Monthly Archives: March 2015

Administrative , , , , Leave a comment

2Q Pep Talk and Organizing Primer

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Hello there, Freelancer and welcome to second quarter 2015. As a precaution against slowly sliding off-course, let’s take a look at some Freelance consultant basics that will keep stress at bay and you in the mood to work hard and smart to achieve your goals of business success, as you define it. Free or low-cost technology can help.

Budget your income

Poor financial management = sleepless nights and stress.  Your paychecks are irregular and taxes are not withheld.  Check stubs and business expense receipts can be misplaced, making it difficult to track accounts receivable and payable.  How you keep track of your revenue/ income is your choice, but keep track of it you must,  along with deductible business expenses. An Excel spreadsheet is your level one financial management tool.  Whenever you receive a revenue check, get into the habit of recording the payer, amount and date.  Save the check stub as well and keep them all together in a place that you’ll remember. Record also your accounts payable business expenses and save the receipts alongside the revenue checks.

If you are in the mood to pay, Intuit has two choices for you.  QuickBooks is the gold standard of bookkeeping and basic financial management for business ventures large and small. QuickBooks will produce income statements and balance sheets monthly, quarterly and annually and make sure that you know where you stand financially.  For about $10/month,  through a basic QuickBooks app on your smart phone or tablet, you’ll be able to download transactions from your bank account and credit cards; separate your business and personal spending; track all of your IRS Schedule C Profit & Loss From a Business variable expenses; calculate and pay estimated quarterly taxes; do it all with the same security encryption as your bank.

Intuit’s Mint will pull together all of your financial transactions and arrange in colorful and easy-to-decipher graphics that depict your financial picture. Get started for free and add your accounts. Mint will analyze all of your financial transactions: checking and savings account activity, credit and debit card activity, investments like brokerage and retirement accounts, and IRA rollover offers and will make recommendations as to how you can pay less, save more and earn more.

Mint will essentially do your budgeting for you, by calculating your average spending by category so that you can create a budget based on an accurate assessment of your spending patterns.  This is the way to create and achieve your savings goals, whether for retirement, for a home, or vacation.

Manage your time

Recognize and respect priorities and refuse to allow the time-suckers to take over your life.  Time is totally money for Freelance consultants and we bill by the hour, or on a project basis. Do whatever you can to devise and approach your to-do list with good time management in mind. At the very least, keep a written calendar in which you can see a monthly view of your appointments (it is superior to a weekly view). Record your obligations and the due dates, so that deadlines will be met. On your smart phone, make use of the Notes app, so you can easily jot down important dates or deliverables.

Evernote is a very handy technology tool that works on your desktop or laptop, tablet or smart phone and costs between zero and $10/month. When you’re working on a project, your notes can even be transformed into a screen-friendly graphic lay-out that works for a client meeting. Access attachments, including PDFs, all your notes and images, too. The details of your project will be easily available and readily organized. You will look so professional and in-charge!

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Professional Development , , , Leave a comment

Business Coach Or Business Strategy Consultant?

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It has become increasing popular for leaders of organizations large and small, as well as Freelance consultants, to work with a coach, as a way to become a more effective leader, manager and decision-maker. Launching and sustaining a business venture is a significant undertaking. The stakes are very high and the margin of error is exceeding narrow. I’ve briefly worked with a coach myself. But is working with a coach beneficial, or a waste of time and money? Experience told me that it depends on your goals and your choice of coach.

Here’s the good news. The International Coach Federation, a support network for professional coaches, has data that demonstrates 86% of coaching clients recouped in business revenue at least what they invested in their coaching sessions. Further, 96% of those business owners/leaders would seek coaching again in the future. The ICF found that working with a coach improves productivity:

  • It keeps you on track. Through regularly scheduled sessions, business coaching provides accountability that encourages you to pursue your goals.
  • You have a forum for reliable and confidential business advice. A good business coach is positioned to use his/her expertise and judgment to guide you through the minefield of business challenges and difficult decisions.
  • You learn to set meaningful and attainable goals. Recognizing the goals one should set and can achieve is one of the keys to success in life and business. Ideally, your business coach will help you identify short and long-term goals and work with you to devise strategies and action plans that will bring your organization into the winner’s circle.

Now for the reality. As I see it, most of the certified coaches operating today have no business experience. Their background ranges from laid-off human resources / organizational development specialists to psychologists who can no longer make the money they want in the counseling field, due to restrictive health insurance reimbursement rules. Precious few of these individuals has ever seen the inside of a marketing department, sales department, finance or operations department.

They do not know how to create a business model; they’ve never participated in writing a strategic plan; they’ve never done a marketing plan; they’ve never so much as sold an umbrella on a rainy day; they could never interpret a profit & loss statement or a balance sheet. The only business decision they’ve ever made is to repackage themselves as a “business coach”, because they see financial potential.

When I prepared to open my consultancy, I saw a business coach who has an MBA from a very respectable program and who worked as a program manager at a mid-size local not-for-profit organization.  She was an acquaintance and so I consulted her for my launch. She was good with keeping me on track, but there were real deficiencies. She was not quite worth the $75/hour that I paid her in 2003.

She was useless in helping me to define my customer or devise strategies in how to reach them.  She was equally useless in helping me to either refine my business model, or offer feedback on the likely financial potential of the model presented. She, a single woman in consulting practice just as I aspired to be, had no words of advice regarding survival strategies, meaning the development of other revenue streams (such as teaching). She is still in business today, but she’s left the immediate area. I don’t know how successful her business is.

Many coaches may have glowing credentials, but the proper application for their experience and training is as a life coach and not a business coach. As I learned, even an MBA is not necessarily qualified to operate as a business coach.  A significant percentage of coaches are someone you call when work-life balance is an issue, or you need a plan for your under-employed husband, who’s become passive-aggressive because he’s envious of your professional success.

Qualified business coaches are available, but like any other professional services provider that you seek, conduct your due diligence. Coaching credentials are not your primary yardstick. Organizational development specialists and psychologists do not know business, so why would you hire one simply because they have some piece of paper?

Business experience and the ability to work with others one-on-one, or as group leader in CEO forums, is the skill-set that matters. Leaders who seek business coaching in fact need a business strategy consultant,  a seasoned professional who has been in the trenches and knows what it’s like to outwit, or get shot down, by competitors and the changing winds of business fortunes. Organization leaders are best served by a wise and savvy pro who has been to the mountain top and returned, to show us how to reach the summit.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Administrative , , Leave a comment

Staying Alive: Business Management Technology That Works

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Business ventures new and old can fail for many reasons and small businesses are especially vulnerable to all manner of threats.  Even outrageous good fortune can kill a business,  when customer demand far outpaces the ability to effectively fulfill the demand. Fortunately, some challenges can be overcome through sound business practices that are aided by technology hardware or software that are not terribly costly.  Here are areas where technology can help Freelancers and small business owners get arms around common business stumbling blocks. There are also sales forecasting and business analysis tools available, typically by contract through a business services company. Are you ready to trade-up from your Excel spreadsheet?

1.  Operational efficiencies Efforts to deliver core products or services can fall short in under-staffed, under-capitalized organizations, especially when the CEO is inexperienced and overwhelmed.  Orders can be incomplete, late or lost altogether.  Payments to suppliers or sub-contractors could be late.  Invoices may not be sent at the agreed-upon time and as a result cash flow will be diminished,  which leads to all manner of problems, including the inability to make payroll, purchase inventory and other vital supplies, or meet work space rent or utilities payments.  There can be quality control issues with the products and services.  Customer service can be tone-deaf or unresponsive.  Employee skills and time may be inappropriately utilized, resulting in burn-out or wasted time.  Fear not, for there are readily available and typically affordable solutions.  Billing software can generate professional looking invoices quickly and accurately as well as manage common bookkeeping functions easily. Other business management tools can help the CEO to analyze key performance indicators that identify seasonal peaks and valleys that can be used to plan staffing needs, inventory and supplies purchases, or other necessities to meet increased or decreased demand.

2.  Mobile workforce Mobility is a must in today’s business world.  Not having access to client information while you’re on the road, perhaps while meeting with the client, is inexcusable and makes it impossible to uphold the quality of your brand. Invest in a tablet computer or  notebook computer that along with your smart phone will be loaded with apps and software that allow you to demonstrate that you are able to service client needs and answer questions wherever and whenever.  Mobile friendly business management tools allow you and your team to be equally effective in or out of the office.  Also, make sure that your website is converted to a responsive design format, so that it can be easily viewed from a smart phone or tablet.

3.  Manage growth Growth is always the goal, but it’s sometimes like drinking from the fire hose for a Freelancer or small business owner.  Serendipitous growth sounds like the answer to our prayers,  when the orders just fall into our laps,  but the concomitant follow-through can trip us up and burn us out as it rolls through like a tsunami.  Resource utilization— time, talent, staffing, money— all change as the business grows. The best growth is planned, which allows for budgeting and incorporation of the right technological tools, staffing, product or service delivery systems, quality control measures and customer service procedures that make us look like a pro and live up to the brand promise.

If you choose a business management platform that will allow you to perform forecasting and analysis,  be careful of the organization that you choose to work with.  Avoid long-term contracts and look for flexibility that allows you to get into and out of management platforms relatively quickly and inexpensively.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Marketing , , , Leave a comment

Market Research Matters

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“If you build it, they will come” is a myth. When evaluating the likely prospects of a business venture, new product or service, or entrance into a new market, good market research is your non-negotiable Step One.  The ability to create and sustain profitability must be demonstrated up front, in advance of committing time and money to its launch.  The only way to reliably predict whether your shiny new idea has broad appeal is to carefully research the marketplace and examine the story that emerges.  The good news is that if you are onto something, market research will help you define the size and potential of the market; decide how and when to enter it; reveal how target customers prefer the product or service to be described, packaged and delivered; the acceptable price range; and show you how to achieve market penetration and profitability goals faster.

Many decision-makers are uncertain as to the type of data that is relevant and the advent of big data has unfortunately complicated matters.  There is copious data available, but what will help your team to make the best decision?  Dionne McPhatter is a market research guru and co-founder of The Strategy Collective, a New York City and Los Angeles marketing firm that builds custom analytics that help clients better understand their customers and make more informed business decisions.  McPhatter  recommends that decision-makers identify what is called in market research circles the “path to purchase” and arrange for the product or service to touch as many “landmarks” as possible.

Some relevant data is free, or inexpensive.  Google Trends is free and a decent place to start your search and learn how many people in your city last year searched key words associated with the product or service (I found the now-defunct Google Wonder Wheel far superior, however).  Learning about competitors who provide your service, or something similar or complementary to it, is also revealing.  Tour a few of their websites and figure out business models and marketing messages.  If you are thinking about launching a business, you will write a business plan and do lots of research.  Contact your local library to learn about business reference material such as industry magazines and demographic information.

Further, there is value in spending some money and visiting professional organization meetings and attending conferences, so that you can meet prospective clients and learn the expectations and value they place on your product or service.  Listen and learn and discreetly take notes.

As you collect and examine data, a picture of the target customer groups,  competitors and the overall marketplace will begin to emerge.  The downside is, those who amass a large amount of data can become confused about what is relevant: the data threads may be too numerous to easily prioritize.  The challenge of decision-makers is to discover the relationships and triggers between the data points and eventually see what motivates clients along the path to purchase.  From there, you can confidently develop goals and objectives, strategies and action plans and a business model that will build and sustain a profitable launch.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

 

 

Business Strategy , , , Leave a comment

What Do You Know? Knowledge Mapping and Management

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Have you taken stock lately of what you know and the potential value that your knowledge can bring to clients? Those of us who work in the Knowledge Economy are advised to periodically examine, catalogue, package and communicate to prospects, clients and referral sources the types of knowledge that we provide and the value of that knowledge, that is, the benefits that would be received by clients who pay to receive the knowledge.

Martin Ihrig, Associate Professor and Director of the Strategic and Entrepreneurial Management of Knowledge Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and Ian MacMillan, Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Wharton School, encourage Knowledge Workers to take an accounting of the full spectrum of their strategic knowledge assets: core competencies, talents, intellectual property, areas of expertise and deep experience. In order to effectively present ourselves to prospective clients, we must first understand and communicate what we offer to them and why it matters.

Step 1 is to list your strategic knowledge assets and group them according to categories. For example, if selling is the basis of your consulting practice, then your categories of core competencies, expertise and experience would likely include sales skills training, management of sales teams, sales distribution expertise, developing and nurturing client relationships, the success of new product launches, both individually and of sales teams that you’ve led, etc.

Think also in terms of your structured and unstructured knowledge. Structured knowledge that you possess would include your educational degrees and certificates; specific job experience; quantified intellectual property; technical proficiencies (maybe you speak another language, or are fluent in a certain relevant computer software); or specific methodologies used to provide services. Unstructured knowledge usually centers around your experience and expertise. Unstructured knowledge would, for example, include the deep experience you possess that allows you to accurately and relatively quickly grasp the big-picture as well as the nuances of challenges and opportunities that clients typically hire you to address.

Step 2 encompasses the primary goal that Ihrig and MacMillan assign to cataloguing and categorizing your knowledge asset categories, which is to enable you to visualize and consider them fully and position your consultancy for maximum profitability and sustainable growth. How can you advantageously leverage what you know? Are your categories primarily stand-alones, or might you combine them in ways that make you better able to meet the emerging needs of current and prospective clients? In Step 3, examine the business model for each of your high-level categories and the organizational systems and practices that you currently follow to efficiently enable their delivery.

If you love geometry, in Step 4 you can map your structured assets along the x-axis and unstructured along the y-axis (or the reverse, if you like). Simple list-making works, too. As stated above, you may discover ways to combine competencies, structured or unstructured, that will add to the services that you provide, or you may reconsider a seldom used structured or unstructured competency and realize that it may now be marketable.

Once you’ve listed your mission-critical knowledge assets, the challenge is to decide how best to package, message and promote them. If you carefully map and manage your knowledge portfolio, you may discover lucrative competitive advantages that otherwise may not reveal themselves to you.

Thanks for reading,

Kim