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

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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 

John in the morning…

It’s 4:00 AM in midtown Manhattan. My favorite time of the day to write, in an exhilarating yet exhausting city—but I need coffee first. Should I make hotel-room coffee? No thank you, I’ve heard too much information about those machines. I check at the front desk and an overly awake woman proclaims, “Our first brew time is at 7:00 AM.” What?

It’s time to go hunting for coffee in midtown. Here’s what I find:

• Thai and Greek food-truck vendors with no coffee;
• A nightclub just closing, without coffee;
• Living-room furniture for sale;
• Services of ill repute.

  I’m moving on.

  Before doing so, I suggest to the Thai food-truck vendor to sell coffee, since no one else does during these transitional hours before dawn. The vendor laughs, says something in a foreign language, and then points east, down West 44^th Street toward Times Square. I’m walking….

  While strolling east on 44^th Street with music blaring through my headphones, I remember the last time I stayed in midtown. I had to be at the City College of New York on a Sunday morning at 6:00 AM as a guest for a two-hour radio interview. Around 5:00 AM, I had hailed a cab and said to my driver, “First, take me to a coffee shop, then to City College. I’ll pay extra.” He drove me to a Starbucks near Times Square. I bought a latte, placed it on top of the cab while removing my sports coat, and got into the cab. As I watched that latte fall from the sky and into the gutter on 7^th Avenue, I fought the urge to scream while my forehead struck the back of the passenger seat headrest. At that moment, I realized that I might have a caffeine problem.

While my radio host didn’t drink coffee (of course), I became fast friends with Ricky Young of WHCR 90.3 FM Harlem Radio that day. During our interview, we bantered about business, the upcoming release of www.theonehourbusinessplan.com, and helping entrepreneurs in Harlem. I remember someone taking a photo of us at the radio station with him boxing me and me wrestling him—great stuff.

Back to coffee. It turns out the Thai food-truck vendor sent me in the right direction. I stumble upon an oasis in the form of the 24-hour Times Deli. It’s about 5:30 by now. It’s a cool store, with competent coffee and nice people who seem curious about me, in gym clothes with my writing tablet and headphones blaring. On this morning, instead of writing, I choose to people-watch: passersby are obviously either waking up or going to bed. Oops—I’ve drunk that coffee too fast. And back up 44^th Street I go.

I rediscover a worthy Starbucks competitor called Gregory’s. They aren’t operating outside of Manhattan and Brooklyn yet, but in midtown they’re ubiquitous. They’ve found a nice niche by offering milder yet more savory flavors than Starbucks, with a gourmet flair. Now I find myself peering through the window like Tiny Tim looking at the Christmas goose, fogging up the entrance window. I knock and they say, “Ten minutes!” I reply, “Hurry.” The baristas look at me as if I have a problem, which I do. I smile and give them the thumbs up.

How does the “City That Never Sleeps” transition from late evening to early morning without coffee?

As I ponder this question, I realize that I’m in the perfect city to be different. I am wired for entrepreneurship in that when I look at the world, I don’t just see what’s there—I see what’s not there and should be. While this might sound great, not so much—since I often see frustrating situations more than I prefer.

The next time I visit this amazing city, I will bring my own coffee-brewing travel package. Fortunately, these exist and I don’t have to invent one. If you choose to join me in my quest for caffeine 24/7, you’re going to need a manual portable coffee grinder, coffee beans, and a measuring device (potable water and cup are assumed). With a little planning, you can enjoy coffee as good as what you’d brew at home.

Some ex-marines who are fellow mobile-coffee addicts wrote a great piece about portable coffee-brewing options, aptly titled “How to Take (and Make) Great Coffee Anywhere” http://bit.ly/1PorACL. These guys enjoy being well supplied and on the move.

On second thought, perhaps I won’t pack a coffee-brewing travel package. That might keep me in my hotel room. The people I met during my quest were fun to experience. One businessperson in a rush to get to a meeting uptown asked me, “Where did you find that coffee?” I told him about Times Deli and he didn’t have time to turn back. I offered him mine (having been there), but he smiled, thanked me, and proceeded to hunt for coffee along his route. If I brewed from my hotel room, I would have missed these fine city folks, not to mention the light morning rain, the fresh city air, and smiling at people rushing to get to bed before dawn. I’ll probably pack the coffee travel unit, make a brew, and go for a walk instead of hunting—it sure was fun.

Copyright © John J. McAdam 2015. All Rights Reserved (unless you need coffee).

For Testing Demo

Imagine your new employee, working under pressure for the first time in their new role, slowing your team down yet another time. At this moment you might say, “This isn’t working out,” and you might have to go through an awkward transition, forced to hire a new person—yet again. Many eyes might well glare at you for enabling this frustrating mess. Let’s stop here and rewind. We can focus on recruiting strategies to find a more qualified applicant pool. We’ll assume that you have some basic hiring preparation regarding a job description, work culture assessment, and a job posting. How do you find the best available employee to fit your profile? First, let’s review some traditional methods of recruiting. Then we’ll explore some evolving recruiting strategies and some of the latest trends. Afterwards, you might consider a different recruiting approach for your next key employee. Here are some traditional methods of recruiting: some old school (let’s say prior to the year 2000), some tried-and-true, and others too cost-prohibitive to consider: • Print: Classified ad, print ad in trade magazine or newsletter, unemployment office job posting. Sign in window or at place of business near foot traffic. • Website: Your company website, job specific website. • Other Media: Billboard, radio, TV. • In-Person Social Networking: Referrals. Networking, job fair, word-of-mouth. • Third Party: Employment Agency: Temporary or permanent. Recruiter—retained or contingency. Here are some more contemporary tactics that I see established business owners using today: • E-mail Campaign to customers within a geographic radius of employment. • Outsourcing: The sourcing and prescreening of applicants to third party HR firms. • LinkedIn: A targeted campaign of network connections. • Mobile Phone Apps: These are becoming like dating websites, matching employers with employees. Recruitifi caught my eye. • Networking: Hiring notices sent to network contacts via an email blast, phone calls or face to face. • Targeted Websites: Industry-specific or functional-discipline-specific. • Employee Referral Bonus Program: For a third party or employee. • Employee Development Program • Recruiting Directly from Competition • A Hybrid Approach of traditional and other recruiting approaches mentioned herein Corporate Trends in Recruiting

1. Corporate Talent Networks—using online social media tools and even vendors to build an audience for potential talent. Not just applicants for a job, but an audience of people interested in jobs at the firm—including alumni, fans, candidates, and current employees. 2. Social Sourcing—LinkedIn’s recruiter tool is more of a standard today than a trend in HR departments. Tools are evolving to develop competency ratings based on social profiles. 3. Recruiters as Sources, Not Recruiters—the focus is shifting to make the recruiter a talent sourcing specialist and initial screener, while the hiring manager becomes a better interviewer. 4. Assessment Tools—more tools keep evolving. 5. A Great Candidate Experience—to promote positive word of mouth and minimize negative online comments.

(Learn more about this.)4 Trends That Will Define Recruiting in the US in 20151. Intense competition is the main obstacle to hiring talent. 2. Social professional networks are the #1 source of quality hires in the US. 3. US companies are more likely to recruit passive talent than their global counterparts. 4. US companies are above average in prioritizing and proactively managing their talent brand. However, they have some catching up to do in properly funding and measuring their talent brand. (Learn more.) As you plan your strategy to recruit your next employee, it’s valuable to consider traditional methods of recruiting, tactics that established business owners are using, and trends in corporate recruiting. You’ll increase your odds of hiring right the first time. While we’ve ignored cost and time requirements here, it makes sense to adjust the recruiting tactic with the applicant pool before selecting a recruiting method, For example, hourly employees generally use different methods than salaried staff to find work. Also, the millennial age bracket is probably more likely to use a mobile phone to find jobs than a baby boomer. As your HR needs grow in size and complexity, consider doing what the big leagues do: developing a talent network, social sourcing, and creating specialties in the recruiting value chain. Whatever methods you choose, I hope that you can evolve your recruiting over time to build a better workplace.

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.}  

Let’s say that you recognize the signs that you need to relax more. If not, just click the aforementioned link for some suggestions. So, how do most people relax? More specifically, how can businesspeople relax right now? Learning what others do can help you to practice relaxing more during the business day. While preparing a menu of relaxation suggestions for you, I became stressed by the overwhelming number of relaxation choices. How’s that for irony? While we won’t be able to go into a lot of depth here, I can share some ideas to get you relaxing today and tomorrow. Let’s say a negative situation has just emerged or a disgruntled employee has just left your office. How can you relax right now? Try these immediate relaxation techniques:

• Take a number of deep slow breaths.
• Laugh at something or at least stop and smile at something.
• Close your eyes and calm yourself.
• Listen to relaxing music.
• Walk around to change your environment – preferably outside.
• Call a friend.
• Stretch at work (in an appropriate way).
• State a positive thought or a positive affirmation to yourself.

On the lighter side of work breaks, imagine how our parents and grandparents took a break at work. Their questionable old-school work-break habits mostly involved one substance or another: cigarette breaks, for one. Or alcohol – can you imagine keeping a fifth of hard liquor in your desk and pouring a drink for yourself while taking a break at work? Visualize the horrified looks on the faces your coworkers, subordinates, and superiors, not to mention your possible escort from the building. Snack breaks can help, but not from a vending machine – while still common in manufacturing environments, trying to eat well from a vending machine is like trying to make money by playing the lottery. There’s also the coffee break. We take the taste of our coffee more seriously and pay proportionately more for it than our parents. And the cloud of cigarette smoke has dissipated above the heads of a group of coffee drinkers. Sometimes we get so busy that we have to plan for rest and relaxation or it doesn’t happen. Given that regular relaxation promotes long term good health, we should plan for relaxation more systematically in the future. What are some things that you can do to include relaxation, rejuvenation, and rest in your days and months ahead?

• Plan for breaks at 90-minute intervals, or in whatever time increment that you need to refresh to become more effective.
• Take lunch breaks. Try to avoid eating lunch in your workspace every day. Some planning may be needed here to have lunch with others.
• Plan for a restful vacation. Get those vacation times on the calendar, even if you are not traveling.
• Make sure you get sufficient sleep (and preparation for sleep) for your mind and body.
• Making plans with friends during the week or on the weekend is a fun way to rejuvenate.
• Get a massage – if you haven’t already, try it, use it, and love it!
• Eat healthier. Whatever eating healthier means for you, a quality diet should energize your body.
• Hobbies – remember those? Make sure you plan for hobbies that relax you.
• Cultivate your sense of humor – laughing is an underrated way to relieve stress and have some fun in your workdays ahead.

Our bodies and minds need to relax to perform optimally. We are not designed to perform constantly without rest. As businesspeople, sometimes we push ourselves harder than we push the people around us. Recognize the signs that you need to relax and give yourself a break. Consider some of the suggestions above for relaxing immediately. For me, it’s fun to think about how our parents and grandparents took breaks at work. I wonder what our children and grandchildren will say about us and our work-break habits. My guess is that they will laugh at us eating at our desks, ignoring work breaks, and skipping vacations. How will you relax better today and during the months ahead?   _{Copyright © John J. McAdam 2015. All Rights Reserved.}

Whether you’re operating a start-up or an established business, the small-business world can quickly become a minefield. Briefly, let’s review the more common types of business disasters faced by entrepreneurs and small business owners today.

• Neglecting your marketing and letting your new-customer pipeline run dry

If you enjoy the company of entrepreneurs, like I do, you will eventually hear complaints about the feast and famine nature of their business, particularly with solo entrepreneurs in service industries. The feast-and-famine cycle goes like this. Your business starts in a famine state, because you usually don’t have a large revenue stream from day one. You market your services for months and finally acquire a client. Then you work full time serving that client. You are now in a ‘feast’ state. Time passes and the client’s project ends. Wait a minute—you’ve stopped marketing! You spent all of your time serving your client instead of selling your services. Damn! The famine state returns. Again you market full time to acquire your next client. You eventually land a client, and the feast-and-famine cycle continues.

• Customer concentration risk

Simply put: Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. By definition, if one of your customers represents more than 10 percent of your total revenue, then you have a customer concentration risk in your business. The higher the percentage of revenue that one customer represents, the greater the business continuity risk. You have to face the difficult question: what happens to your business when your largest customer disappears? Will you go out of business? How will you manage that scenario?

• Non-customer-based funding

I worry about start-up businesses that raise equity angel funding or take out a loan too early. You can keep raising equity funding like a start-up dot-com from the 1990s, but equity funding eventually ceases if you don’t make a profit. Alternatively, you can borrow money, but it must be paid back. What, then, is the long-term funding solution? Eventually customers are the only long-term source of funding for any business. Equity and debt should be treated like catalysts and timing solutions, respectively.

• Overly optimistic sales and marketing projections

Most of the business plans that I read contain overly optimistic sales projections based on their sales and marketing efforts. Be conservative with your expectations and you can avoid this disaster. Problems surface when we spend our money before earning our sales. While it’s true that you have to spend money to make money, you do not have to spend most of your money before making any money—or at least establishing a sales trend. Wouldn’t you rather under-promise and over-deliver?

• A lack of planning

I’m amazed at the number of people that I come across who are willing to risk their life savings on a small business without a business plan. This disaster is perhaps the easiest to avoid. If you need help getting started or focused on the most important parts of any business plan, try The One-Hour Business Plan, by yours truly. Even a business plan–phobic entrepreneur can spend one hour of writing time. Other planning resources can help as well. These are perhaps the most frequent yet avoidable disasters that I see today. How to avoid them? First, maintain your marketing, even during good times—the feast times. Next, you will need more than ten customers to eliminate customer concentration risk. However, continuing to spread your business across as many customers as possible will keep you open for business. Also, remember to fund your business through customers first. If customers don’t fund the business, eventually the business runs out of money and time. It’s sad, but worth remembering. While we entrepreneurs are an optimistic bunch, creating overly optimistic sales goals and overspending is another avoidable disaster. Finally, plan something before you spend years of time and savings. These are the top avoidable business disasters that I see. How about you? _{^{Copyright John J. McAdam 2015. All Rights Reserved.}}