Business skills and lessons learned

As a small business owner, you bring your know-how from past successes and failures to your business. As the business grows, you continue to build on lessons learned and hone your business skills. For many small business owners, “learning from doing” is the primary teacher.

Do your business skills match your business’ complexity?

I recently shared six tips on this topic and asked other small business owners about their experiences. How did their business skills match the complexity of their business when they first opened? How have they dealt with this tension throughout their business’ evolution? What advice would they want to share with others?

In previous posts Heidi Gibson of The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen and Rachel Saunders of Blue Chair Fruit shared their stories with us. Here are two more business owners tackling complex issues and leveraging their management skills.

Elizabeth Leu
Fiddlesticks

When Elizabeth Leu started Fiddlesticks, a children’s boutique in Hayes Valley, she thought she was prepared. She first worked for someone else and learned as much as she could about the retail business. Elizabeth also took the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center Business Planning class.

She started her business with a solid foundation of hands-on experience, working for others, and thoughtful planning. Yet she couldn’t prepare herself for what it would actually feel like when she was completely responsible for her own business and all its complexities.

“As a small business owner you have to be the master of all in everything you do, and that’s not easy. You have to wear ALL the hats and ideally, they should all fit. I think management capacity is finding the correct fit with all those hats — and that’s hard! It takes a lot of time and experience to get them all to fit.”

Elizabeth’s advice:

Learn as much as you can about every role in your business.

“You may love only a few of those hats but you have to figure out, master and tolerate them all — at least in the beginning until you can outsource. Once you get strong enough to outsource, you still need to understand how it all works to keep a watchful eye on the whole operation.”

Stay positive and just keep going.

“I have worked very hard to grow my business and I have had some significant setbacks. With every setback I can either choose to learn from it or become bitter and harbor frustrations. I have worked hard to learn from them. All of the setbacks were complex and difficult, especially because it was uncharted territory for me. But I learned and I am still learning. What is it they say, ‘two steps forward, one step back’? As long as you move forward, business complexity feels easier because you keep breaking it down, tackling it piece by piece.”

Claire Keane
Clairesquares

Claire Keane, owner of the artisan, handcrafted sweet treats company Clairesquares, says that her business skills did not match the complexity of her business when she started. She had a steep learning curve. But Claire gained the skills she needed by seeking out specific business knowledge and support and her daily experiences in business brought many lessons learned.

Claire’s key steps for developing core business skills:

Write a business plan.

Claire took the 14-week Business Planning Class at the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center and wrote a business plan. “To this day, I frequently remember key pointers from each class.”

Join an incubator.

Claire joined La Cocina’s Incubator Kitchen and received the help of that community and all their support services.

Attend lots of workshops.

Claire learned from others to increase her skills. “Whenever there was a workshop relevant to my lack of skills, I made sure to attend it. I was able to take tips from each training and apply it to my business immediately.”

Develop a support team.

Claire knew that she could not do it all alone. “It was very helpful to have a business mentor, new business friends with similar start-up business pains and other friends and family to lean on for advice to get me through the learning curve.”

Keep at it, even through failure.

Ultimately it has been Claire’s tenacity and her perseverance that has made her business a success. “No amount of workshops can prepare you for real world experience. In the end, I learned from trying, failing, and trying again.”

Check out these additional tips on balancing business skills with business complexity. What has worked for you and your business?

Small Business Week!

May 15, 2015
Current Climate for Small Business, Events & Community
PTA
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Don’t miss it! Small Business Week begins and ends with Sidewalk Sales in 20 neighborhoods throughout the city, Saturday, May 16th and Saturday, May 23rd.

The kick-off event on Monday night, May 18th is not to be missed (tickets mandatory, but only $20). Flavors of San Francisco is a great opportunity to network with small business owners and small business resource organizations and eat delicious food from San Francisco restaurants. (Other mixers are taking place throughout the week, too.)

Friday, May 22nd will be the heart of it all — the Small Business Conference includes over 50 workshops jam-packed with info on a variety of topics relevant to small business. (Workshops are FREE but space is limited.)

Please participate! Small Business Week is a great opportunity to network, gather good information and celebrate the small business community in San Francisco!

I’m proud to see Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center graduates featured on the Small Business Week website: Pinkie’s Bakery, Frisco Fried, Socola Chocolatier and Van Meter Williams Pollack.

Getting into Business

Emerging entrepreneurs can be a different breed. They are excited about their business ideas and are driven by their passion… but it may also blind them to some degree. How do people start a business with their eyes wide open and set themselves up for success right from the start?

Passion is essential

First, passion and conviction are essential. You need to know who you are and what you want to do. Then there is the choice of business model and knowing your product or service inside and out. You want to be ready to eat, drink and breathe business ownership… and wake up and do it again the very next day.

Know your market

Even if you have the best business idea and you are confident in your ability to make a product or provide a service and set up a successful business model, the great arbiter of success is the marketplace. Your business concept must be viable, not just to you, but to the people who will be your target market. How do you know your business expectations are not fiction? To get the answer, you must talk to people, survey potential customers or clients, and test your assumptions.

Test your concept

Once you have an idea of the marketplace, you want to test the concept. You can pop up in someone else’s space or test your product or service at a street fair or makers fair. You can get friends to hold events and sell your product in their living rooms. You can convince a friend who has a retail shop to let you set up a trunk show. If all goes well, the experience will make you feel more secure that your business idea is a good one and that you want to own and run a business.

Can you now say YES to these 5 key questions?

Do I really enjoy being in business?
Can I attract the customer or client who will appreciate my business and will pay for it?
Am I good with customers and can I provide excellent service?
Does my business model make money or will it at least break even “soon”?
Can I envision myself persevering for the next 12 to 18 months to really establish my business?

Time for planning

Some degree of prior business planning is essential. To help guide you, you can take a class, read a book, or ask an experienced business owner for support. However you do it, the purpose of a plan is to define your business offerings, specify your market, outline the essential management skills needed, and create realistic financial projections with a well-timed series of action steps. Your final plan will be a useful document for potential investors, funders or business partners. But the primary purpose for writing a plan is for the process itself. It forces you to be objective and critical, identifying weaknesses, challenges and opportunities and setting benchmarks to track progress. Ultimately, it will give you confidence to get into and continue with the business.

Take the plunge

So you have made some initial sales, carved out time on weekends to work on the business and you are still excited about doing it. Actually, it is all you can think about. How do you take the plunge from part-time to all-in?

There are many different ways to do it.

Wait to launch until you have raised enough start -up capital – either through personal savings, bank loans or crowd fundraising.
Convince your friends and family to lend you money (perhaps with no interest) and agree that you do not have to pay them back for at least three years.
Approach your employer and negotiate to work only four days a week and use that extra day to work on your business.
Move from full-time employment to a contractual arrangement so that you can set your own hours and take time off when needed for the business.
Find an active or silent business partner with capital to invest in the new business and cover business expenses for the first year.
Marry well and/or use your future inheritance to support your entrepreneurship habit!
Quit your job and go all in right away, using credit cards to get you through the cash flow negative start-up period.

The path to small business ownership is unique for each entrepreneur. It depends on your tolerance for risk, your access to capital and cash flow, your skills and experience running/managing a similar enterprise, and your support systems.

Time, money and the prospect of failure are common hurdles for almost every small business owner starting out:

How do I find enough time to devote to my business?
Do I have enough funds to support myself while the business is developing/evolving in the first 6, 12 or 18 months?
Can I respond well to short-term failures as I navigate my way to long-term success?

You may struggle to find the right strategy to get your business off the ground but if you have passion for your business idea, some success from product or service testing, solid financial projections, and a strong support network… YOU CAN DO THIS!

Are entrepreneurs crazy? Sometimes yes. But that’s just what may be needed to jump in and swim! Some start in the shallow end of the pool and tip-toe down the stairs. Others lower themselves down the ladder until they are fully immersed but continue to hold onto the edge. And then there are the ones who leap off the diving board straight into the deep end. No matter your approach, just make sure you can see the edge and make your way back to solid ground as needed. But if you really want to swim in the world of small business ownership, you first just have to get into the water!

Grappling with change

January 19, 2015
Inspiration & Perspective, Support Systems
PTA
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The only thing constant is change.

As small business owners, we constantly navigate change. The ups and downs of product sales, hiring employees or letting them go, adjusting (or pivoting) our business model to match the marketplace, or simply dealing with our own drive and ambition. Change is inevitable and necessary for our businesses to survive and thrive.

Predictable changes
It would be nice to know when change is coming. We can then predict how it will affect us or our business—such as a seasonal spike (or dip) in revenue or a competitive advantage opportunity—and then plan for it. For significant shifts to our business we can take initiative and create transition plans. These plans can map out specific action steps and a management timeline. This could be for a new affiliation, a joint venture, a ownership succession or a business sale. Through a series of steps over months (or even years), we can make sure that a big change happens in the best way possible.

The unpredictable
Sometimes change happens to us. Someone we love dies, we get sick, we lose a contract, or someone important moves away. When something unexpected happens—either in our personal life or in our business—it can easily disrupt our world. We lose our sense of control and can be at a loss for what to do next. Are we going in the right direction? Are we on the right path? Should we be doing something else?

Here are some strategies that I find helpful when navigating unexpected changes.

Acknowledge the change and your fears.
When experiencing an unexpected change, it is natural to feel awful, fearful or just uncomfortable. The first step is to acknowledge what you feel and that you are in a difficult place. The situation usually doesn’t get better by pretending it didn’t happen.

Seek support.
Reach out to others to share what you are experiencing. Your loved ones and colleagues can help remind you that you are not alone. Your community will understand the impact of this change for you and can be there for you as you deal with it.

Be here now.
Mindfulness meditation (even for just a few minutes a day) and other awareness or spiritual practices can help you relax and stay calm. It can help you focus on the present moment, instead of worrying about what has happened or what will happen.

Put it in perspective.
How have you handled past changes or challenges, and what helped you? Support from friends? Taking care of yourself? Actively seeking solutions? Waiting patiently for a solution to come? How you dealt with past experiences may help you now.

Keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Sometimes, the easiest first step is to just keep moving! As a small business owner, your business passion is integral to who you are. Keep doing what you love. What you accomplish each day will help you deal with the challenge at hand.

Above all, though, be patient with yourself. We all have the capacity to adjust to what life throws at us… eventually!

Taking Action

At Paul Terry & Associates we help small business owners build successful and sustainable enterprises. Our consulting process is focused on clear assessments, careful advice and taking action. Central to our approach is business action planning.

Your passion and a strong vision for your enterprise launched you into small business ownership but a great idea alone won’t make you a successful business owner. You must turn your initial ideas into realistic goals with a specific plan for action.

Whether you are an emerging entrepreneur or an experienced business owner entrenched in the complexities of running a business, business action planning can help you identify measurable goals and create specific steps to reach your desired outcomes.

Every area of your business – customer/client relations, marketing and sales, business operations, ownership expansion, and your eventual exit from the business – can benefit from action planning. So how do you begin?

DEFINE YOUR GOAL

Put it in writing. Writing down exactly where you are today and where you want to be in the future will force you to think concretely. Taking the time to write down your goals may spark some new ideas, too.

Be S.M.A.R.T. – that is, specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely/time-bound. You need to be able to clearly state what you want to achieve and your goal needs to be concrete and doable. Initially, steer clear of goals that might take you three to five years to achieve. Once you get comfortable with the action planning process, you can use it to tackle bigger, longer-term goals. For now, stay focused on something you can attain within a year’s time, or even less.

SET YOUR ACTION STEPS

Take it one step at a time. You are much more likely to attain your goal when you identify specific steps to reach it. Each step needs a realistic deadline and an estimate of how much it will cost you—not just in dollars but in your time and other resources.

GET SUPPORT

Everyone needs someone to lean on. Trusted advisors and people in your business support network are essential during this process. They can be a sounding board while you create your plan and they can keep you accountable once you have a plan… every step of the way.

USE YOUR PLAN

Long and pretty it ain’t. A business action plan isn’t a fancy document—it’s a usable one. It needs to be accessible and referred to frequently. It might help to set reminders on your calendar to review it so that you can stay on track and make adjustments if necessary.

Still feeling daunted by action planning? We support clients through the action planning process every day –helping them create goals relevant to their current stage of business, identify specific action steps, and stay on track. How can we help you?

Elements of effective mentoring

“The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image,
but giving them the opportunity to create themselves.”
– Steven Spielberg

January is National Mentoring Month so it feels like the right time to be talking about small business mentoring — a key ingredient to success for every entrepreneur.

At some point, we all need guidance, a sounding board and a cheerleader to navigate through changes, growth and challenges in our business. Guidance can come in many forms — from a business “buddy”, through a peer support group, or directly from a trusted business adviser or a team of advisers. No matter the form, what is most important is that our mentors encourage us to look closely at issues and opportunities, and to maximize our potential. With their support, we can develop our business skills, take risks, and be successful.

Our support system must include people who have been in our shoes. We must surround ourselves with subject-matter experts and experienced small business owners who have dealt with similar challenges first-hand and can help us make sense of the clutter and make decisions with relevant, timely advice.

Though I believe that the best small business mentors are other small businesses owners, success in business does not qualify someone as a good mentor. That person must also be a skillful listener and motivator, know how to ask questions, and know when and how to give honest advice. In addition, the best mentors open doors to a wider network that can support us and our business.

To sum it up, I believe that effective mentors…

Listen carefully to what you say (and don’t say)
Understand your needs and respect your point of view
Ask questions and challenge assumptions
Guide based on their own experience/expertise
Share relevant and immediately actionable advice, and
Are accessible and supportive over the longer term.

Above all, the mentor-mentee relationship should be a partnership, based on mutual respect and trust.

As we develop our mentoring services at PTA, I have been reading many articles about mentoring and asking others about their mentoring experiences. What “words of wisdom” about mentoring have inspired YOU?

Mentoring matters

What really matters to us as we move through life? For many of us, it is family, friends, good health and making a difference in the world through the work we do.

I recently read the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson and watched a documentary on his life and last few months. Jobs didn’t ever seem to give up. He pushed himself and others to be different and make a difference. He is an example of someone who had a passion for life, a commitment to make an impact, and a curiosity that never went away.

Jobs felt that “the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe to be great work.” He went on to say that “the only way to do great work, is to love what you do.” Do we all have this passion and enthusiasm? Are we committed to being a success no matter what stands in our way?

Most small business owners are driven… to do something our own way and to be a success. Yes, we want to be financially successful but other types of success matter to us, too: doing something unique, being remembered, teaching others, and leaving a legacy — something that will last.

But what happens when we get stuck? What if we cannot stay connected to the passion? What if success feels elusive and failures do not all become lessons learned? Innately, we know we must keep moving forward and that we will learn from our failures if we can figure out a different path. (Of course, trying to do the same thing the same way over and over is not wisdom, it’s insanity.) Success usually doesn’t just show up. We have to go out there and get it…tackle it, embrace it, own it.

Sometimes we have trouble figuring out the next steps on our own, though. There may be too many options. We may be spinning our wheels around one particular issue. We may hesitate instead of taking action. When we stumble and panic, who can guide us and nudge us forward? Finding someone we trust to mentor us can be critical.

I have a client who is a long-distance open water swimmer. When his group is on a long swim they have escorts in kayaks, rowboats and inflatable motorboats. As he explains, the escorts “look out for our safety, fending off other boats, telling us where we are, where to go, they feed us. They make sure we are okay in mind and body. They are our cheerleaders and companions in our journey to the goal.”

Small business owners also need guides through rough waters. We need escorts, cheerleaders and supporters as we deal with changes and difficulties in our businesses. We might be forced to move locations unexpectedly, have an important employee abandon us, or struggle to make the business financially sustainable. In these times, mentors are essential.

According to the Startup Genome Report, “having helpful mentors” is key to entrepreneurial success. This survey of 650 internet startups found that “the right mentors significantly influence a company’s performance and ability to raise money.” Though we may not have the data to prove it yet, I believe mentoring matters for all small businesses, both new and established. With great mentor support, we can all become the small business owners we want to be.

Social Enterprise on the Tibetan Plateau

Tibetan Social Enterprise Lab Fellows

This past month, twelve entrepreneurs from the Tibetan Plateau in Western China have been immersed in an intensive learning experience in the San Francisco Bay Area. They were selected as the first group of Fellows in a new program called the Tibetan Social Enterprise Lab. This program was created to help Tibetan entrepreneurs build their business skills and make connections with the Bay Area social enterprise community so that they can start or expand their own social enterprises on the Tibetan Plateau.

The Fellows spent their first two weeks on the Stanford campus attending classes, meeting with teachers and students, and developing their business models. Some have well-defined ideas and are in full business start-up mode, while others are at a very early stage, exploring the potential of social enterprise as an alternative to a charity giving model. They are starting product businesses –selling yak dairy products, solar cookers, baked goods, and traditional artisan products, and service businesses –providing digital medial skills training, eco-travel services or vocational training.

Sharon Miller, CEO of Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center connected me with the program, knowing of my long-standing interest in the Himalayan region and Tibetan culture. I got the chance to attend one of their mentor evenings on the Stanford campus, listening to the Fellows “pitch” their business ideas and sharing feedback in one of their “mastermind” sessions.

These young entrepreneurs face challenges unique to the Tibetan Plateau – including extreme weather conditions and limited local markets (one Fellow plans to start a farm-to-table farm business but must figure out how to get his products to the nearest farmers’ market—a seven-hour drive away). Yet as I learned about their ideas and projects, it was clear that they also face some of the same challenges as entrepreneurs everywhere.

Fellows visiting La Cocina

During the last two weeks of the program, the Fellows visited Bay Area small businesses and social enterprises. I gave them a tour and overview of Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center and we talked about the Renaissance approach—a business planning model within a supportive environment, with teams of advisers and peer-to-peer support. We discussed some of the many Renaissance graduate food and product businesses where they might seek direction and mentorship, such as Cheryl Burr of Pinkie’s Bakery, Judi Henderson of Mannequin Madness, Jackie Huang of Woolbuddy, Eloisa Serrano of Bay Thread, Heidi Gibson of The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen and Neil Gottlieb of Three Twins Ice Cream. We specifically talked about the importance of getting hands-on advice and specific direction from other small business owners. The Fellows then visited Renaissance graduates Laurie Kanes of 12 Small Things and Rachel Saunders of Blue Chair Fruit Company, as well as La Cocina and other Bay Area social enterprises.

I believe that mentorship and support from other business owners is key to small business success and is just as important as training in business planning, budgeting, evaluation metrics, and market research. By hearing success stories and lessons learned directly from other business owners, and getting questions answered by people who operate businesses every day, new entrepreneurs can tangibly see what it means to start and run a small business.

As so many of us know, being a small business owner is a job like no other. It can be incredibly rewarding but also potentially isolating. In this virtual age, though, these Tibetan entrepreneurs have the opportunity to create lasting relationships with the people they met during the program and most importantly with each other. With peer support from the Fellowship cohort and support from advisers (ideally other small business owners), these young entrepreneurs will be able to stay focused on their goals, put their plans into action, and ultimately create positive economic and social change in their communities. I look forward to staying in touch with all of them!

Are you all alone?

Being the owner of your own small business is a fantastic undertaking. Here is where you prove your concept, sell your product for a profit and become a social entrepreneur, changing the world one transaction at a time. Yet, being a small business owner CAN be isolating and sometimes lonely. However, there IS one simple and successful support strategy that is free, motivational and really helpful from a practical perspective. This is a solution that will provide information, motivation, and access to resources. This is a solution you can develop without spending a lot of time and money on professional advisors and/or consultants.

Solving Isolation

All business owners need personal support, access to accurate information, and to be around people who can motivate and inspire. Business is an interdependent environment of vendors, competitors, and resources. Business owners need to set up support systems that are appropriate (for level and content), easy to use (accessible) and timely (available when and where they are most needed).

The first step and easiest solution is to find a support partner who will help make you accountable. The support partner is your unconditional “business friend”. Ideally, this is someone also in business like you who can listen, give emotional support for your business issues, and can provide constructive feedback on business dilemmas and opportunities.

The relationship is bi-directional – each support partner helps the other. You may agree to meet weekly, catch-up, share problems and successes, and then use your partner as an objective reviewer for your plans of the week. The meeting should be a check-in for ongoing support and follow-up. It is also key that this be on-going and long-term (e.g. 6 months) so that your support partner gets exposed to the issues and understands the context and the players in your world. Your meetings with your support partner can be a catalyst for positive change and an opportunity to talk discreetly about business issues outside of your own business environment.

Roberto felt that getting his business marketing efforts off the ground was so difficult he ignored many of the key initial steps. He felt the isolation and frustration and had no one to really talk to that could relate to his issues of time management, cash flow and making internal decisions. Then he found Maria who was in a very similar situation, yet in a totally different business. They liked each other, respected each others’ opinions and set-up a weekly review meeting over coffee every Friday when they could talk to each other, give each other feedback, and commit to an action for each week. These meetings continued weekly for many months and were supported by the occasional e-mail and phone call.

All you need to starts is to find ONE person in business like yourself. This will need to be someone you like and trust…and is willing to help you just as you will help them. Try it out and see if this will help you build your business and get the support you need to keep going and flourish!

Business skills and lessons learned

Do your business skills match your business’ complexity?

Elizabeth Leu
Fiddlesticks