Are you the “MacGyver” of your business?

Who here remembers the cheesy 80’s show MacGyver? He could turn a bag of Doritos and an acorn into some kind of machine that would enable him to catch the bad guys without ruffling his feather 80’s hair. In a lot of movies and TV shows today, we don’t see a lot of resourcefulness by heroes and heroines; it’s a lot of CGI and punching or shooting. Makes for good action but lousy heroes.

Resourcefulness is a dying art and it’s one of my favorite things about being an entrepreneur. Bootstrapping a business into a success requires some money, a lot of hard work, and a ton of resourcefulness to make it happen.

Recently, I came across a really useful post on the blog “What Would Day Say?” by career columnist Anita Bruzzese (Read the post here).

Although she is writing to job seekers, her post applies equally well to entrepreneurs. She draws from her experience as a columnist and points out how “no” really means “find another way”. So, to take her information and “reinterpret it” for entrepreneurs like you, it might read:

If your prospects say “no” to the product you’re offering, find another way.
If your schedule says “no” to doing more with the time you have, find another way.
If your bank account says “no” to hiring an employee, find another way.
If the marketplace says “no” to your ideas about growing your business, find another way.

Running a business shouldn’t be easy. It’s not something we can solve merely by throwing more money at it. Running a business takes ingenuity, courage, creativity, and resourcefulness.

Are there obstacles in your business right now that could be solved with resourcefulness?

Jessica Routier, IAC-EZ

Be a Visionary: Dream Big, Think Long-Term

In the earliest days of starting up a business (an earlier company, long before IAC-EZ) my focus was on “today”. Each day – “today” – was a new challenge and I would sit down at my desk and work hard that day to make “today” count. It sounds like a good plan. And, if you add up the successes of each “today”, you end up with something significant at the end of the year.

In retrospect, though, I didn’t give enough attention to “tomorrow” in my earliest business ventures. I was too focused on now to think of later. It’s an easy habit to get into as a business owner because you’re just starting up and just trying to make sales and all you can do is make right now count for something.

But there does a come a point (and it’s different for every entrepreneur, I’ve found), when you realize you’re on a bit of a treadmill. Yes, you might be building a strong foundation of good “todays” but every day starts at zero and you try to do something significant and never quite finish everything you’d like to do. And, by focusing on “today”, it’s harder to make investment decisions for your business for the long term.

Everyone might start by thinking about “today” but eventually smart business owners make the switch to thinking about “tomorrow”. They go from building the foundation of the business to building the future of the business. They make decisions that might slightly increase short-term expenses but ultimately improve long-term profitability.

I just read an interesting (but perhaps controversial) article called “What Every Entrepreneur Can Learn from Mark Zuckerberg“. Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, has received a lot of bad press from the privacy-related missteps he’s made in recent months, but you do have to credit him with building such a game-changing site. The article talks about Zuckerberg’s vision for his company and the web, which the article’s author says is measured in decades, not weeks or months.

I think this is a great step to work towards, although I also recognize that it’s not going to be easy for entrepreneurs who are busy focusing on “today”. So, start with this: Why not take a few minutes to write down your vision for the rest of this year. Let it percolate for a couple of days then take a few minutes to write down your vision for next year. Let that percolate for a couple of days. Then take a few minutes to write down your vision for the next 2-3 years. Then the next 5 years. Then the next decade. Give some time between each exercise so you can think it and live with it for a while. And don’t be afraid to be bold. We live in a world that changes fast and we may be using resources in 5 years that we can’t even conceive of today.

This isn’t a technique that will change how you think overnight, but it can change how you think (and how your business grows) over the long-term.

Jessica Routier, IAC-EZ

I think it’s a zero sum game

Most of the users here at IAC-EZ are freelancers, coaches, small business owners, and entrepreneurs. This is a hard-working group who believes that working for themselves provides a superior opportunity to working for others.

But this group also has a challenge that the 9-to-5 employee doesn’t have: The battle for the balance between time and money. That is: The person who is content to show up to work in the morning, spend the day at their desk, and leave work at 5 has the rest of the time to spend on themselves and their family. But the freelancer, coach, small business owner, and entrepreneur do not have that luxury. They may have to work 8 to 6, 8 to 8, or even be on call 24/7.

Most of the entrepreneurs (plus freelancers, coaches, etc.) that I know embrace the lifestyle, even if they know it’s not perfect. But ultimately, I think each one of us (I’m including myself in this group) would trade a little more money for a little more time.

It’s a zero sum game, or it’s about as near to one as you can get: I can make more money by spending more time or if I need some time to do something else, I will make less money.

It’s something I’ve spent some time thinking about, especially this month when a freelancing friend of mine got sick at the beginning of the month, worked hard to catch up on his work through the middle of the month, and then was delayed again at the end because of a death in the family. Neither “delaying” event was in his control but the lack of time equated to a lack of revenue. That’s the challenge of the self-employed.

The answer is not an easy one, nor does it happen overnight. Part of the solution, I believe, is to build up a few passive income streams (or work generated through employees) so even if you never fully replace your own personal, active income, that revenue can at least offer a cushion. Some savings, too, is important. And the minimization of debt. None of those will come as surprise to anyone, I think; I’m sure that most entrepreneurs would agree that those are useful ways to help.

There’s an interesting blog post over at TheSimpleDollar that gives an interesting perspective: The author talks about minimizing your reliance on money as much as possible while maximizing the amount of time you have. To summarize his post, he says that it’s all about time and it shouldn’t be all about money.

I think he has some interesting things to say but I’m not sure that I entirely agree. I do believe that money won’t buy happiness and time really is valuable when you can spend it with loved ones, but money is required not just to live but to build a business. If I wanted to maximize my time and minimize my reliance on money, I’d just get a regular job somewhere. Certainly the stress of annoying coworkers pales in comparison to the stresses that can come with building a business. But I, like many other freelancers, want to build something. So for a few years at least, that requires a lot of time to earn as much as possible to fund growth.

And just in case you’ve gotten to the bottom of this post and disagree or have more questions, let me clarify: This post isn’t my final word on the subject. I do think time with family is invaluable. I’d love to get to the point where I don’t work but have an income. But I’m not there yet and I don’t think you are either and until we are, we need to think about and talk about the balance between work and time. This blog post is just to continue the conversation.

Jessica Routier, IAC-EZ

More on Customer Service as an Investment

Just a couple of days ago I wrote about the customer service you provide in your business as being an investment and we mentioned a Freshbooks blog from way back. While thinking further about this issue, I was clicking around and found an article in a newspaper that referenced… Freshbooks and their take on customer service.

So, since it’s so closely related to what I was just talking about a couple of days ago, I just had to share this article, too. Find it at The Globe and Mail. The article is written by Mark Evans, a consultant who uses content and social media to help businesses get more attention.

Evans writes that customer service is not just about correcting bad things from happening but also about building and leveraging a positive experience. For example, he mentions connecting with the customer to touch base with them and to show them that you value the relationship. And here’s how Freshbooks plays into the subject: Evans quotes Mike McDerment, CEO of Freshbooks, who says that a happy customer provides referrals. Although I might have disagreed with this a few years ago, I think that today’s socially connected world makes that true now. Just look at what interactions are like on Twitter: One person might tweet “boo! Invoicing day. My least favorite day of the month.” And someone else might respond with “Try Freshbooks. I like them.” A simple referral from a happy customer can go a long way.

And just when I thought I was wrapping up the topic, there was a link at the bottom of the article to a blog by Ben Yoskovitz. Yoskovitz is an entrepreneur with an impressive background and lots of interesting things to say and in his blog post , he reviewed the book BAM: Delivering Customer Service in a Self-Service World. His review/summary is incredibly helpful as he lists 9 points from the book that every entrepreneur should pay attention to. Number 1: Tie customer service to revenue and profits. Brilliant! Number 5: Tie customer service to surprise. There are others but those were my two favorites. Read this blog , change your customer service, and transform your customer’s experience!

Jessica Routier, IAC-EZ