Jim Blasingame's Blog, page 7

You say your business plan every day

Do you have a business plan? What? In your head? How’s that working for you?

Don’t know how to get one started? Well consider this conversation that happens many times, every day, between business owners just like you and the people they meet.

Friend: “Hi Joe. Heard you started a business. What’re you doing?”

Owner: “Oh, hi, Sue. Yeah, John and I are selling square widgets to round widget distributors.”

Friend: “What? How’re you going to do that?”

Owner: “We discovered that no one has thought...

Four things salespeople can learn from Sir Laurence Olivier

The great English actor, Sir Laurence Olivier, once admitted after a lifetime on stage and screen that he had always suffered from stage fright.

Think about that. One of the 20th century’s most revered actors, who appeared in over 120 stage roles, 60 movies, more than 15 television productions and countless performances, actually battled the fear of rejection and failure. But when you look at his numbers, it’s obvious that Sir Laurence’s “condition” didn’t cost him success.

So, what about you...

Six “networking thoughts” for success, plus one bonus

Networking is one of the three most important areas small business owners should focus on in the 21st century. The other two are leveraging technology and developing strategic alliances.

My definition of networking is: actively making professional relationships, developing and maintaining those relationships, and leveraging them for the benefit of all parties. But before you can develop a relationship, you first have to meet the other person and establish a basis for future contact.

Networkin...

What politicians, small business and mice have in common

Almost 20 years ago, Dr. Spencer Johnson wrote a legendary book titled, Who Moved My Cheese? It tells a story about four characters who ate only cheese.

Early in the story all four characters went to the same place in their world – a maze – to get cheese. The first two were not picky about their cheese or where they found it – it was just food. In fact, the current place in the maze where they found and ate cheese was literally just that. So when someone moved their cheese, they immediately s...

Do you value your soybeans more than your time?

Ever think about time as a commodity? Commodity: something in common use, readily available and virtually the same wherever you find it.

Time certainly fits that definition, doesn’t it? But so does a soybean.

Time may be the only commodity we haven’t synthesized. Until we do, it will continue to be unique among commodities and, consequently, our most valuable. And yet, as precious as time is, it’s an expensive irony that it’s the commodity we often waste the most, sometimes as if it were wort...

Now is the winter of our economic discontent

If you’re wondering how the economy’s doing, here’s what top news outlets are reporting: “U.S. GDP Fizzles in the fourth quarter” (Marketwatch.com); “Economy grinds to a halt in last quarter 2015” (Money.CNN.com).

But there’s good news: Q1 2016 GDP is projected to be in the 2% range, unlike the two previous first quarters in 2014 and 2015, which were both negative. It’s asking a lot of the other three quarters to put together a good year when you start out in the hole.

One of the ways I take...

Poll results: Your local economy and sales

The Question:
Halfway through the 1st quarter, what’s the condition of the local economy and your sales?

13% - Our economy is strong and sales are great.
50% - Our economy and sales are good, but not great.
34% - Our economy is weakening — sales volume is off.
3% - Our economy is very weak, and we’re in trouble.

Jim’s Comments:
I think our poll response reflects exactly what the economy is doing: fewer are doing great, more are getting a little better and, after seven years of a moribund ec...

Are you asking the Outsourcing Power Question?

Biutou Doumbia lives in a tiny village in Mali, in western Africa. She and her family live in poverty, very close to the line between survival and, well, you know.

Oh, one more thing: Biutou is a small business owner. She makes and sells peanut butter.

In Mali, as reported in a Wall Street Journal article, peanut butter is made the same way African women have made other staples for millennia: by grinding the seeds on a rock with a wooden pestle. You might say Biutou’s operation is vertically...

Small business owners have the right stuff

One of my favorite books is The Words Lincoln Lived By, by our good friend and Brain Trust member, Gene Griessman. That’s where I found this Lincoln quote about tenacity:

“I expect to maintain this contest until successful, or till I die, or am conquered, or my term expires, or Congress or the country forsakes me.”

Sound familiar? If you are a small business owner, I bet it sounds very familiar. It might even give you a little chill when you read those 140-year-old words. you know, hearing...

The politics of the Supreme Court

By now, you know that one of the great Supreme Court justices in the history of our country passed away unexpectedly. Even those who disagreed with almost every decision Antonin Scalia ever cast had immense regard for him and his work. Indeed, Scalia and his liberal alter ego on the court, Justice Ginsberg, had been best friends for decades, even before they were on the nation’s highest court.

In our online poll this week, we asked you to weigh in on the debate about the process for replacing...