentions, they start managing minor legal issues rather than the main one. Negotiation representation: This issue continues to challenge me. Lawyers like to argue and negotiate on behalf of their clients. Problems and conflicts can inevitably arise that upset both parties. I’ve had business deals blow up only to find out later that my lawyer was negotiating vigorously on my behalf on unanticipated legal issues. Once you understand what can potentially go wrong with your legal representation, you are in a better position to manage your lawyer. Here are a few tips to help you manage your lawyer during your next legal issue: Set a budget: Ideally, set cap on your legal expenses. It is very reasonable to ask your lawyer for a budget with a fixed dollar amount or to provide a narrow budget range. Some lawyers might argue that they need to do the job right and not worry about a budget. Recognize this potential conflict of interest if it arises. A budget can be your condition of engaging a lawyer in order to control legal costs. Control the time—for both of you: You can set time limits for managing legal issues that will help you manage your budget and your emotions around the legal matter. One of the best pieces of legal advice a lawyer gave me was to set aside a certain number of hours per week to work on a legal matter, and then stop. Be done with it until the next block of budgeted time. Stay focused on the main legal issue: Let’s say you are trying to acquire a piece of property and have engaged a lawyer for an agreement of sale. The legal focus has shifted to an unlikely scenario in which the environment could be contaminated as a result of the prior owner’s business. While this might be important, it is unlikely and therefore a minor issue. You can insist that this be addressed quickly and with standard legal language. Then bring the legal focus back to the agreement of sale, the primary legal matter. Negotiate key terms yourself: Make sure that you have an agreement with the “other party” in writing, with a term sheet, before engaging a lawyer. Unintentionally omitted essential agreement terms might get messy as your lawyer and their lawyer negotiate. Recognize when you need to intervene and speak with the other party directly to agree upon key terms. Managing a lawyer can be difficult. Left unmanaged, lawyers can start behaving like any other employees, subcontractors, or service providers, resulting in a loss of control over your time and your money. A reasonable business lawyer should understand your business’s need for a legal budget. If your business deal starts unraveling, then you might need to provide focus to ensure that you, and not your lawyer, are negotiating the key terms between you and the other party. Sometimes using the right management tools will help you get what you need from a legal transaction without breaking the bank. Give them a try the next time you need a lawyer.         _{^{Copyright © John McAdam 2015. All Rights Reserved.}}

Isn’t tax time the most wonderful time of the year? Yeah, right. During tax season, I know some small business owners who amaze me with their ability to procrastinate. They cram weeks of tax preparation work into days. Tax time reminds me of college, when some people ignored studying and homework all semester long. Then, they would suddenly panic and start studying vigorously the night before the final exam. It’s no surprise that some of these people are now in business for themselves. Maybe you know someone like that… What makes tax time so painful? Here are three of the top reasons: Writing checks to multiple government agencies. We know we must eventually write checks to multiple government agencies—well, that just stinks. So we delay writing the checks, which unfortunately means we delay our tax work. While it makes sense to delay writing the check until the deadline, what are we doing to ourselves when we delay the tax preparation work too? Procrastination. Whether we’re preparing taxes or studying, some of us need the pressure that procrastinating provides just to begin our work. If only we could find a way to procrastinate just a little less next year! Mandatory tax deadlines. We entrepreneurs generally don’t like being told what to do. Hey, it’s one of the reasons why we’re entrepreneurs. Tax deadlines tell us what to do. The March 15^th deadline (for corporate tax returns) and April 15^th deadline (for personal tax returns) are non-negotiable, unless you want to pay late fees. We can, of course, file a request for a tax return extension (but not a payment extension) by completing the appropriate forms. But does an extension simply make us more compliant tax procrastinators?

Tips for Beating Tax Woes

Let’s say that this tax year has been unusually painful, and you’re promising yourself you’ll do better next year. What do other small-business owners do to make tax preparation easier? Stay organized. Something as simple as maintaining a separate file for each major tax area can go a long way. Try focusing on bank statements, accounts receivable, inventory, accounts payable, fixed assets, and loans, to name the biggies. Keeping this information in its own special folder (paper or electronic) can provide some comfort, and even confidence, at tax time. Reconcile your bank statements. Accurate tax return preparation begins with a final year end reconciled bank statement. Otherwise the return must be redone. Since most of us need to know our cash on hand to operate our businesses, it makes sense to habitually reconcile each bank statement within a few days after the end of the month. Use tax software. Can you imagine preparing your tax returns manually? Forget about it. Find tax return software you like, so preparing your taxes can be easier and maybe even fun. You used to enjoy puzzles, right? The three top online tax software products for small businesses in 2015 were Turbo Tax, H&R Block, and Jackson Hewitt. Hire an accountant. If you truly detest numbers, or you feel you don’t have time to do your own taxes, this is the best option for you. As a bonus, your accountant keeps you informed of tax deadlines well in advance. Anecdotally, working with an accountant you like makes the tax work… well, more enjoyable. Should you check your accountant? Heck yeah! It’s OK to delegate your tax responsibility to a third party, but don’t abdicate it like some of us do. A great way to check your accountant is to maintain a checklist. Keep a year-end tax-return checklist. This helps you manage your internal tax return preparation and your accountant’s results. I suggest starting with a list of four items here:

• Compare the schedules of balance sheet accounts with the return.
• Make sure that you (not just your accountant) know the names and numbers of the mandatory tax forms for which you are liable.
• Check the biggest numbers on the return—like sales, cost of goods, rent, payroll, total assets, and total liabilities.
• Conduct a sanity check by comparing your internal financial statements and financial records with your accountant-prepared tax return. Accountants make mistakes sometimes, just like us. Plus, won’t you feel better about your taxes if you check your accountant’s work?

What are the one or two changes you can implement now to make tax time easier next year? Perhaps you need to manage our reluctance to write checks for taxes or your hatred of deadlines. Reducing procrastination might relieve some tax time pressure. Most of us can find a way to improve our tax organization. What can you do to make tax time easier for you next year?       _{Copyright © John McAdam 2015. All Rights Reserved.}  

First of all, Investopedia defines value proposition as “a business or marketing statement that summarizes why a consumer should buy a product or use a service. This statement should convince a potential consumer that one particular product or service will add more value or better solve a problem than other similar offerings.”  In other words, a value proposition is a statement of what your business does that’s better than your competitors. How do you know if your value proposition needs a checkup?  Here’s a test. Have you ever met someone for a second time at a networking meeting, and they didn’t remember you or what you do? How do you feel? If you’re in sales, then this situation is disastrous. If you can remember them and what they do, why can’t they remember you and what you do? At a minimum, most of us would feel confusion. Others would feel frustration, or perhaps even anger. To be fair, people forget names, places, and businesses all the time, so it should come as no surprise that someone might forget about you. However, if multiple people are forgetting you and your business, then it might be time to give yourself a value proposition checkup. Other than people forgetting what you do, what are some other signs that your value proposition needs revisiting? Here are some questions that you can ask either yourself or others. An affirmative answer to each of these questions means that your value proposition is in great shape. Otherwise, a negative response indicates that it is time for a checkup.

• Could a typical businessperson repeat your value proposition accurately?
• Would that businessperson remember your typical customer?
• Is the repeated value proposition brief and clear?
• Does what they say evoke emotion?
• Do people ask you a follow up question about you or your business?
• Do people find what you do valuable, relative to similar offerings?

If you’re unsure how to go about this, then here’s a quick test for you. Ask someone you know—a friend, family member or trusted business associate—to repeat your value proposition back to you. If you’re feeling brave, then ask your friend to tell you what you do without reminding them first. Otherwise, tell a person your value proposition and have them repeat it back to you. The idea here is simple: if people remember what you do and can repeat it back to you, then you’re memorable. If you’re memorable then they might tell other people about you, which can generate word of mouth referrals for your business. Did you get a negative response to any of the questions? If so, then you have some refining to do. What should you do for a checkup? It helps to write your value proposition down, but be careful. People speak differently than they write. When you speak, you want to pay attention to the person in front of you. You don’t want to recite from a script. Our business speech and interactions need to have a natural flow and progression. If it helps, try one of the more popular value proposition exercises from The One-Hour Business Plan, called “What Do You Do?” exercise 1.2. Basically, you answer the question about what you do by filling in the two blanks in two sentences as follows: We work with people who need ___________________________________________. This benefits them by ____________________________________________________. There are other exercises in the book, but this one seems to be the most popular because it’s simple and quick. A value proposition is basically a statement of what you do that’s more valuable than other offerings. The best way to tell if you need a checkup is to objectively observe how others respond to your value proposition delivery. If someone can repeat accurately what you do, recognizes your customer, and understands what makes your offer comparatively more valuable, then you are in great shape. If not, don’t worry. Most of us need to refine our value proposition from time to time. How about you? [poll id=”6″] ^{Copyright © John McAdam 2015. All Rights Reserved.}

Deciding to hire your next salesperson is an important decision, whether it’s your first freshly minted new hire or simply your latest addition to a team. Why? A salesperson is the first impression your company makes on the outside world. A salesperson can help you expand your interactions with customers, allowing you to delegate without giving up control. Furthermore, the financial commitments are often serious—and sometimes more extensive than you originally thought. Plus, from experience, I know that working with a salesperson can be more emotionally exhausting and draining than working with your admin, bookkeeper, or operations person. I am often asked, “What do I need to think about or plan for before I hire a salesperson?” Well, here are some key issues to consider before making the decision to hire a salesperson: 1. Financial: How much time does it take for a salesperson to become profitable? Hiring a new salesperson goes in three stages: no revenue, breaking even, and making a profit. It takes time to get to stage three, of course. First, consider all major financial disbursements associated with a salesperson. This can include base salary, commissions, bonuses, payroll tax, and benefits—but don’t forget about other expenses salespeople typically incur such as travel, meals, printed marketing materials, samples, catalogs, office supplies, telephone, etc. That’s a lot of costs to consider! Now it’s time to predict your revenue. From The One-Hour Business Plan, you know your sales cycle time or how many customers you can acquire each month. Just take these monthly sales estimates and subtract them from the aforementioned monthly expenses, and you should have a reasonable estimate of how long you have to fund a salesperson to profitable productivity. 2. Customers: Are you ready to let go of your customers? As the leader of your business, you’re probably close to your customers. You have a good understanding of what they need, how they buy, and the types of questions that they might ask. Are you ready to delegate those interactions to someone you recently met? It takes courage, trust, and a leap of faith even just to begin the journey. 3. Strategic Alternatives: Do you need a commissioned salesperson at all? What are the strategic alternatives to hiring a salesperson full-time? Is a commissioned sales representative a viable option? If you can get similar results from an independent sales representative, then you’ve reduced your financial risk. Unfortunately, control over the sales process abdicates to the independent representative here. Can we reduce risk by going from full-time to part-time? Part-time to full-time employment should be considered as a viable option. Alternatively, if you are competing for the best salespeople with other employers, then offering part-time work at first might be unattractive for the salesperson you want. Either way, at least consider some strategic alternatives before making a hiring decision. 4. Your Company Culture: Will this person fit in? You know how you prefer to work, and you have a good idea of the work habits of your employees. Admittedly, any group develops a personality of its own over time. But how well will the new salesperson fit in? How well will they work with you and your employees? To develop an understanding, you can let your key employees interview the candidate. Personality tests can help predict a cultural fit, to some degree. Once the decision is made to hire a salesperson, I know from experience that orientation, on-boarding, and training programs help most new hires get up to speed with how things work (and how to fit in) much faster than with none. The Final Word on Deciding to Hire a Salesperson A salesperson’s compensation package is often one of the most expensive payroll decisions. While selling and administrative expenses make the cost of the hiring decision less predictable relative to other employees, these expenses can be estimated and controlled. From a psychological perspective, many entrepreneurs have a difficult time letting go of their customers. Consider how ready you are, in fairness to both you and the salesperson. With any key decision, strategic alternatives exist. You have options beyond hiring full-time. Are independent sales representatives or part-time employment viable alternatives? Finally, no matter how successful the salesperson might be, if he or she does not fit with your culture, then you’ll have aggravating workdays ahead. At least consider the cultural fit of a new salesperson before hiring. What factors do you consider before hiring your first or latest salesperson? Send an email to me at john at planfoundations dot com and let me know. Also, if you know of anyone who might be hiring a salesperson, you should send this to them. _{Copyright © John McAdam 2015. All Rights Reserved.}

After teaching a recent business planning workshop, I noticed something different about the business plan drafts written by these entrepreneurs—other than the fact that most of them were already in business. One group of people wrote plans that were almost entirely about doing business in the future. While the minority of the group, this future oriented group of planners were mainly involved in startup businesses. A second group within the workshop wrote extensively about their business, activities, recent history, and plans for the present, with little to no planning into the future. This group consisted mostly of existing business owner’s plans. It’s rare as an author and instructor that I see such extremes in time orientation in one workshop. Why do some people stick so close to the present while others want to skip the present and go right to the future? Some business planners live in the future. They think of business planning as a vision of what is yet to come. These folks try to predict what their business will look like in 5 years, and describe it in vivid detail.  The dreamers are comfortable here. What a comfortable place it is, to ignore that past and the present and simply create the business life that you want in the future. But the problems with planning in the future alone are obvious, right? Imagine trying to read a map knowing where you want to end up, but not understanding where you are. If you are as geographically challenged as I am, then you have literally experienced not knowing where you are while traveling away from home. I have literally missed planes while traveling because I took a wrong turn and lost track of where I was. Even more fun is thinking you are on the west side of a major city looking at a hotel map when you are actually on the east side. That makes for some interesting conversations with yourself. I can’t imagine ignoring where I am or my present situation in business while writing a business plan. You have to make a living today. You have finite resources committed to your business. You only have a specific amount of capital that you are able or willing to risk. You only have so many hours per week that you can commit to the new business initiatives described in your business plan.  Accounting for specific resources such as money, your time, and other people’s time helps us to get our head out of the clouds, think more realistically, and place our feet on the ground. How much of a business plan should be written geared toward present versus future business activities? Finding the right balance between planning for the present situation, and for the future that you want to create, is essential for successful business planning. If it helps, think of business plan time frames in three stages: the present, the short term, and the long term time horizons. Short term planning is generally defined as plans within one year of today. Long term planning is generally defined as plans more than one year away. To get from where you are now to where you want to be in the future, you must include present, short term, and long term time horizons. One tool that helps us manage the present with the future is tying action plans with business milestones as describe in the book The One-Hour Business Plan. A business milestone is a significant business event at least 90 days in the future. For example, imagine the milestone that states, “Our company will increase revenue by $100,000 by the end of the first quarter of next year.” Technically this is a quality milestone. It is a significant business event associated with growing sales with a measurable time period. Anecdotally, it would help if the person(s) responsible were included. Now let’s take the same milestone and add an action plan to it. An action plan is a sequence of steps designed to achieve a broader business goal.

1. Email 100 business owners, Due 1/6/20xx, Marketing Assistant
2. Telephone follow up from initial list, Due 1/15/20xx, me
3. Divide the list between interested prospects; separate the people that are interested 1/30/20xx, me & Administrative Assistant
4. Visit prospects to provide demonstration, due 2/28/20xx, me & Technical Support Person Jeff

You get the idea. The actions items keep detailing the steps that will be taken to achieve the broader business milestone. These action steps force us to work in the present and incrementally step into the future to achieve our goals. They’re how we move from the present to the future we’re creating. What milestones and action plans can you think of to achieve your business goals next year?      

^{Copyright © John McAdam 2014. All Rights Reserved.}

Do you ever get through your day and think, “I could have gotten so much more done today if I had an assistant? I feel so unproductive.” How about when you look at your to-do list and feel like you could definitely leverage your time better? How can you tell that you might need an assistant? The typical signs that you might need an assistant often include: overbooking your calendar, missing appointments, suffering from email overload, passing on business opportunities, or feeling overloaded with stress. Don’t you wish you had an assistant to take care of some or most of that for you?   The decision on whether or not to hire an assistant is an important one. Choosing wisely with proper planning will make you more productive and wealthier over time. Choose an assistant without thinking the decision through and planning, and guess what? You throw gasoline on the fire of unproductivity—and you will most likely spend money without earning a profitable return. What are the important factors when deciding whether or not to hire an assistant? Expectations & Goals– Arguably the most important factor in your hiring decision. A little planning can go a long way here, whether it’s writing a One-Hour Business Plan or just a simple job description. If you’re trying to leverage your assistant’s time to make you more money, then you need to hire someone who can support your business development efforts and sales efforts. One candidate might be better suited to conduct Internet sales research, while another might focus on administrative work. If you need business development leverage, make sure you hire for that skill set. If you fail to change your behavior to follow up on the assistant’s preparation work, then you as the business owner might make the whole process fail. It’s hard for us business owners to change our work activities sometimes, but it’s necessary to ensure a successful addition to your team.   Virtual or In-Person Assistant – If you have enough office space, an in-person assistant might be best for you. Consider the talent pool for assistants in your local area; if you’re not in a large city, it may be limited. Part-Time vs. Full-Time –How much assistant can you afford? Some business owners use part-time employment as a test before committing to the expense and risk of taking on a full-time employee. The decision often comes down to money more than to work requirements. Be careful not to overestimate the productivity gains, cost savings, or sales leverage an assistant will provide you. Be conservative with your estimates. Domestic vs. International– It is true that lower-wage assistants are available outside the US. But if your assistant is interfacing with your customers, then English-language and cultural skills become very important in who you’re hiring. If your assistant will be doing primarily back-office tasks such as research, supplier management, and scheduling, consider an international assistant. Personality– This might sound obvious, but the personalities of a business owner and an assistant must blend well for the relationship to work, even more so than other work relationships. They must enjoy each other’s company and anticipate one another’s needs for the working relationship to function optimally. Work Style– A quality assistant should be able to know what the boss is doing right now, as well as anticipating his or her future needs. Work style fit is important. Do you need someone who can operate without specific instructions? Are your work tasks very routine and repetitive, without a lot of thinking involved? Does one of you prefer to work on difficult tasks in the morning, the other in the afternoon?  Perhaps you prefer to manage your employees’ work closely, but your potential assistant detests being micromanaged. Using an Agency vs. Hiring Independently– if you are a trial-and-error person by nature or anticipate having to work with more than one assistant until you find the right fit, consider using an agency. It will cost you a little more, but will save you a lot of time. If you are mostly clear on what you want in an assistant, hiring independently might be the best way to proceed. There certainly are a lot of factors to consider when hiring an assistant. The point is not to make it complicated, but to consider your needs and those of your business. If hiring an assistant is right for you, do yourself a favor and consider these important factors.  Even a little careful planning can go a long way to increase your odds of a successful hire. Setting expectations and goals for your assistant—including what you want to accomplish—is a logical place to start. Let us know what you think.       Copyright © John McAdam 2014. All Rights Reserved.