Don't Write a Business Plan (But Still Plan)

Me - “Wait, how much is it?!’

Sarah - “It costs what it costs.  You can’t put a price on memories.”.

Me - “Well, it sure sounds like Disney is putting a price on it.  And it’s not a “Small World” price either.”

We had been to Disney World twice and now we were headed for the big time; a Disney Cruise.

A Disney Cruise is just what it sounds like, but even more expensive.  

And they do it up right.  No detail is too small and no show is too big.  All of the Disney characters are on board and the staff are wearing Stepford wife perma-grins.

I liked the idea of a cruise, because there is no planning involved.

The itinerary is all taken care of and you just show up when and where they tell you.

But that’s not the case if you are Sarah Alexander.  

She is the queen of planning.

Before we boarded the massive Disney Fantasy cruise ship, she had thought out every minute of every day, including what excursions we would take, what times and where we would eat, and unfortunately, what costumes we would wear each night.  I was Grumpy the night we went as Snow White and Seven Dwarves.

She even had an Excel spreadsheet that was color-coded and filled with formulas.

This was her happy place.

It later dawned on me that Sarah had done more planning for a cruise, which in theory needs no planning than most of the startup wannapreneurs have for their new business. 

By the way, do you think Disney became Disney without proper planning?  

Yes, she probably overplanned, however, this really means many of you aren’t planning at all.

Thinking non-stop on an endless loop in your mind about quitting your job and being your own boss doesn’t count as planning.  That’s daydreaming.

Create a realistic plan and don’t overthink it

You just need a goal to begin with and preferably a measurable goal, like revenue.

Once you have that, you reverse engineer (fancy term for working backward from the goal) your plan to meet the goal.

Think of your plan like you are building a house.

You wouldn’t just rush off to Home Depot and buy a bunch of lumber and concrete and get started with no plan, would you?.  

Oh sure, you could do that and get very “busy” with your build.  

You could work non-stop. hustle, grind, blah, blah, blah, and feel very productive.  

But after a few weeks, you would probably just have a treehouse and be very discouraged.  

In reality, you would find a home design and builder that made sense for you.  

Then you would make sure you had the money in place to make it happen.  Next would be land, utilities, milestones, and a timeline.

That just seems like common sense when it comes to building a home.

Yet I see people use the no-plan process all of the time.

I also have many clients over the years who go to the other end of the spectrum as well.

Don’t wait on the perfect plan to start

“I can’t start until I have my business plan.”

The business plan has been the ultimate excuse for not starting a business for many people.

• You don’t need 50 pages of charts and graphs.

• You don’t need business planning software.  By the way, bankers can spot those a mile away and they’re not fond of them.

• You really don’t need to hire a writer to create the perfect business plan.  It’s your freaking plan. 

What does a plan look like

If you Google business plan you will get about 3,880,000,000 results in just 0.65 seconds.  Yes, I Googled that:).

It’s absolutely overwhelming.

Below is an outline I have used for well over a decade now.  

To me, everything falls into the following categories:

• Marketing 

• Management 

• Financial

Marketing - To me this is the most important section.  If you’ve ever taken basic sales training the first thing you will learn is that nothing happens until something is sold.

• Product and service offerings - Narrow down to 2-3

• Target customers - Who would be your ideal customers?

• Customer buying and selection criteria - Why do they buy and what is the pain point you are solving?

• Competition - How are you different from the competition?

• Marketing strategy - There is forty jillion (a real number I made up) ways to market your business.  What are the top 2-3 ways you will get your very specific message to your very specific target market?

Management - Who will do what in your business?

• Key activities - What needs to be done daily, weekly, and monthly?  How long does it take, who will do it, and where does the activity fall in terms of priority. 

• Outside advisors - Your accountant, attorney, banker, candlestick maker, and insurance broker.  Candlestick maker is optional.

• Goals and measurement methods - Have 2-3 goals and how you will measure your progress toward them.

Financial - You got money?

• Startup budget - How much money will this business cost to start and how much working capital will you need to survive while it grows?

• Monthly cash flow projection - This is where most wannapreneurs quit.  Why?  It’s hard.  But, it’s very eye opening for you too.  How many sales do you think you will make each month (basing this off of the Marketing section) and how much will you spend each month to run the business; that’s it.

When you need a professional business plan

You only need a professional business plan when you are applying for a business loan with a bank.

Even then, professional is a relative term.  They just want to see that you have thought this through and you have a realistic view of how your business will do.  And a business plan by itself will not get a loan.  It just opens the door for a chat and your personal financial situation is what secures a loan.

And when you write a business plan for a lender, you will want to include an Executive Summary, which is a 2-3 paragraph cover that pulls the highlights of your plan into a 1 page introduction.  Consider it like your movie trailer that motivates the lender to read the rest of your business plan.

I know this sounds so cheesy, but it’s true.

Failing to plan is planning to fail.  Ugh, 

By the way, the cruise was a huge success!  

Sarah’s plan was almost flawless and she has the forty jillion pictures to prove it.

4 Quick Case Studies on the Most Important Thing

Stick with me here.  

Whether you’re a Christian, Buddhist, or worship the Great Spaghetti Monster, you will appreciate this.

I’m not preachy, but I do try to read my Bible semi-regularly and one of my favorite set of scriptures is Matthew 22:36-40.  

The Pharisees (the Bible’s version of Facebook know-it-all’s) wanted to trick Jesus by getting him to say one commandment was more important than the others.  

And once he did that, they would be able to say that he didn’t think the other commandments were important and then they would be able to hit the thumbs down emoji and everyone would know what a jerk he was!

The Bible’s Case Study: The Most Important Commandment

When the Pharisees heard how Jesus had bested the Sadducees, they gathered their forces for an assault. One of their religion scholars spoke for them, posing a question they hoped would show him up: “Teacher, which command in God’s Law is the most important?”

Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.”

Boom!  If you get those two right, the rest have to fall into place.

No murder.

No adultery.

No stealing.

No lying.

No lusting after your neighbor’s house—or wife or servant or maid or ox or donkey or jet ski or vacation home.

Want a business example?  

Sure you do!

Alcoa’s Case Study: Safety

In the book, The Power of Habit, the story of Paul O’Neill taking over as CEO of Alcoa, a large aluminum manufacturer, in 1987 lays out what it looks like to make a top priority really matter.

When O’Neill initially took over he sole focus was worker safety.  

It wasn’t new markets to penetrate, new products to produce, new research, etc.  Just worker safety.  

By the way, after his first presentation as CEO, the stock price for Alcoa went down, because of the concern over the simplification of making safety the top priority.

Fast forward to 2000, and the company's market value increased from $3 billion in 1986 to $27.53 billion in 2000, while net income increased from $200 million to $1.484 billion.

But why?

Employees that feel safe tend to be more productive.

This decreases employee turnover, increases morale, and creates a work environment that is conducive to making money.

You get safety right and everything else has to fall into place.

My Case Study: Teaching workshops at the TSBDC

I could have easily said the top priority was just giving great advice to small business owners, but that may not be enough to keep people coming back and build referrals. 

I used four questions that were loosely taken from the book, The One Thing

1. What are the things that other people say you do really well?

For me it is public speaking

2. What are the work projects that you really excel at and enjoy doing?

Getting face-to-face with small business owners to discuss their issues

3. What are you passionate about?

Making sure that small business owners understand all of their options for whatever stage they are in their business

4. What do you love doing most in your business (the important thing that you get so engrossed in that you lose track of time)?

Teaching workshops (not outsourcing most of them)

If I do a really good job of teaching small business workshops and teach enough of the workshops at the TSBDC, then everything else seems to fall into place.

People hear that the workshops are good and more people attend.  If they see me in action, they are more likely to trust me and then schedule a counseling session.  And if I counsel enough qualified businesses I will help create economic impact and that’s what I’m supposed to be doing!

So that’s it.  I personally teach really good workshops and that makes everything else fall into place.

The local pest control company Case Study: Intentional Customer Communication

Every year they would set new revenue goals, customer goals, wanted to lower turnover, reduce re-service requests, lower accounts receivable, customer service ratings, etc.  

They decided that their highest priority should just be intentional customer communication.  

Not just a little postcard and email newsletter now and then.  They decided that every time they were scheduled to come to your house they would send you a few text reminders, an email reminder that also had a picture of the tech and a few fun facts about him, and they would even call afterward to see how things went.  

And the results?  

They met every one of the goals they set!  

Why?  

Because this priority makes everything else fall into place.  

Since the customer knew for a fact when they were coming and what they were going to do, they made arrangements for the service to take place.  

That means the tech got to do the pest service in the house and not just the outside because the customer forgot about them and was not home.  

Then the customer felt like they already knew the tech a little bit because they received the email about them, so the customer was more willing to pay the tech onsite instead of waiting to pay later.  

This also means customers were happier and gave better ratings, because they were more involved in the process and the tech felt like they were doing meaningful work because the customer was happy to see them and paid right away.

So what is your top priority?

What is the one or two things that if done correctly, make everything else fall into place?

The temptation is to give a generic answer like great customer service or be the best at what you do.

Don’t do that.

Instead answer these four questions first to help you uncover your top priorities.

1. What are the things that other people say you do really well?

2. What are the work projects that you really excel at and enjoy doing?

3. What are you passionate about?

4. What do you love doing most in your business (the important things that you get so engrossed in that you lose track of time)?

The answers will help you uncover your top priority.  

The one thing if done well, that makes everything else fall into place.

The Morning Routine That Changed My Business

“Doo doo dee dee doo doo...Doo doo dee dee doo doo”

Well, that’s my best impersonation of my phone’s alarm ringtone anyways.

“Can you turn that stupid thing down?!”, Sarah asked.

I’ve tried to adjust the volume in the settings, but Steve Jobs hates me, so the volume turns back up all on its own.

I hit snooze once (why in the world is that even an option) and then I’ve got to get going.

Unfortunately, my alarm clock is on my phone and my phone has given me a lot of little red boxes with white numbers, which means my Lizard Brain has been activated and I must see what they mean.

Fast forward 15 minutes later.

I’m frustrated over an email reply, upset about a text from a family member, and worried about gas prices...again.

And this is all without Facebook or Twitter.

This was 2015 and for years this was my morning routine.

My goal was simply to wake up before the little munchkins in the house did and go as fast as I could.

I would hustle through getting ready, making breakfast, and packing lunches.

Then as the kids got up one by one, there would be hugs, kisses, tears, (when there are three little kids, somebody in the group is always crying) and then I would be off to work.




Once I would arrive at work, I would immediately jump into email and voicemail and start putting out fires.

By 9:00 am I would feel exhausted and overwhelmed.

I would wonder why I wasn’t getting the important things done every day that was a priority for me.

I started my own side hustle in 2015 and I joined an entrepreneur coaching group.




Now my mornings look much different.




The side benefit of starting a side hustle is that it forced me to change how my mornings were structured.




I couldn’t get away with just getting up and going into each day without a plan or routine.

I had to get focused and be intentional about how I started each day.

Now, my personal routine is to wake up at 5:30 and head to a quiet place in the house.

I’ll pray with a little bit of meditation and visualization. I know that sounds so cheesy, but that little bit of focus in the morning helps me stay on track for the rest of the day.




Then I journal. This includes writing my annual goals every single day and the rest is a free-for-all. Somedays I write only my intentions for the day. Other days I write about the good things that happened yesterday. And some are just an absolute brain dump. I just get whatever is bothering me out on paper so it can live somewhere else for a while.

Now understand, this was not an immediate shift. It was gradual and included a lot of trial and error, but mostly failures.


There were mornings when I still hit the snooze button as I used to.





There were mornings that I would just stare at a book and never read a word.





There were mornings that I was just paralyzed with what I should be doing and ended up frustrated with nothing to show for it.

But that’s just my morning progression and may not be completely relatable to you.

However, a majority of the successful entrepreneurs I’ve worked with over the years have a very similar morning routine.

Very few are successful with the “wake up whenever and check my phone first thing” morning routine.

Below are some of the most common morning routines of successful entrepreneurs. Pick just 2 or 3 you can implement tomorrow and you will notice a big difference in just one week.





Journal - This one is my favorite. I started doing this in 2019 and in one year my income doubled. Maybe I’m giving it too much credit, but the simple brain dump of swirling information in my head was enough to move me up the imaginary happiness scale by a few points every day.


Meditate/Pray/Visualization - Fill your mind with things that you are thankful for and let go of the things you can’t control.


Read - Smart people write books. You want to hang out with smart people? Then read!


Plan - What 2-3 priorities do you want to accomplish today?


Workout - We always say there is no time to workout, yet we spend 4-5 hours on our phone each day. Exercise will get your endorphins going and clear your mind.


Work before the sun rises - While I completely buy-in to your values being faith, family, friends, and then work, you may have to adjust your effort in the first couple of years to get your side hustle to take off. And if you need to, set the alarm clock even earlier, shorten the new morning routine and work before everyone else in the house gets up.




As for my morning alarm, I have moved strictly to my FitBit alarm, so I won’t be tempted by my phone and it won’t wake Sarah up.

This Is the Beginning, Not the End

 For the past 4 ½ months I’ve worked harder from home than I think I ever have in the office.

My email and phone have been blowing up with confused and frustrated entrepreneurs.

I have been on countless ZOOM conference calls and feel like I’ve read every article on SBA loans humanly possible.

I’m not feeling sorry for myself, because small business owners have been through 10x worse. 

I’m just stating the reality of the situation.

Now that the world is opening back up with people getting out and most likely the Payroll Protection Plan (PPP) loan will be changed to give more time to work through the forgiveness process, it may feel like we are coming to the end of this thing.

Not to be a Debbie Downer, but this is the beginning, not the end.

The recession will be real and it will be tough.

It’s like when the preacher baptizes a new Christian.  The preacher doesn’t say, it’s all over and you can coast from here on out.”  The preacher says, “Now is when the real work begins.”

During the Great Recession over a decade ago, Middle Tennessee lost several good businesses.  

They couldn’t generate enough revenue to pay fixed expenses, let alone for the business owner to feel like they were making the money they deserved.

However, several good businesses started then too.

·         Future Vision Energy (now Energy Lighting Services)

·         Green Village Recycling

·         Campione’s Taste of Chicago

·         Epic Events Centre

·         Café Rakka

And several more thrived, despite a down economy.

So what should you do?

I’m sure you’re over being told to just “pivot” or “every problem presents and opportunity.”

Both of those things are true, but sometimes the tone deafness of it makes you tune out altogether.

But there is something to changing your mindset.

Right now more than ever, you need to turn the TV off, put the phone away, and quit listening to your favorite angry radio/podcast host telling how things are worse than ever.

A)     You don’t have time for it.  You’ve got a business to run.

B)      It’s an energy suck and makes you anxious!

Unless, you plan on doing something meaningful with the information you obtain from the clickbait driven world we live in i.e., going to work for a local non-profit, sending money to a charity, peaceful protesting, writing your Congressman daily, etc., then you are just feeding your mind junk food.

Yes, I get that we have an obligation to be an informed citizen of the U.S., but that really only takes minutes a day and not hours.

Here’s the analogy that comes to mind.

The way we are “staying informed” is like, saying, “I’m hungry so I would be foolish not to eat.” 

But you’re not eating 2-3 healthy meals a day that are filled with fresh fruits and vegetables.

You’re snacking all day long on Doritos and Twinkies.  Lots of them!

Quit putting junk food in your brain!!!

So what should you do as a small business owner that is real and tangible?

·         Use that time and energy to reset your 2020 revenue goals. Literally, put pen to paper and write out what your revenue goals for the rest of the year MUST be in order to survive and/or get back on track to your original goals.

·         How many customers will you need to survive/thrive for the rest of the year?  What is you new average sale worth?  That will tell you how many customers you need each month to make this happen.

·         You’ll have to change your marketing in a lot of cases.  Be willing to set aside time on Tuesday and Friday afternoons and call people and ask for referrals and follow up on leads.  Send out good email marketing that people will find helpful and make them want to buy from you.  For some of you, social media is necessary, but also noisy right now, so pay close attention to what is working and quit spending time on the stuff that isn’t.  

·         Take this time to get your bookkeeping organized.  If you are unable or unwilling, talk to your CPA or bookkeeper.  This is not an expense you can afford to cut.

·         Decide on how many employees you truly need to move forward.  I understand that a lot of employees are making more money on unemployment versus working, but let me be blunt here.  This is a good time to upgrade employees in a few spots.  Unemployment is no longer 3%, so you can find possibly find someone else that has the right attitude to help you take your business forward. 

·         Be willing to streamline your business as much as possible and cut expenses that aren’t related to marketing.  Ask for deferrals and work out payment agreements.

And if you are overwhelmed and don’t know what to do, then just do one small thing. 

Even if you only take a piece of paper and pencil, write one sentence.  Make one phone call.  Send one email.

But do SOMETHING!

Your momentum is everything right now and you can’t just sit there.

As far as the TSBDC goes, we are currently forming partnerships with accounting, marketing, and human resource firms to help businesses get back on track.

Hopefully in the coming month or so, we will have real, in-person workshops and in another month or so even live, one-on-one counseling.

In the meantime, if you own a business and want to receive free, one-on-one confidential advising through email and/phone go to www.tsbdc.org and click on Request Advising.

Stay safe and let’s get to work!

 

Your Experience Can Lie to You

Malcolm Gladwell is one of the authors (Outliers, Blink, The Tipping Point) and podcasters (Revisionist History) that I really pay attention to. 

He has a unique way of looking at things from all angles. 

One thing that Malcolm Gladwell said in his book, Outliers, has really stuck with me.

He is credited with saying that you need 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. 

Here’s his quote:

“To become a chess grandmaster also seems to take about ten years. (Only the legendary Bobby Fisher got to that elite level in less than that amount of time: it took him nine years.) And what’s ten years? Well, it’s roughly how long it takes to put in ten thousand hours of hard practice. Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness.”

That doesn’t mean that 10,000 hours of practice will make you an expert, but it is a prerequisite to becoming an expert.

And this makes sense.

You can be good at what you do, but without years of practice, you won’t become an expert.

And while experience matters, unfortunately, our experience can also lie.

I’m a big believer in practice makes perfect.  But if you are practicing bad habits, they will eventually get set in stone and make you think you have perfected something.

For example:

In parenting – “Well, I raised three kids and none of them turned out to be ax murderers.” is a favorite statement by grandparents when giving out unsolicited advice to parents. 

They are saying that they’re advice should be used, because they are experts. 

And they think they are experts because you aren’t an ax murderer.  Seriously.

While they get credit for not raising ax murderers (not sure why that was the benchmark for Baby Boomers), there are 7+ billion people on planet Earth. 

The stork brought exactly zero of them. 

But you would have to assume that there aren’t 7+ billion people that could be considered experts, correct? 

That’s not to say that a lot of grandparents aren’t experts, but they can’t all be experts, simply because they were parents for a long time.

In your job – Have you ever had a boss that was in over their head?  It’s called the Peter Principle.

The Peter Principle is an observation that the tendency in most organizational hierarchies, such as that of a corporation, is for every employee to rise in the hierarchy through promotion until they reach a level of respective incompetence.

Simply having several years of experience in your job doesn’t mean you are necessarily great at your job. 

You may just be good enough not to get fired.  You know, like a C+ student.

In small your business – “We have 20 years of experience” is often a marketing strategy that is much overused. 

Yes, I want my insurance agent to have a lot of experience in reading policies, but I would prefer someone that is experienced AND good. 

It is quite possible that our experience is just good enough to keep you in the same place for 20+ years.

So how do you know if your experience is lying to you?

• Are your sales the same now as they were 5 years ago?
• Are you doing the exact same tasks that should’ve been already outsourced or do you have the same exact number of employees from 5 years ago?
• Are you doing the exact same thing in all areas of your business because “that’s the way we’ve always done it”?

If the answer is yes to any of those questions, your old experience may need to be tossed for some new experiences out of your comfort zone.

10,000 hours is only good if it leads to expertise.  It’s not good if it leads to complacency.

Oh, and the ax murderer parenting comment doesn’t apply to my parents or my in-laws…much😁.  

This is How to Get 28 Hours in A Day

Good lord…this is actually a little embarrassing and I’m just observing, not participating.

Well, not participating at this particular moment, but honestly, I’m just as bad as everyone else.

Or at least I was, but I’m really working hard not to be.

I was sitting in the doctor’s waiting room for my annual physical with at least 15 other people (Baby Boomers and Gen Xers).

Even though there was a variety of ages, races, men, women, singles, and grandparents, there was one common thread among them all.

Every one of them had their face buried in their phones:(.

Millennials catch all the misery from the rest of us about their phone use, but we are just as bad, if not worse.

Yes, these fine folks could have been highly productive answering a very important work email that will make the company millions, but more likely, they were scrolling through Facebook, mindlessly looking at everyone else’s carefully curated life or playing Candy Crush.

And before you think this is just some rant about how in the good ole days people would actually interact with each other, I want you to think about this question. 

How much time do you spend on your phone?

(And yes, I get the irony of you possibly being on your phone to read this, but humor me anyway.)

1 hour?  2 hours?  All day?

The average American spends 4 hours a day on their phone!

If you are an iPhone user, let’s check your answer.

Go to Settings -> Screen Time -> Tap on the time

And to see how your week has gone tap on “7 Days”

Also how many pickups do you have?  

How many times did you receive a notification?

Let’s give that some context.

If you sleep 8 hours a night, that means you are spending 25% of your waking hours staring at your phone.  

That’s literally 3 waking months a year with your face 1 foot from a 5-inch screen.

That’s nuts!

Now I know there are a ton of excus…I mean good reasons that you need to be on your phone that amount of time, i.e. work, checking out the grandkids pics, shopping for essentials, staying on top of the news, etc.

But do you get 4 hours worth of goodness out of it?  

Most of the really important things take less than an hour.

So how about the advantages it brings you?

It’s entertainment and it’s not hurting anyone, right?

The fact is there a lot of studies that show that more time on your phone increases anxiety and decreases mental focus.

I’ve recently made an effort to decrease my phone time to less than an hour a day and I’m down to about an hour a day.  

I suddenly have more time to concentrate on “real” work and feel less anxious about unimportant emergencies.

Could you give up your phone for a day?  How about a half-day?  Just try one hour.

Yes, this might mean some short term pain for long term gain, but that’s where most of the good things in life come from.

You can always rationalize how you might miss some big event or lose a customer forever, but way more likely, you will get much more gain than you lose from this little experiment.

Do This In Your Business Or Suffer The Consequences

This past fall we bought a new house in Gallatin.

This is our fourth house (and last) we have bought since we’ve been married, and all have been fixer-uppers because raising three kids and working full-time just wasn’t stressful enough.

This house was the epitome of a needle in a haystack.  

The market was hot, the house was in the best location, and it had great “bones”.  

And if you don’t know, great “bones” means it’s a good house, but’s also a hot mess right now.

After about a month straight of rehabbing, the house was ready to move in.  

All it needed was carpet, paint, refinish the floors, windows, appliances, countertops, tons of new fixtures, woodwork, gutters, etc.  

You know, basically everything.

We still managed to stay on budget and walk in with enough equity to make it worthwhile.

This is what happens when you don’t reinvest in your home.  

You end up selling it at a below appraisal price in a hot real estate market.

It’s pretty easy to understand when it’s a house.  

You can see the windows falling out and the gutters hanging by a thread.

It’s harder to see with your business.

But you know what…I see it all the time.

• The website is out of date.

• Your bookkeeping is 6 months behind.

• The equipment is in constant need of repair. 

• Employees are kind of doing their own thing.

• You are putting out fires instead of working “on” your business.

• The CRM you bought to keep up with all of your contacts has never been installed.

You get the idea.

It’s just like this house we bought.  

The previous owners got busy with life and never really got around to the house maintenance.  

And in your case, you get busy with the day-to-day grind and really don’t have the time to reinvest in your business.

However, this becomes a big problem if you want to sell the business or just regain your sanity.

The key is to treat the REINVESTMENT in your business the same way you would reinvest in your home.

1. Schedule time for regular updates to your business and don’t let anything interrupt it, the same as you would not let anything interrupt you getting a plumbing leak fixed.
2. Take stock of your business today and look at every area that needs to be updated.
3. Then make a list, prioritize it, assign a budget for time and money, then figure out who’s gonna do it.

Yeah, I know all of this is easier said than done, but that’s owning a business.  

If it was easy, everyone would do it.

And if you decide you are just too busy to do this, you may end up with a nice little business with great “bones” that someone else buys for below market value.

All Air Xtreme Trampoline Park owners named 2018 Rising Stars

Kandace and Richard Martin, owners of All Air Xtreme Trampoline Park and Hoppity Hop Inflatables in Hendersonville, have been named 2018 Rising Stars by the Tennessee Small Business Development Center (TSBDC) at Volunteer State Community College. The Rising Star Award goes to a small business that has had great success utilizing TSBDC resources.

In the fall of 2011, the Martins came to the TSBDC to get advice on how to expand their inflatable rental business. They also wanted to open a physical location that would serve a need in the community for a place for kids to have fun.

They worked with TSBDC to create a plan and projections that guided them on expansion. The TSBDC also gave referrals for attorneys and accountants that would become part of their team. Within three months, the Martins opened Hoppity Hop Inflatables. They immediately hired 10 employees and sustained year-over-year growth over the next seven years.

In 2018 they decided to expand again. This time they worked with a local lender to create the Air Xtreme Trampoline Park that opened in January 2019.  The new business is located in a 21 thousand square-foot building and has created more than 30 new jobs. They are the only trampoline park in the area that has electrical jump bands. 

The TSBDC at Vol State worked with 181 small businesses and clients in 2018, offering free and low-cost classes and counseling and helped launch 18 new businesses. In all, the projects raised more than $4.4 million in capital and created or retained 82 jobs. For more information and a list of classes contact Charles Alexander at Charles.alexander@volstate.edu or call 615-230-4780.

10 Cool Automation Tools for Your Business

One of the questions I get all of the time, is “What new ‘toys’ are out there for small business owners?”  

The list I’m giving you is ever changing, however, they are proven and used by some of my most successful clients.

And several of them are FREE!

1. Calendly - Calendly is a simple appointment tool that helps you schedule meetings without the back-and-forth emails.  Send someone the calendly link and they can select a time that is available, and It syncs with your existing calendar and sends them reminders for the appointment.
2. Gmail Auto Follow Up – Tired of following up and following up?  For Gmail users, Gmail Auto Follow Up is the tool to use.  Simply send your email and then schedule the follow-up emails to make sure you get a response. 
3. Google Tools – All of the Google tools are very easy to use and implement, i.e., Calendar, Gmail, Drive, etc.
4. Moment or Screen Time – We spend over 5 hours a day on our phones.  That’s way too much!  I personally use Moment, which is an app, that tells me how long I am on my phone, what I am using, and will even kick me off my phone if I go over a designated amount of time.
5. RescueTime - A Chrome extension that shows you how you spend your time and provides tools to help you be more productive. 
6. Grammarly – Autocorrect has lowered our ability to actually spell anything.  Grammarly takes that one step further by checking your spelling and grammar whenever you’re typing, no matter what site you are using.
7. MailChimp – Email marketing is not dead.  In fact, there are 3 times more email accounts than there are Facebook and Twitter accounts combined.  MailChimp is a free email marketing service (up to 2,000 contacts), that lets you send your content directly to your customers and centers of influence.  The key is sending information that is relevant and not boring.
8. Hootsuite or Buffer – Either of these online tools allows you to schedule your social media posts to the most popular platforms.
9. QuickBooks – QuickBooks is still the gold standard for small business accounting.  Whether you are using the Desktop or Cloud version, QuickBooks will integrate with a majority of CRM’s and your bank account.
10. Freshbooks – A cloud-based accounting program that is getting more popular and is easy to use.

Where Did All of the Employees Go?

My wife recently took our 9-year old, Ava, to Orlando for a National Dance Competition. 

One thing she wanted to make sure that I did (other than keep the other kids alive) was to water her flowers.  They have been struggling all summer and needed extra care.

I wanted to ease her worry and stress.

“Sarah, don’t even think about those flowers while you are gone.  Don’t let them stress you out one bit.  Because when you get back, they will most definitely be dead.”

And I held to my word too.

I wasn’t a very good “employee”.

Many of the small business owners I am working with have the same problem with finding and keeping good employees. 

I wish I had a magic wand, however, with the unemployment rate of approximately 4% nationwide and 2.8% locally, there’s not much to choose from.

With that in mind, here are a few recruiting and hiring tips you may not be using.

Job description
Write a super clear and non-buzzwordy job description.

Every job description out there says something about teamwork, communication skills, ability to prioritize, blah, blah, blah.

While those things are important, EVERY JOB DESCRIPTION says just that, whether it’s for a CEO or porta-potty guy (no offense porta-potty guy.) 

Make sure the job description clearly lays out what the employee will be doing on a daily basis and what goals you have for them.

Recruitment
Be willing to turn over some rocks.  There are a lot of really good under-employed people out there waiting for you to find them.

• Ask for referrals from existing employees
• Look at existing employees in the service sector (restaurants, customer service reps, etc.)
• Ask friends and family about folks that are looking for a change

Phone Interviews
This is the easiest thing in the world to do, to narrow your candidate pool.  You will be surprised, and not in a good way, at how many people can disqualify themselves here.

• Keep it short and sweet
• Discuss salary and hours
• Ask everyone the same questions

In-person Interview
After the phone interview, you should only have to interview 3-4 people.

Ask behavioral style questions, i.e. “tell me about a time when you handled a stressful situation at your last job”, not “how do you handle stress.”

And don’t ask the following:
• Are you married?
• Do you have kids?
• What’s your religion or do you celebrate religious holidays?
• Are you pregnant?
• What’s your race/nationality?
• What’s your sexual preference?
• How old are you?
• Do you have any disabilities or health problems?
• Do you use drugs, alcohol or smoke?

You can ask
• Reason for leaving prior employment
• Perceived strengths and weaknesses
• Reasons for wanting to be employed with the company
• Work attitude and work ethic
• Background training and experience
• References from prior employers and info on how to contact
• Prior Education
• Do you currently use illegal drugs?
• Meet work hours and schedule

On-boarding
Once you hire this new employee, be sure to train them for an appropriate amount of time and have a 30-day and 90-day review. 

Yes, there will be some folks who tell you that is not needed or opens the door to trouble later (you fire them after giving them a good review), however it helps you and the employee know what is working and what could be improved on now, instead of you blindsiding them later when they don’t meet expectations.

And if you have any flowers that you like to donate, please be sure to drop them off at the TSBDC:).