January 2nd 2009
Many small business owners prefer to accelerate processes by working through planning as the “plan” is put into action. Of course, there are some downsides to this particular method.
I just saw an episode of “Renovation Realities” on the DIY network, which typifies the results a small business owner might see when action is based on pure desire and little forethought.
In this episode, Bruce, the owner of a small restaurant, wants to improve the layout of his dining room. The biggest improvement he wants to make is to the bar area, where he can only sit 7 people. This is a problem because most people arrive in even numbers, so he can’t fully utilize the bar. However, he has no plan, and is not sure exactly how to execute a better-designed bar, even after he tears down the old one.
In the end, a new bar that seats 10 — a gain of 3 extra seats — is put up, but he loses 4 seats in the dining room (they weren’t expanding the total square footage, so that space had to come from somewhere), resulting in a net loss of 1 seat. As illustrated as the show concludes, that one missing seat averages about $200 in revenue a day, or about $1400 per week, or about $72,000 a year.
Posted by Matthew under Business Strategy & Communication & Marketing Strategy | No Comments »
December 30th 2008
So I just finished installing QuickBooks Pro 2009, which took a lot longer than I planned. And the new Intuit activation/registration is, well, a little too much. Still, it was a good upgrade for me, because I got it essentially for FREE!
I was able to get it for free because I’ve been using Twitter. That’s right. I can directly attribute my receiving a $200 piece of software for free because of my use of Twitter.
But that made me think about what others may have experienced. What has Twitter done for you? Can you quantify your TwitteROI? I’d love to know … so please post your comments below, so we can have a rolling account of the actual value of Twitter.
Posted by Matthew under Communication & Internet Marketing & Marketing Strategy | 1 Comment »
December 30th 2008
I recently was interviewed by a journalist for BusinessWeek (read article here) regarding how easy (or hard) it is for small business to access credit.
As I mentioned in the article, if you are business and you are looking to survive 2009, I STRONGLY recommend that you try to secure a line of credit, a credit card, a loan, or whatever you can now. As long as your business is in good standing and/or you have good personal credit, you can get it. But as things to on, especially into the second quarter of 2009, I believe the banks will be less likely to loan money. So do it now, while you can!
Posted by Matthew under Business Strategy | No Comments »
