201 Great Ideas for Your Small Business

Jane Applegate

• Publisher: Bloomberg Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780470919668
• eBook ISBN: 9781118067710
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Small Business
• Index: Business

Completely revised and updated edition of this very popular and successful small business book

The first edition of 201 Great Ideas for Your Small Business was hailed by management guru and author Tom Peters as "Brilliantly researched. Brilliantly written. A gem of priceless value on almost every page. Read. Inhale. Absorb. Great Stuff!"

In this completely updated third edition of 201 Great Ideas for Your Small Business, renowned small-business expert and consultant Jane Applegate shares new, powerful, creative, simple, and proven approaches for building a better small business.

• Details how business owners can use online marketing and social networking more effectively
• Offers timely strategies for thriving in challenging economic times
• Includes scores of real-life success stories and all-new interviews with small-business owners, experts, and VIP's including Guy Kawasaki, Kay Koplovitz, and Michael Bloomberg

It may be small, but your business is a big deal to you, your customers, and employees. 201 Great Ideas provides lively, practical strategies to help you manage, grow, and promote your business.

Chapter 1

Management Strategies

Small business owners have to be like those plate spinners in the circus ring. You’ve probably seen those jugglers: they toss plates atop spindly poles. As soon as one plate starts spinning, the next plate wobbles, ready to crash. Plate spinners rush from pole to pole, trying to keep all the plates aloft.

Juggling skills are essential for running a small business.

Balancing life and work is nearly impossible, especially with all our electronic tethers. Smartphones are cool, but they make it easy to work nonstop.

This chapter on management strategies features great ideas about how to manage through chaos. I’ll explain why creating an informal advisory board is a great idea and how a company retreat can boost morale and productivity.

You’ll learn how to hire great advisers, including attorneys, accountants, and consultants. We’ll explore how to keep employees healthy and happy by creating a safer, “greener” workplace. You may be inspired to move your business into a business incubator and cross-train your employees.

All these great ideas were suggested by business owners, so read on.

Always Deal with Decision Makers

An entrepreneur’s goal is to operate at the highest level possible. You’ll increase the odds of making a deal if you pitch the decision maker, whether that person is another business owner or a corporate executive. Your mission is to get to the person who writes the checks and move on to the next opportunity if the answer is “no.”

Even when The Applegate Group Inc., my multimedia communications and consulting company, was based in the dining room of our suburban Los Angeles home, I resolved to always deal directly with the top person. My strategy raised eyebrows, but as a financial writer, I was interviewing and profiling decision makers every day. Companies claim to empower employees and work collaboratively, but the truth is, someone has to say “yes” or “no.”

It took courage to quit my prestigious job at the Los Angeles Times to write a weekly small business column, write books, and consult with big companies selling products and services to small business owners.

I was very lucky. My first client was American Express. The corporate card group wanted to sponsor a weekly small business report on National Public Radio. I was upset when NPR turned us down, because they already had a corporate sponsor for small business coverage, but we took the idea to CBS Radio. My syndicated Succeeding in Small Business report aired for about four years and launched my speaking and consulting career.

We’ve flourished through the years by pitching marketing concepts, television programs, business events, and independent films to the people who can “green light” a project. You might be thinking, “Well, it’s easy because you are Jane Applegate and people know who you are.” Not so. No matter who you are, it’s worth aiming high. You have nothing to lose by sending a short and focused handwritten note (not e-mail) to the founder, president, or chairman of a company you want to do business with. Worst case, your note will be read by an assistant and may forward it to the appropriate person down the chain of command.

I know everything is moving online, but letters cut through the clutter. I once sent a story pitch via Priority Mail to the executive producer at 60 Minutes. Two days later, his assistant called me. She said my letter was the only piece of mail on his desk. He read it and asked a producer to call me right away. (They passed on the story, but I know it was considered, which impressed my client.)

And don’t be shy about using all your contacts—even personal ones. For example, I was chatting with a neighbor who is executive vice president of a big bank. I mentioned that I was looking for companies to give this book away to small business customers. He passed along my pitch to his business banking team. No matter what happens, I know my proposal got to the right person, with a note from a top executive.

Remember, you have only a few seconds to make your pitch to a busy person. Focus on how your service, idea, or product can help their company beat the competition. If you don’t get a response to your letter, call the company’s main number early in the morning or after 5 pm. Ask the receptionist to connect you to the person’s direct line. Powerful executives usually work longer hours than their subordinates and assistants. I’ve reached many top executives working at their desks during the lunch hour, too.

I should warn you that this “easier at the top” strategy has pitfalls. Even if the top person signs off on your project, middle managers may feel threatened. They will most likely sabotage your project. I’ve encountered this resistance to my projects many times, but most of the time, things work out if you keep the lines of communication open.

The “not invented here” issue can kill a good idea. I share this not to discourage you, but to emphasize how critical it is to have open and constant support from the decision maker who hired you. Keep in touch with that person and make sure they know how things are going.

Be creative and persistent. Find someone who knows your prospect and ask them to introduce you. Remember, people do business with people they know and like.

Never Work with Anyone Who Gives You a Headache or a Stomachache

This is my motto. Life is too short to work with people who make you miserable. You can’t possibly do your best work when the people you have to deal with make you sick.

I know. I’ve tried. As a freelance writer and producer, I have worked on amazing projects for terrible people, including a greedy, obnoxious celebrity and the campus loony at an elite graduate school. The production company story involved a really famous person who misappropriated production funds raised by a nonprofit organization and is too upsetting to share. (I’ll include it in my memoir.)

But lessons can be learned from my most traumatic work experience. In 2008, the Great Recession prompted me to accept what seemed like a dream job at a prestigious business school. I was hired to write white papers and articles, produce audio and video clips for a web site, and coproduce a lecture series on the future of television. Best of all, I was asked to write, produce, and direct a documentary based on interviews with top industry executives visiting the school.

My four-day schedule allowed me to still speak at Bloomberg TV–sponsored small business events a few times each month.

Unfortunately, six months into the job, I was suffering from blinding tension headaches and my stomach was in a twist. Every morning, as I walked past the security bars on the windows in the stairwell, I felt like I was heading to my prison cell. The chemistry between my boss and me was terrible. I knew I was toast when he called me into his office for a performance review.

He shut the door, sat down, and began listing my infractions: I walked too quickly down the hall, creating a “wake” that disturbed his secretary; at a staff meeting, my jacket accidentally brushed against her and I did not apologize. Worst of all—the day before our biggest public lecture (which drew a standing-room-only crowd of 250)—I left campus during my lunch hour to get my hair cut instead of helping her prepare the name tags.

I remember watching his mouth move but not hearing any sound. It was surreal. Not a word about my writing, public relations, or production skills. No mention of the interviews being conducted in the new studio funded by the dean’s office. No mention of teaching students production techniques or producing a broadcast-quality film on a cable-access budget.

Of course, things went downhill after that. He desperately wanted me to quit, but I was not willing to give up this job without a fight. Naïve about academic politics, I met with the human resources director, the assistant dean, and an employee assistance counselor. The counselor told me my boss was well known for being “difficult and quirky,” and my days were numbered. He also told me I was toast because my boss was a “rainmaker,” who brought big money into the school. I begged the dean for a transfer to another department—any department where I was not being tortured and disrespected every day. I was desperate to keep the job, having given up all my freelance work.

Magical thinking took hold. Maybe if I worked harder things would improve? Every morning, I was the first one in the office. I risked my life driving to campus in a blizzard. A few weeks later, he called me into his office, reluctantly turning down the volume on the yodeling music he loved. (Yes, yodels streaming live via the Internet from Switzerland.)

This time I was reprimanded for asking a colleague whether she was going to meet an agreed-upon deadline for completing a brochure that had been languishing in the art department for two years.

“Jane, here’s the problem,” he said quietly. “You focus too much on performance and production. But my priorities are process and protocol.”

Huh?

Slowly, he took away all my projects. I sat in an empty office for a few weeks waiting for the head of the department to return from a trip. It took sending a detailed letter to the dean detailing my former boss’s unprofessional conduct and violations of the academic code of ethics to finally qualify for unemployment benefits.

After that demoralizing experience, I swore I would never work with anyone who made me sick. No amount of money is worth the pain. Success will evade you if you work in a toxic atmosphere. If you have made bad hires and you dread going to work, you need to take action now.

Work with people who admire you, work hard, and make you laugh when times are tough.

Don’t Be Afraid to Reinvent Your Business

In the late 1990s, anyone wanting Sandra Nunnerley’s elegant, custom-designed furniture had to have deep pockets as well as good taste. Long accustomed to serving the upscale market, with a single chair tagged at $10,000, Nunnerley said she was pushed into the retail market by copycats. “I started to notice that copies of my custom designs were appearing in retail outlets,” said Nunnerley.

Fueled by the middle-class housing boom, Nunnerley teamed up with furniture giant Lane Upholstery to design a line of elegant sofas, beds, chairs, and tables.

Her furniture and interior designs, the subject of an upcoming book and featured in Architectural Digest, appealed to Lane Upholstery president Arthur Thompson.

“Sandra is a designer of remarkable talents, one who has consistently responded to a discerning international clientele,” Thompson remarked when the line was launched. “Her simple, sophisticated designs fill a void in the marketplace for furniture that meets the demands of modern living without sacrificing elegance, style, and tradition.”

Although her line for Lane was lucrative, Nunnerley said in 2005, her research showed that the U.S. housing boom was about to become a housing bust. “I did very well with Lane, but I could see the market changing, and by the end of 2005, I said this cannot last . . . this thing is a bubble.”

“I saw the train coming and knew we had to rethink the company,” said Nunnerley. “We were really making a profit on our high-end residential work, so I decided not to continue with designing products.”

Colleagues who kept serving the mass market furniture, including Michael Smith, the Obama’s interior designer, “got into a lot of trouble.”

Since moving back to serve the highest end of the market, Nunnerley said the company has “never been so busy.” The Manhattan-based firm has grown from 6 to 10 employees.

“At the level I work now, it’s only for the very r...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 : Management Strategies
• Chapter 2 : Money Matters
• Chapter 3 : Technology and Telecommunications
• Chapter 4 : Develop and Launch New Products and Services
• Chapter 5 : Marketing Strategies
• Chapter 6 : People
• Chapter 7 : Time and Personal Management Ideas
• Chapter 8 : Customer Service
• Chapter 9 : Going Global
• Chapter 10 : Great Ideas and Insights from VIPs
• Conclusion
• Resources
• About the Author
• Index