Introduction

Welcome!  As I mentioned I have long been driven to setup a forum or place to share ideas and concepts that small business owners or management face every day.  So let's begin by defining small business.  Not a start up and one that has been in business for more than 2 years.  They have more than 10 employees and their revenues would be in excess of $500,000 but less than $10,000,000.  Would it surprise you to know that there are over 1,300,000 firms employing more than 10 people and 1,980,000 firms that reportedly gross between $500,000 and $10,000,000.  That's a lot of businesses.

Many of these businesses are led by people who are visionaries who are driven to build their business.  In so doing many times, the support systems suffer.  It is true that many of the systems can slow people down as they labor to file reports or input data. The key is looking at what benefits management while improving efficiency.  Let's face it; there are limited resources and you want to get the most from what you do have.  In early stage companies unless they are well capitalized, infrastructure is something that is in the future, or just later.  Revenues are the focus! Sell Sell Sell is the name of the game.  An example might be to use QuickBooks to invoice and account for expense and with some planning you can setup your accounts in such a way that the data can be exported and/or integrated with Excel or Outlook or directly into sending mass marketing info to a group of prospects or customers.  What about you web site?  You have to have one?  What data does it give you?  Is it a sales tool or just information?  Can you modify it to do both?  Are all hosts the same?

These are just a couple of topics that we will tackle.  Some others would be how to manage your logistical costs and use it as a customer service tool.  How do you manage your human resources?  How often do you sit down and talk with them?  Discuss expectations, yours and theirs?  What about the prospect to customer pipeline?  What are some simple ways to keep tract?

Rules here are simple.  We will follow the KISS principle!