Lauren Sherman with Forbes.com wrote about the 10 best chain stores to find the best bargans.  I didn’t see Oregonlive.com writing about the best LOCAL businesses to shop.

some much attention goes to the national chain stores yet a VERY large part of the national GDP is generated by small business, why then is there not more online support for small business?  Well, that is going to CHANGE.  We all voted for change, then lets take change into our own hands…  Add your comments to this posting with a list of local businesses people living in Portland should shop.

Christmas gifts, winter essentials, medical check ups, flu shots, places to play, places to learn, places for the in-laws, and places for loving couples.  No idea is off the table, lets hear them all.  Where should be go and why?

Ed Bejarana
BusinessBlogging.net
a division of Zenith Exhibits, Inc.

Simple and Effective Evaluation

By Don Reiland

· Do be up front.
The evaluative process is an ongoing developmental process, not a surprise attack. There is typically a formal session once a year, but if done right, it is merely a time to communicate what is already known and discussed throughout the year.

· Do use it supportively.
Don’t hide behind paper. If you have an issue with an employee or their performance is substandard, talk about it. An evaluation is not a write-up put in someone’s mail slot. It is a tool for honest communication and feedback about a person’s professional performance. If you are upset with an employee, or specifically your administrative assistant, deal with it immediately. Don’t store it up and “gun them down” at review time.

· Do use as a tool for growth.
This is the key to a developmentally-oriented evaluation process. Do your best to connect any shortcomings to a plan for growth. The majority of your developmental training energies need to be placed into an employee’s areas of strength. However, when skill deficiencies are connected to main responsibilities, then training is appropriate. This is assuming that the assistant has a good attitude, and in general, adds value to the team.

· Do use it to promote productivity.
I am surprised at the number of churches that ask less of their employees that the business arena would expect in terms of quality and productivity. God’s Kingdom certainly deserves as much as the secular market-place.

· Do be honest and direct in your communication.
This is not the time to sugarcoat the truth. Say it succinctly and directly. Don’t be mean; speak the truth in love.

· Do invite feedback about everything, your leadership style, whatever.
A good evaluation includes the employee giving feedback to you as the supervisor. Listen. Don’t be defensive. You have not abdicated your leadership by this exercise. In fact, you open the door to become a better leader.

· Do stay focused on the to the essentials.
Don’t nit-pick personal idiosyncrasies that have no effect on performance. Stay focused on the professional work-related issues at hand.

How you design an evaluation instrument is dependent on why you are doing it in the first place. Remember, the process of communication and the ability to measure productivity and effectiveness is more important than the actual form. The goal is not to fill in the blanks, but to gain accurate, honest insight into the overall effectiveness of your assistant. A good principle to keep in mind is that the evaluation tool must serve you, it is not about how wonderful the tool is.

(more…)

Good Morning and Happy Tuesday!

First off, please welcome Tim Snyder with Identify Yourself and Steve Copeland from Residual Income.  I can say with absolute certainty that these gentlemen have class.  I met both of them at a Small Business Development Class.  Tim and I took the Greenhouse class together last year and Steve took my class this past week Mastering Online Marketing.  Welcome gents.  Please take a moment to tell us a little bit about yourselves.

Beings this is the first weekly topic, let me also say welcome to Ken Bear Cole with Fishing With Bear, John Wade with Center for Environmental Medicine and Coach Charles with Coaching At Its Best.

Over the past several weeks, the government has been proposing bail outs for various industries, saying some businesses are “just too big to fail.”  I believe small business is too big to let fail and we will receive a different sort of government bail out.  But as a business community, I think it is in our best interest to plan for and seek out our own economic success.  So with that thought in mind, I would like to propose a topic for discussion.  To add your comments, click on the article header, then scroll to the bottom and and your comments to in the box at the bottom.

Without getting political, I’d like to steer the conversation towards local business operations and economic struggles.  As a small business owner, we have advantages and disadvantages over big business.

Take a moment to add your comment to this article and highlight one of the advantages you have over big business and one disadvantage.

Ed Bejarana
BusinessBlogging.net
a division of Zenith Exhibits, Inc.

It seems obvious that the pace of change in accelerating.  Often you must change what you just changed, even before it goes into effect.  The causes may be multiple, from sliding revenues, to poor economic times as today.  New competitors arrive or a supplier goes out of business.  New technology replaces the new stuff you bought six months ago.  You feel that your company is too big, or too small and this threatens you.  Maybe if you did more it would change what is going on, because that has always worked before.  Why just last year your company was the leader, this it is next to last and losing ground.  What to do?  What do you do when everything has gone your way and you have lost touch with reality.  “Most people in management are not aware that they are imprisoned by current practices of management and that these management practices are the cause of the decline as they prevent companies from functioning efficiently as a system.”  —W. Edwards Deming

 

Most change, however, must happen within the company, internally rather than externally.  The problem is that it is hard to let go of old practices.  Thus there is a need of a change perspective. Consider these things, what you fear and the stages of change. 

Five Fears of Change

1. Fear of the Unknown

Why do men fear committing to a romantic relationship? Why does taking a new job seem scary? We are most at ease when we are completely familiar with our surroundings and sure of what the future holds for us. As a result, fear of the unknown can paralyze us.

2. Fear of Failure

Typical questions you might ask yourself are: “What if, after I try it, it doesn’t work out and I look foolish? Won’t I be a laughingstock?” People expect to get everything right the first time, instead of taking their time to work things out and getting them right at some time.

3. Fear of Commitment

These fears of commitment are why people don’t set firm goals or accomplish what they set out to do. They are afraid to focus on what they want out of life. The excuse they use is that they will be trapped. A better way would be to be honest with themselves and commit to a few simple and heartfelt goals – what they really dream of doing.

4. Fear if Disapproval

Some might call this the fear of rejection. Typical question: “What if I commit myself to my goals and people disapprove?” Often when people make positive changes, their friends, family and business associates say “I liked you better the way you were.” I call these change back pressures. If you change, somebody will likely disapprove. Usually several people in your social network feel this way. You will learn very quickly who your false friends are and who is truly on the side of your self-esteem.

5. Fear of Success

Typical questions: “If you’re successful, are people going to dislike you? Think you’re stuck up?” We are all incredibly afraid of appearing selfish and egotistical to others. When people get through the changes and they are feeling good, they sometimes feel guilty for feeling good. People often trace this guilt back to being taught that they are selfish and egotistical for taking care of themselves.

Five stages of Change

1. The Stage Crisis of

You feel that it is imperative that you change. You’re backed into a corner. It may be a business crisis…or a personal crisis. This sense of crisis – usually very emotional – is a wake-up call, telling you that you are confronting a need for change.

2. The Stage of Hard Work

This is the stage that most people enjoy. Often this involves hard mental work. You may take classes, read books, network with business contacts, etc. There is a sense of control in this stage – you’re working hard trying to figure out the solution to the crisis.

3. The Stage of Tough Decision

Now you are at the stage where you must make a difficult decision. This stage isn’t easy, but it’s a relief. You feel glad that you’re making a commitment. Because you’re choosing a direction, there is a sense that just making the commitment will free you. So there is usually a feeling of optimism at this point.

4. The Stage of Unexpected Pain

When you reach this stage you are doing the right things but getting the wrong results. You are tempted to give up on your goal – and unfortunately a lot of people do – because you’re feeling awful about your failings. During this stage, people frequently don’t realize that they’ve made positive changes, so they stop growing. Thousands of times, people quit when success is right around the corner. It may take every creative bone in your body to drag yourself forward. But it’s a shame that after all the hard work in the first three stages, the unexpected setback cause us to quit. We give up and don’t finish the change. The resentment sets in. But when we don’t change, we are left with depression, rejection and, most noticeably, anger. Usually if you just crawl forward a few more steps from where you’ve been knocked down, you will be able to reach the next stage.

5. The Stage of Joy and Integration

At this stage the changes are truly a part of your life. You realize you are happy about them and they begin to pay off in a big way. For example, you are enjoying your new job or your business takes a turn for the better..

---

Coach Charles Powell,

Coaching at its Best, International

Coach’s Blog

 

Adapted from the original source by: Dr. Dennis O’Grady, *The Change Game*, Bottom Line-Personal, 7-15-94,pp.9,10.

 

See also: Keith Harrell, Attitude is everything : 10 life-changing steps to turning attitude into action  New York : HarperBusiness, 2005

In home or business, budgets are not used as a tool to project and then make adjustments for financial considerations.  Look, our Federal Government can not or will not lay out a budget and stick with it!  They don’t have to.  It’s not their money.  Few State or Local Governments can stay within their budgets.

If you look to businesses, large, medium and small, you do seeing usage of budget processes.  I am not an accountant, but I would guess that as companies get smaller, there is less use of the budget process.  Why?  During good times, problems do not rear their ugly head.  No need for a budget then.  It is times like now that concerns over cash flow become real.  When customer, clients or patients retreat so does the inflow.  Unless there is a real and sometimes painful effort to keep outflow from exceeding inflow, there are bound to be problems.

I have seen a decline in our patient numbers starting back in the spring.  The census started to be less than there previous years.  Looking at our budget, we had needed to make some adjustments.  Thus far it has been used to make right choices of reduced spending.

We set up our budget with three areas of outflow in mind.  The first tier of expense items are those that do not occur each month but do have to be paid during the year.  Included are such items like taxes, licenses, annual membership fees, water which is billed quarterly and accountant fees.  There are others.

The second tier has items that occur every month and cost the same every month.  For us it is like security and our computer service agreement.

The third and last tier has expense items that reoccur but are not the same amount each month.  In our case that would be medical supplies, wages, utilities, etc.

Now that we have divided our expenses into three tiers, we can look at each tier to find our places to reduce our monthly costs.  For the first tier we divide these items so that they are spread over the twelve month period.  We looked early on at these items and there was a membership fee that did not add value to us.  That item did not get renewed when it came up.

The second tier provided and opportunity to cut costs, at least for us we will make it work.  We choose to cut out the contract and go to an hourly service.  We have not had to use the hourly service so our savings are mounting.

The third tier is where belt tightening really can provide dividends.  Inventories can be reduced to fit the needs for the month.  Watching the inflow and outflow makes us make choices on the things that we have control over.

Budgeting as a tool helps set guidelines for spending and saving habits.  By doing it and watching the numbers, it has become a game of winning.  For the first tier, we take the amount not used for those items during the month and putting it into savings.  This provides a sense of security knowing that the money will be there when it is needed for these specific bills.

Budgets are dynamic and need to be adjusted as trends are changing.  Budgets take away uncertainty and gives confidence to survive and be successful in business.  At the end of the months when we have a positive cash flow, the excess is put in the savings account.  When we have a poor month we take from the savings account.  In either case, by mid month we review our past, current and future months for needed adjustments.

Last, for the family unit, I think budgets work and should be employed for the many benefits they can provide.

John Wade
Center for Environmental Medicine, LLC

The Oregon Small Business Development Center has one of the most active small business education programs I’ve ever seen.  I’ve been a student in the SBDC program for the last year, attending the Greenhouse and Small Business Management course at the Clackamas SBDC.  Greenhouse wasn’t a class on horticulture, but for start up business owners like myself.

Today I had the opportunity to give back to the educational community that has helped me.  Max Corona, with Synergic, and I teamed up to teach Mastering Online Marketing.  Along with a dozen other courses, this class is offered every quarter for a very small price of on $38.  We had 16 business people in the class today and we explored online marketing and business planning in great depth.

Max is a marketing expert and local business consultant so he took the marketing and business planning topics.  I am a business blogging consultant and lead the web site optimization and social marketing topics.

Here are some statistics to help understand how the internet can (and should) play an important role in your business marketing plan.  73% of all American adults use the internet daily.  Per Internet & America Life Project, May 2008.  Of those users, 89% use a search engine to find information daily, 81% look for information online about a service or product they are considering buying, 73% get news, and 62% surf the web for fun.  One of the most interesting stats is 29% use an online social networking site like MySpace, Facebook or LinkedIn.

Over 63 million internet users use the internet for social networking.  How many of them are your customers?  Is your company talking to these users while they are browsing the net for fun?  In addition to your company website, are you blogging or using Facebook to attract new customers?

The next class is being offered in February.  Check the SBDC website for the course schedule for a class near you!

Ed Bejarana
BusinessBlogging.net
a division of Zenith Exhibits, Inc.

Downsizing, what a horrible word when you are caught in it’s net. Your job performance may have been fine but the company has to cut costs. I have seen very few companies do it right. Few managers reduce their pay to keep additional “worker bees”. Most of us are fed up of hearing corporate CEOs beg for money from congress when they are making millions of dollars in guaranteed salaries, and flying in corporate planes.

I worked for a company who did it right. The branch VP of the company reduced his salary by 50%. This freed up additional revenue, which was used to continue to employ support staff. All other managers took a 20% pay cut. Drastic times required drastic measures. These cuts resulted in needing to cut 2 support staffers. Without the cuts, the company would have needed to eliminate 23 support positions. Managers would have been required to pick up additional duties and work much longer hours. There were no financial bonuses that year, but we came together as a cohesive unit. Backstabbing was not tolerated. We helped each other improve so the company could survive.

We were not viewed as a model for the other regional offices. We actually infuriated top management in the home office. They were unwilling to follow our example. I believe it was their huge overhead and inflated salaries, which led to reorganizing under chapter 11 bankruptcy law.  The company still exists today, but at a shadow of it’s former self. I left and moved on with a company, which agreed with my management style. But by the time it was over, there was a lot of blood on the floor.

As businessmen and women, we need to demonstrate leadership during challenging times. We need to look to the good of our company and ALL of its parts.

For those involved in small businesses, with little or no staff, you need to examine your relationships with other associations and businesses. Are you supporting each other? Are you building each other up? I would also encourage you to ask how you can support others. As you help others, they will also help you.

This is a time to create alliances for survival and growth. We can over come these difficult times, but you cannot do it alone.

By:    Ken Bear Cole
Fishing with Bear LLC

Corporate America has revolutionized the world. We are known as innovators. Our influence has impacted almost every civilization throughout this planet and beyond. But there have been turbulent winds blowing through Corporate America the last few years, and lately, the winds have been increasing! Stocks are down, with even the “safe & steadfast” companies. Some of the companies, which were believed to be as solid as the ground we stand on, have been or are near failure. So what happened? To properly answer that question will require volumes to be written. Today I just want to focus on one small aspect of the problem.

We Forgot the Slogan, Americans love slogans. “Yes We Can!” “When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going!” There are many more, but I want to focus on:

“UNITED WE STAND, BUT DIVIDED WE FALL”

Corporate America is so divided, that it is segmented into groups of 5 to 25 people. The entire corporation may employ tens of thousands of people worldwide, but it is fractured and operating separately. The warring between these groups is encouraged. It’s much like the gladiators of ancient Rome. The winners go on, but the losers are scarred, humiliated, banished or dead. See if you recognize this next situation.

Bob, Jim and Nancy are all managers within a division of the company. They all have similar salaries with the possibility of a performance bonus at the end of the year. Nancy hit it out of the park last year! Her bonus was larger then her annual salary. Jim had a decent bonus last year, but nothing like Nancy. Bob almost lost his job because his section lost a lot of money last year. Bob was told to pick it up or he would be gone. He can’t afford to loose money this year and the economy isn’t helping.

We are taught to reward the winners and discard the losers, but is that the best plan? Let’s examine what happened last year.

Nancy had great success because of one new customer. She had contacted the customer years before, but had been told that her company was too large and expensive. Nancy never formally contacted the company again. Besides that was when she was just starting out as a sales rep. Nancy met her new customer at her son’s soccer game. Nancy’s husband usually took the boys to soccer. Saturday morning was catch-up at the office, or a sleep-in time. But Tom, Nancy’s husband was sick, so Nancy took the kids to soccer that day. It comes to find out that Nancy’s son was, good friends, with the son of the director of purchasing. They sat together and chatted during the game. The director of purchasing gave Nancy a card and invited her to call. That’s how Nancy became a hero. If that customer decides to leave for some reason, Nancy would be in big trouble.

Bob had been a manager for two years. He rose up through the ranks. He had gone back to school to complete his Bachelors degree a few years prior, but he had little management experience. Last year Bob really had a serious of problems that challenged his abilities. One of his best producers was diagnosed with cancer last year. His work really suffered because of it. It was suggested by Human Resources, that he should be placed on unpaid Family Medical Leave. Bob couldn’t hire someone else, because the cancer was going away and he may be back within six months. It turned out that he died within nine months. So, he operated for most of the year with a short staff. The rest of his team had little experience. You see, Bob was promoted to take on an expansion of the company. Many of his of the members of his team were recent college graduates with little experience.

The company had been sued because of inaccurate commitments made by one of his rookie team members. The settlement was charged to Bob’s team. Bob had asked for help from the other managers, but they were not concerned about bob’s problems. They were busy making money for the company; besides if Bob was having a bad year, they looked even better. They certainly were not willing to share team members or information. It could harm their bonus!

That’s right, Nancy had a win-fall, Bob had a bad year, and Jim’s year was normal. Overall the company had a modest profit. But it could have been better if they acted like a team.

I am against individual bonuses! If it is one company, then the profits and losses must be shared through out the company. They should be divided EQUALLY between the CEO and the production worker.

WHY SHARE THE PROFITS EQUALLY?
We all have a need to belong. Some find it at work, while others find it in family, church, sports or other activities. It has been proven that accepted members of a team make fewer mistakes, and produce much more then isolated individuals. The key is a person’s perception. Do they believe they are accepted? Do they believe they matter?

In life and business, it’s seldom the highly skilled, well paid employees who cause the company the most problems. Accounts are lost because of employees making less then twelve dollars per hour. They may not care about their job. These are unmotivated people. They are coin operated. They put in their time and get a check every two weeks. They don’t realize their importance to the company. Most are not treated like an asset.

I remember hearing of auto races lost because a $10 part failed. Accounts are canceled because of a rude customer service person. Inventory is damaged because of an $8 per hour warehouse worker. A client is lost because a critical document didn’t make it on time. The list can go and on and on….

A two thousand dollar bonus means little for those making $100-500K per year, but it is huge to someone making $425 per week. This can be a major motivator if it is explained that everyone in the company received the same amount. Those being paid less are critical in the success or failure of the company!

I hope this has been food for thought and action.

By Ken Bear Cole
Fishing with Bear LLC

The government is now arguing over how to spend money they appropriated for bailing out the financial institutions. $700 billion is just too much money for politicians to not fight over.  But I’m not focusing on government in this article, I’m looking at OUR response.

The headlines on Yahoo this morning highlighted Black Friday was coming early.  This past Sunday my Wife’s favorite radio station was playing non-stop Christmas music.  Target is announcing huge price cuts.  Deals on electronics can be found everywhere.  Why?  Looking at retail business trends is a good barometer of how our business will look in a few months.

Price cuts and promotional packaging is a normal reaction businesses take during recessionary times.  Christmas, for many businesses, is the profit point for the entire year.  Like a farmer harvesting his crop for the winter months, retail stores often use cash influx from Christmas shopping to fund the entire years operations.  What happens when retail spending drops?

this reminds me of the story about two men walking through the jungle.  One man asked the other, what do we do if we come across a lion?  “I don’t know what you’ll do” said the other man, “but I plan on running faster than you.”

Being last to market in a down economy is certain death.  Slashing prices and bundling products together now, two weeks in advance of Black Friday, give retail establishments a head start on capturing the fewer disposable consumer dollars.  Playing Christmas music on the radio helps put the consumer in the Christmas mood.  Get people to thinking, “got to buy that gift for Aunt Melly and Brother Bob.”

What happens if everyone has already cut their spending?  We’ve all seen this recession coming for months.  Last month, consumer spending was down over 2%.  Is kind of like throwing a party and hardly anyone shows?  What do retailers do with all the inventory?  Time for Plan C.  Cry, that is.

What is your company doing to prepare for the recession?

Here are a list of six things businesses should do during times of recessions:

1. Hold on the cash
2. Don’t borrow
3. Defer capital investments
4. Postpone hiring
5. Lower your prices (bundle where possible)
6. Increase your marketing

This list was given during a Small Business Management class at the Clackamas Small Business Development Center by Thomas G. Jones, Ph.D.

Not all is doom and gloom.  Now is a great time to pick up new customers, because all consumers will trade loyalty for price.  Find ways to capitalize on the consumers purchase mobility and your business will be a head when this recession is over.

Ed Bejarana
BusinessBlogging.net
a division of Zenith Exhibits, Inc.

Welcome to Portland’s news online business community.  This site is designed to help business owners come together online to learn more about doing business, find new business opportunities, share business success stories or gripe about the local business environment.  With the recessions being announced across the globe, business owners must find new ways to market their business.  Joining networking groups to share ideas is one of the more popular marketing approaches; but most networking groups cost money and have very little internet marketing value.  This site is designed to be FREE and FAST.

Blogging has become the number one way of gaining search engine visibility.  70% of all American adults turn to the internet to find information.  Is your business listed high enough on Google and Yahoo?  Could you use one more avenue on the information super highway where customers can find you?  Writing articles on PortlandBusinessCommunity.com is free and easy.

Never blogged before?  Don’t know how to write for search engine visibility?  No problem, I have created a FREE website designed to help you learn how to use blog technology to gain more customers (BusinessBlogging.net).  What’s the catch?  No catch, blogging is absolutely FREE.  You need only follow a couple simple rules:

1. No direct sales pitch.  Talk about your business, how you got into business why you feel your business is the best for consumers, but no direct selling allowed.
2. No writing bad things about other Portland businesses or the people who run local businesses.

This site is for everyone, business owners and consumers a like.  Writing here gains you and your business web site valuable links and search engine visibility.  Reading articles published on this site give you ideas for how to improve your life.

To become an author, simply sign-up and follow the instructions listed on the blogging instructions page.  For more information, you can reach me by phone at (503) 709-1454 or via eMail at ed@zenithexhibits.com.

Happy blogging

Ed Bejarana
BusinessBlogging.net
a division of Zenith Exhibits, Inc.