Do You Need A Degree?

In 2008, I was working for a prestigious financial institution at an executive level position and then the financial crisis hit.  I was laid off along with most of the other staff and thought my experience and education would all but guarantee me a new position.  It did... sort of.  I got a new job, but one month later we lost our only contract.  After that I stayed unemployed.  The financial crisis was a bad time for a lot of people, but it was a lot harder on those who, like me, did not have a university degree.

I once heard that college graduates start-up more businesses than university graduates because they "learn more practical skills" (at least that's how I think it went).  That's bull shit.  The truth is this: college graduates have a harder time finding jobs and are therefore pushed harder towards starting up their own businesses then university graduates.

Technically, I didn't start up my business after I became unemployed.  I already had the business up and running on a part-time basis.  Being unemployed allowed me to explore more options and the rest is history, but it was a lack of job offers that gave me the extra push.

A degree is a huge asset.  It makes you much more competitive and much more secure.  If starting your own business is something you want to do, then you should do it because you're ready, not because you don't have any better options.

Thanks for reading.

- L

Tips for Building Client Relationships

In my last post I explained what the difference is between customers and clients and recommended that any entrepreneurs out there should develop client-based consumer strategies whenever possible.  In this post I will provide some tips on how to create and maintain client relationships.

1) Share your client's problem.  If a client comes to you for a product or service you should view their need as a shared event.  You should take an interest in their problem, make recommendations on how to resolve it, and follow up with them to see if it was resolved to their satisfaction.

2) Keep in touch.  Stay connected with your clients.  Some people find it forward and are discouraged from asking if they can do anymore business with their clients.  It's not.  But if you feel that way, I suggest you develop a personal relationship with your clients and regularly meet for a coffee every quarter.  That way it's less formal and it doesn't feel so "businessie"when you get together, but you still have the opportunity to touch base.

3) Keep informed.  More often than not, your client is counting on you to be an expert in your field.  They rely on you to have the capabilities that they don't and keep them competitive.  What that means to you is that you have to stay at the top of your game.  You can't expect your client to keep doing business with you if you're skill level hasn't kept up to date over the years.

Thanks for reading.

- L

Customers vs Clients

Some people think that clients and customers are the same thing, but they're not.  They are both consumers of a businesses goods or services, but the difference is in the relationship they have with you.

A customer is a consumer that doesn't value a relationship with the company beyond receiving the good or service.  They view a business's offering as a solution to a problem. (I need a round peg for this round hole problem I have).  They aren't particularly well informed, loyal or forgiving.  For these reasons, a lot of companies have love-hate relationships with their customers.

A client is a consumer that has a primary interest in the product or service and a secondary interest in maintaining a relationship with the company over time.  They view the company as a partner that provides a solution to a certain need.  They value the relationship almost as much as the product or service and will often keep informed, give referrals to others, and would rather work with companies to resolve problems rather than break ties with them.

If you are thinking of starting up your own business, I highly recommend you structure a client-based consumer strategy whenever possible.

Thanks for reading.

- L

Strategic Alliances

I mentioned the importance of forming strategic alliances in my Networking post, but I think it's worth speaking about in more detail.  A strategic alliance (SA) is a mutually beneficial arrangement you have with a business that provides related or complimentary products or services to your own.  By creating SAs with other companies, you can greatly expand the line of products or services you offer without taking on any additional cost.  In my line of work (Document Scanning), I have the SAs  with other companies to provide the following services:

Outbound Mail Services - A lot of large companies outsource their mailing services to other companies and as my services fall under the "document management umbrella" it's important to have links to companies that offer these services.

Document Shredding Services - After I'm done scanning documents, I can offer shredding services through one of my SAs.

Image Management System (IMS) - Once documents are scanned, they often go into an IMS to regulate access, searches, and security.  This is out of my area of expertise, but I can refer clients to one of my SAs to satisfy this need.

Remember that SAs go both ways.  Your SAs will often call you when a need for your product or service is identified.  Make sure you are paying a competitive commission and regularly meet with your contacts to ensure you are always keeping each other in mind.

Thanks for reading.

- L

Totally Obvious Tips for New Hires

I thought it would be fun to share some stories of new hires that didn't work out despite showing a lot of promise in the interview.  These are absolutely true stories of college/university students or recent grads that seemingly used up all their good judgment and common sense in the interview.

Captain Sweatpants - If you are hired to provide document scanning support in a prestigious financial institution downtown, don't show up looking like you're ready for a Halo tournament with your bro.  Captain Sweatpants was sent home to get changed into something more appropriate and never returned.  (Side note: he was properly attired for the interview and was informed of the dress code ahead of time).

Chong - Don't assume that because your employer looks professional and well grounded that he doesn't know what pot smells like.  Also, don't assume that because you sit at the far end of the room it's safe to spark one up at lunch and no one will notice the smell of Cheech's van follow you in.

Don Juan - If you choose to brave the many complications that can arise by entering into an office romance, Don has some advise for you:  Don't make out with a colleague in the stairwell that your boss takes to get to the office on your lunch break.  It can be all kinds of awkward.

Thanks for reading.

- L

Staying Mobile

One of the biggest keys to success is staying mobile.  There are many ways stay connected to people and your documents through smart phones, tablets and computers, but few ways to do other essentials like printing and scanning.  If you are going to be on-the-go a lot, I suggesting getting these two products:

HP 100 Mobile Printer - It's about as big as lunch box and you can print via bluetooth.  It has a battery on the back which also allows you to print constantly for about an hour or have standby capability for about three weeks.  It's a great way to give someone a hard copy of something if you need to.

ReadIRIS Wand Scanner - It's about as long as a paper towel roll, but would fit in the cardboard tube.  You run this little scanner right over the surface of area you want to scan.  It's very useful for scanning books or labels of boxes.  The newer models are bluetooth enabled and scan documents right to your phone, iPad, or computer.  It's way better than using a smartphone camera.

Thanks for reading.

- L

Don't Burn Bridges

You've held back your true feelings about someone at work for the benefit of your working relationship, but one of you resigns and you finally get to tell them what you really think of them.  Should you?

Well, being the better person feels good, but I'm not recommend you don't do it for any of that hippy garbage.  Here's why you don't do it: you never know who you are going to cross paths with again and you never know what friends or contacts will have in common with people.  Bad news travels faster than good news and if you resume or proposal ever crosses their path, it will never get any farther along the chain.

People feel more comfortable about making import decisions when they have a lot of other people backing them up.  Make sure you always leave on a good note and you never know who can help open a door for you in the future.

Bank Loans for Business

In school you hear about bank loans a lot as a means of financing a project or starting up your business.  Forget about it.  They don't exist.  At least not in the way that they do in text books.  The bank is more than happy to give you a loan, but let's be clear, it's YOU who's getting the loan, not your corporation.  Be very very careful if you go down this path to get finances.

When I incorporated I didn't need a loan, but I did want a visa.  The bank wouldn't give it to me without me providing three years worth of my tax returns.  Without that information, they would give me a credit card, but only if I maintained a minimum balance in my account to guarantee the credit amount.

Banks have no faith in small businesses, but will have faith in you.  Keep this in mind if you thinking about going to a bank to help finance your business.

- L

How Much To Do Yourself

Starting your own business is easy enough, but determining how much to do on your own is a challenge.  I'll let you know what parts I handle myself, what I choose to outsource, and where I do both.

IT/Tech Support (Me)
I handle all the computer set up and issues that arise.  My operation is entirely Mac based and therefore really easy to manage on my own

Sales (Both)
I have my own network that grows slowly and provides a large portion of my sales, but it's hardly exhaustive.  That's why I also use sales agents to help me.  Pay commissions for sales.  It's worth it.

Payroll (Outsource)
I use Ceridian for my payroll.  It's relatively cheap (I pay around $100/month for the pleasure).  They do all my source deductions, provide me with a web portal to enter my hours per payroll, provide professional reporting (including T4s), and have expert staff.  I considered hiring a payroll person on a part-time basis, but it would take them about half a day to do my payroll for me.  With Ceridian, it takes about 20 minutes.

Hiring Staff (Both)
Sometimes I post ads myself and other times I use a temp agency to find people for me.  A rep that makes $12/hour costs you about $14.50/hour (excluding hiring costs) if you pay them yourself when you add up the employer tax contributions and WSIB.  If you use an agency, the same rep costs between $16.50/hour and $17.50/hour, but that includes hiring costs.  What else do you get for an extra $2 -$3/ hour?  Well, they tend to provide really good staff as they are hiring experts and have access to more resumes then you.  But they also guarantee their staff, which means if one doesn't work out they will replace them the next day.  You can also pay them with a credit card, which you can't do with your employees - this is particularly good if you are cash strapped.  And they save you a lot of time making phone calls, setting up interviews, checking references, etc.

Accounting (Outsource)
I would never consider doing this on my own.  There's too much to know and I'm more than happy paying someone else to know it.

Law (Outsource)
See accounting.

As you can see, I outsource a lot.  It frees up a lot of my time, which I need to manage various projects and clients.  You need to pick what's mix is right for you.

- L

Globalization

I get approached by a company in India about once a week to provide me with some form of outsourcing support.  The usual sort of fair is: Web Design, Data Entry, Data Mining, and Phone Support, to name a few.  Every now and then, I get a pitch from a company that wants to form a sort of informal partnership.  They know that I provide document scanning services and propose that I perform the scanning and they perform the indexing (file naming/metadata tagging).  It's an interesting proposal, but not for me.  Here are a couple of my concerns with outsourcing out of the country.

1) Privacy.  One of the keystones to providing onsite document scanning services is privacy.  These companies promise locked doors, locked computers, secure servers, etc.  None of it is ever going to be enough.

2) Laws.  Let's say that you do have a serious problem with your relationship with your international partner and you've suffered a financial loss as a result.  There is a big difference between winning in court and actually receiving your damages.  It's enough of a problem without an ocean between you.

3) Control.  Consider the difficulties in running a project in your line of work.  Now consider that you still have all the responsibilities for the project, but have little to no control over the outcome.  Enough said.

Thanks for reading.

L

Cottage Industries are Back

Before the industrial revolution, a lot of people worked their trade from home and would sell their goods through order taking or at markets.  The rise of industrialized workhouses created greater efficiencies and brought about the end of the wider cottage industry.

The cottage industry is on the rise again today, but in a very different way.  Small businesses are finding it hard to compete with medium and large businesses and need to run as lean as possible.  Here are a couple of ways to modernize pre-industrialized thinking:

Project a Professional Virtual Presence.  A professional website can look as good as your biggest competitor's and a lot less than a prime location.

Provide Onsite Services.  If you are providing business-to-business services, consider performing your services at the client's location.  This will eliminate the need for a permanent location for your equipment.

Use Your Home.  Making your home your primary business address allows you to right off part of your utilities, vehicles, mortgage interest, and whatever else you can reasonably claim is also used by your business.  Not only is your business costing less to run, but so your personal expenses get smaller too.

Thanks for reading.

L

The Paperless Office: Is It Still a Myth?

The paperless office is an idea that has been lingering around the workplace for a couple of decades now.  The irony was that the more that technology advanced, the farther away we seem to be from achieving the paperless office.  However, we have made significant progress with the following developments: increased usage of email over snail mail, cloud storage of documents and other media, tablet and smartphone advances and the ubiquity of the internet.  However, it hasn't been enough.

The biggest hurdles in the way of achieving the paperless office are overcoming challenges pertaining to authorization and legality.  Often these challenges go hand in hand as they do with something like a will.  A will is something that is only legally recognized in paper form and only valid with the 1st party's signature authorizing the document.  There is no electronic equivalent for some documents and until these problems are overcome, the paperless office will remain a myth.

Networking

I am competing in an industry filled with large competitors.  These are companies with office buildings, billboards, notation newspaper ads, etc.  As a small business, it's impossible to reach as many people as they can.  Instead, you will need to find or target the right people and get yourself introduced through networking.  More often than not this will cost you nothing (well... a lunch, maybe) and can get you everything.  Here are three easy networking tips to get you started:

1) Look at your own network first.  You may be surprised how close you are to your target customers.  Social networking sites like Linkedin are great ways to see who you are only one or two handshakes away from.  Ask your connection to make an introduction for you or set up a coffee with the three of you.

2) Strategically align with other service providers.  As a document scanning company, we do not shred documents, but we do have connections to a couple of them should someone ask us for a referral.  They in turn refer business to us.  Think about all the services you don't provide, but are related to yours and contact those business about a mutually beneficial relationship.

3) Pay Commissions.  If you don't have the network or the sales chops, then find people who do and get them to work for you.  As long as you are only paying on success, this isn't costing you anything extra and you can inflate your costs to absorb the commissions if needs be.  It's a win-win.

Thanks for reading.

L

Welcome to the Small Business Management and Digital Imaging blog!

As the owner of a media conversions and document scanning company, I will be posting my thoughts on the challenges in my industry and provide tips on running a small business.  I have been running my business for nearly 10 years and experienced my fair share of successes and failures.  I will leave out specific details (names, dates, etc.) in order to protect my privacy and the privacy of others.  

I welcome feedback as well as suggestions for new topics.  Feel free to post any questions you may have and I will do my best to answer them as soon as possible.

I hope you enjoy these postings over the next several weeks.

L