Better Late Than Never

That may be true in life...sometimes...but not in business. I think it's okay in blogging.

As you can see, I've taken a couple of months off of actively blogging here. I'm planning on taking off a couple of more months and wanted to let you all know what's going on.

I am a bit of a news "hound" to say the least, but you may have noticed that my blog is more focused on giving practical advice that's more "evergreen". I write less about the business news of the day and more about what you may be going through in your business right now. My idea is to create a body of knowledge for the small business owner that can be used, ongoing.

The one thing I continually see is that a person's ability to realize their goals is connected very much to their personality, their ability to be flexible and to handle the ongoing stress of going it on their own. In the past year, in particular, I've met a lot of wonderful folks who are doing just that. Meanwhile, my own practice has become more and more fluid and flexible as well. I've been focusing more and more on design: web, advertising, knitwear and a bit less on mentoring. I don't see that part of my work ending anytime soon as I really love it and it seems to find it's way to me again and again.

With these changes comes a bit of a brain shift. I suppose I'm in less of a mindset to write practical blog posts for the small biz owner right now. So, I'm giving myself a couple more months off on the blog and will return at the end of the Summer for more of what I do best here. Meanwhile, I hope you'll pass this blog on to folks who are small business owners so that perhaps they can find some use from my words.

Always, please feel free to contact me directly with your inquires into my mentoring practice.

Barter or Not

There's been some humor lately generated by the woman who wishes to be a Nevada Senator regarding paying your doctor with chickens. Yeah, it's not something I recommend, but there are those times for all of us when we wonder if bartering is the way to go.

There's two main kinds of bartering, goods and services. Chickens would be "goods".
I would add two other categories:
Too Much Work to Be Worth it and
Great Because I'm Already Doing it.

Things to ask yourself about a bartering deal:

• Can I afford to not make actual money on this?
• Will the trade be an equitable one?
• How long will the trade last if it's for services?

Some things you may not have thought about on the plus side:

• Is this a good way of introducing someone to my goods or services who will hook me up with work in the future and be a good networker?
• Does this person have something I really want to promote to help them?
• Would you not be able to afford their services any other way?

Some down-sides:

• Are you unsure that they will hold up their end up the bargain?
• Is the trade or barter vague in some way? (scope of project)
• Do you not know how long it will last or if it will recur?

Bartering can be a great way to get yourself out there. For instance, I have a friend who places flowers at a store, weekly from her floral shop with some business cards. In exchange she gets custom made clothes, dollar for dollar.

Goods are an easy barter and should clearly be on the books. Meaning, you want to set up a barter account as a liability for each barter that you're doing. When you get an invoice or send a "zero" invoice, it should be posted to this account. Whatever money is sitting in that account on your books should reflect the barter "dollars" as they move back and forth.

Services can be a bit more tricky, and I won't go into the bookkeeping for that, but it's basically the same. Just consult your accountant. The most important thing to keep in mind with bartering your services is that you "feel" a sense of equity. Of course, equity on paper is crucial, but so is the sense that what you are receiving in return for your services is a good trade.

I've been very lucky and bartering has been a great way to make contacts with folks I would normally not come to work with. Just make sure that your business is "balanced" as well and that you have cash income coming in as well. Until the telephone company takes a barter, you've gotta run a cash operation!

Enough with the chickens, already...

To the Core of the Matter

This is one of those questions I get all the time:

• I've had this job for years and now I want a change. I've always dreampt of X business, am I crazy to try it?

This question has everything to do with "core skills". Those are the skills that you already have a firm grasp on. Skills that you have acquired in some way or other, in your life, that give you an understanding of the business that you want to start.

For instance, if you want to start a retail store, some of the skills that would be important would be:

• Sales experience
• Outgoing personality
• Organized
• Knowing a bit about the product that you want to sell
• Having connections with people who want to buy this kind of product if it is "niche"
• A grasp of basic bookkeeping
• Physical ability to lift and carry merchandise
• Ability to negotiate!
  

A retail business if a physical thing. It requires long hours, hauling of merchandise, moving things constantly. As muchtime as one spends talking to customers, one is also dealing with vendors, if the product is bought wholesale. It's a taxing thing! Take that same business online and you may have taken our the customer contact and the physical environment of a store, but you still need all the other skills.

What are your core skills?

Folks who work in one industry and find a "void" somewhere that they want to fill as a business person have a good way to enter self-employment. They already understand the industry from the inside out! Sure, there are still going to be lots for them to learn, but knowing the key players, what the industry requires and the "lay of the land" are huge benefits.

This is not to say that if you want to retire into something entirely different than what you did for your life's work, you won't succeed. What I would say is this, though: Talk to people who have stores if you want to open a store. Talk to people who offer a service to a niche market if that's your dream.

We all have "core skills" and your chance of success lies directly in the path of those skills. You can develop those other skills you may need to expand your business to the dream that you have. Start out with the ones you already have to build a firm platform or base in which to work from.

Having the business of your dreams may very well be a series of steps, instead of one giant leap from where you are to where you want to be.

Keeping it New

There's a fine line between keeping things "fresh" and looking like you're becoming a new company everyday. What's the difference? We're talking product-based businesses today.

When you walk into your favorite store, you probably notice two things: It looks like your favorite store. There's something new and exciting or a new energy going on.

That's a tall order as soon as you read it from the standpoint of that business owner, isn't it? You're got a lot going on. You probably don't have a merchandising department or much of a budget for that kind of stuff.

There are a few challenges you have if it's just you and maybe a partner looking at your business:

• Small changes seem HUGE to you, but your customer may not perceive them.
• The way you present things is the way YOU see them, not someone new to the store.
• Perhaps you get ideas of changing things but it would be too great of a departure from what you're already doing.
• Time slips away and you don't have a plan on the calendar for when you make changes.

There's plenty more, but let's look at these for now. One of the most obvious things is all about working in the bubble that is your brain. How do you gain perspective on what kinds of changes will actually affect your new customer and your regular customer in the best way?

The best case scenario is to really bring in a specialist on a contract basis to give you pointers and set you in the right direction. Instead of hiring a staff person, bringing in someone who really knows merchandising can give you a big lift.

The next possibility is to get to know biz folks (who's stores or sites you like) in non-competing markets and let them take a look and give you feedback.

Have a calendar ready with some idea of when new merchandise is coming in and when you should be doing a big change up and when you're just doing some freshening up. One of the things I see folks wasting a lot of time on is trying to figure out what to do with the cool new stuff that just came in. You should put some time into that, but if there's more of that cool stuff on the way, then make a plan for a bigger change when the rest arrives instead of sweating the little arrival. Basic time management on this one.

I could write loads of posts about image consistency. There are plenty of folks who work only in this area. You have your colors, your logo, your "look", etc. Make sure that whatever else you do is an extension of this in some way. It doesn't need to be "matchy matchy" but it needs to blend and be subconsciously palatable.

If a bigger change is in order, again, think about bringing in a consultant. Instead of giving the consumer whiplash as you flip from one style to the next, plan your moves and find ways to keep it fresh on a monthly basis.

One blog I really love with lots of great retail advice is Nicole Reyhel's Retail Minded. Invaluable stuff on a daily basis.

Step out of your bubble, know who you are, know who your customer is, follow trends and keep it fresh!

Insecurity

I see there are a lot of folks searching the word "recession". I know I haven't focused much on that, and I know why. To me, it's business in any climate in still business. In as much as I prefer not to focus directly on the recession, I will focus this post on the "feeling" of insecurity. Whether there is eminent danger or not, the sense of insecurity is pretty much the same from a strategic standpoint.

Making any decision in a moment of fear is a bad idea.

On this, I know of what I speak, people. I struggle with this one daily, myself. The thing is, chances are, we have more time than we think to make a decision about something. I'm not telling you to procrastinate, as that has it's own set of issues. I'm telling you to step back, analyze the situation when you can actually breathe.

In this breathing, weighing, analyzing moment, write down exactly what you think your choices are in a given situation. Let's use the example of marketing when you're in the red:

You can...

• Spend more than you have now if you think you have money coming in the near future.
• Spend nothing and put marketing on hold until you're doing better.
• Spend all the money you can on one big print ad.

All of the above are based on "spend or not spend" because your core issue is about money. Generally speaking, the one thing you probably have more of when things are lean is time. So, take the money out of the equation and ask yourself how can I spend my time to keep up my marketing efforts?

If you stop marketing when things are good, you won't have business when times are less good. If you stop marketing for lack of money, you've just bought yourself a self-fulfilling prophesy.

So, let's put in a couple of more options for the marketing effort, sans cash, or very little cash:

• FOCUSED online networking.
• If you have a retail environment, consider hosting events there for free to groups as a way to expose your biz to more new eyes
• Offer free seminars on what you do for your service-based biz.
• Host your own events and bring in like-minded folks. It's not competition, it's cooperative marketing.
• Reach out to existing clients/customers and offer them an incentive for sending you sales or leads.
• Offer to write articles on blogs in your area of expertise.
  

If you are committed to your business, to your dream, just don't stop. Everyday your business NEEDS you to show up. Recession or no, all of the points above apply to the long run of this business of yours. Stop waiting for things to "free up" and make things happen!

Still About Me...

Thanks for indulging me, folks...

It's a new year, a new decade and I've been rethinking my Twitter name a lot. For me it's been an interesting experiment. I've kept it as "Knitfemme" because that's how so many in the cyber world know me. But, after a year of activity on Twitter and somehow many folks finding me and hiring me as a consultant, I've decided to open things up a bit.

I've kept my fiber-arts and biz identities very much tied because it's occurred to me that perhaps it would keep me a little bit more "warm and fuzzy" (pun intended). I think it worked. over 2,550 followers later, I realize that I'd like my identity to make a little more sense to folks who don't "get me".

Laura sent me this list from Forbes of the Top female entrepreneaurs on Twitter and first: I wasn't on the list. Second, my name didn't "fit" on the list.

I have chosen @MelissaThinks

When was I playing around with names and seeing what was available, there was some serious soul and ego searching going on. Can I just say, "I" think? Well, in many ways it's what I get paid to do. Most people who have jobs do, but in my case, perhaps it's more literal. The bulk of the work I do is based on two questions:

What do I do now?
What do I do next?

Pretty much! So, at this time in my life as a consultant I think I can absolutely "own" MelissaThinks. But that's because it's not "MelissaIsPerfect" or "I'mAlwaysRight" or "TrustMe" (Although I do in fact say that a lot).

So, do trust me and although I don't post to this blog as much as I have in the past, Melissa is really busy...thinking.

It's All About Me

As I was composing this post in my head, I wondered if I should post it here... or here or here. Well hey, if it's all about me...?

This is actually about the fear of failure and the expectations we have of ourselves.

I had a knitting experience today and if you know me, knitting is the single analogy for everything in my life.

I was taking a knitting break and making a pair of mittens from a pattern I've been holding onto for a while. I started it with some yarn that I didn't like and then I started them over again after being into them about 5%. Now I'm about 30 % into them with the "right yarn" and I get to this part and I think:

Holy Cr*p, I don't think I know how to do this part. This looks all wrong. I can't do this. I remember that I can't do this!!

Who can't relate to that? Even in the position as mentor to others, this comes up for me often enough. It's like the therapist who has all their own woes and doesn't want others to make the same mistakes, I suppose. I have a good dose of self-esteem going on, but there are those moments. Those quick-as-a-flash times when a choking panic comes over me and I think I haven't a clue about what to do next.

You know what that makes me? Human.
You know what else that makes me? Passionate.

It's my passion for what I do that takes to daily into uncharted territories, in my mentoring, my fiber-arts, my relationships. Wow, that's a relief! I you thought I was just crazy for a minute, didn't you? Ha!

Back to the knitting:

Seven years ago I was at my first really big knitting....uh...convention. I had been knitting for a while and had covered all the basics. I turned around in this huge convention hall and saw all these really well-heeled women showing their cashmere yarn and it was all knit into lace shawls. Cashmere lace? While briefly hyperventilating at all the goodness before me I talked myself down like this:

Melissa, when you are old, like 20 years from now, you will knit cashmere lace. You'll be good enough, you'll be able to afford it and heck, it's something to reach for! No rush, you don't even have to worry yourself with attaining that level of expertise.

It's 6 years later. I now knit cashmere into lace, that is, before I spin it myself. I didn't know I would be able to really knit lace, or become a spinner. None of it. What I've done is let my passion take me on this journey. At any point my fear could have gotten a hold of me. Stopped me in my tracks with some reminder of who I "think" I am.

I am what I do, what I say and what I create, everyday. You are too, but you know, this is all about me....kinda.