7 Ways to Build Wealth Personally or In Your Business

Money is a valuable tool for all of us to have and use in our lives. It is there to be accumulated and used… but we must learn how to do both or we will never have wealth and what money we do have we will most likely not keep.

In 1926 George S Clason published The Richest Man in Babylon. In this systematic and entertaining book Clason presents and details the ways to accumulate and keep wealth that are when applied as certain as the law of gravity.

“Money is plentiful for those who understand the simple laws which govern its acquisition.” – George S Clason

In the book Clason introduces Arkad, the richest man in Babylon.  Early in the book Arkad is asked by the King to teach 100 men the secret to wealth. Here is a summary of what he taught them.

1. Begin paying yourself first.
2. Budget and control what you spend. Discipline yourself to live on far less then you earn.
3. Make your money work for you. Invest in safe enterprises or the highest rates of compound interest available.
4. Keep your savings safe. Do not speculate.
5. Buy a home for yourself and your family.
6. Insure you future income for your retirement and the estate you will leave your loved ones.
7. Increase your ability to earn. Be the best at what you do and learn to do more.

Regards,

Eric

Eric W. Leaman

Trustee

eleaman@oedglobal.org

http://twitter.com/oed4smallbiz

Organization for Entrepreneurial Development

Unleashing the entrepreneurial spirit.

Change your mind ... and EVERYTHING changes

What would you say to 17 year old you?

It's a common question being bantered about in this day of anti-bullying campaigns. The notion of speaking the you "of now" speaking to yourself at age 17 is an intriguing prospect. I'm curious though what you, as an entrepreneur, say to yourself at that age?

• Did you always want to "be the boss" and has it lived up to the hype?
• Did you plan on wrapping up high school for the service? If so, what skills you'd be about to learn will serve you well in the future?
• Are you so stressed about not being tormented each day of high school by the "it" crowd that negativity seeps in?
• Are you simply expected to enter the family business?
• Are you simply expected to graduate, go to college, and enter the corporate world?
• Was there a gut feeling you didn't follow that you'd like to revisit?
• What advice will someone give you in the coming years that will prove really key?

Knowing what you know now about your career and the point to which it's brought you, what would you say to the 17yr old you who however many years ago is sitting there prepping for his/her final year of high school?

Are you working hard or smart?

Average business people feel comfortable working about 2500 hours per year (50 hours per week for 50 weeks, everyone needs two weeks vacation!). This number represents the total number of hours worked including all tasks. Yet, in a small business, most have difficulty “selling” 5 hours a day out of the 10 hours at work. The reason is a seemingly endless supply of non-”selling” distractions with which business people in large companies don't have to deal. Among these are:

Relentless customer calls (no associate to insulate the businessperson)
Clerical duties handled directly by the businessperson (insufficient clerical help)
Preparing bills (no accounts receivable clerk)
Screening potential customers (insufficient clerical help)
Accounting (no accounting department)
Paying bills (no accounts payable clerk)
Landlord/tenant issues (no managing partner)
Computer and office equipment maintenance (no office manager)

And you can take it from here!

By the end of the day, you know you have been working hard, but you have no idea why you only worked on revenue generating items for three hours out of the ten you were there. This is a common problem faced by businesspeople in small businesses who are working hard but not smart.

Setting Priorities – Key Skill

With so many tasks, the natural thing to do is to try to handle them in the order in which they come. Then, as tasks begin to back up, most people do the tasks they find least aversive first, and keep working in least aversive priority until an urgent (but not necessarily important) distraction presents itself.

This "squeaky wheel gets the grease" method begins to produce crises since the matters that demand the most attention are not necessarily the most important things the businessperson has to do. The longer important matters are crowded out by urgent distractions, the more likely there is to be a crisis. After a while, so many important matters get neglected that the businessperson is forced to shift into "fire-fighter" mode. Customer inquiries about their work are added to the distractions that keep the businessperson from getting the work done. Before long, staccato interruptions riddle his/her office like machine gun fire and the businessperson doesn't know whether to stand and fight or run screaming from the room. Sound familiar?

The key to getting control of your day is to set clear priorities:

Make a list of common activities in which you engage daily (including all the non revenue distractions) and prioritize that list according to importance (revenue generators and marketing your business will be at the top of this list).

This is not a specific "to-do" list, but rather a general list of daily tasks.

Business Plans and Planning

"You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there." - Yogi Berra

“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher.

A successful business plan is one that focuses your thinking, helps you establish a realistic business strategy, improves your operations, and wins for your company the financing and other support it needs.

Written business plans, broadly speaking, are usually put together for either of two purposes: to prepare for a significant event, such as obtaining financing, or to guide the company’s operations for a particular period, usually a year.

Keep in mind, in writing the plan, you’ll invariably take two steps forward and one step back. It’s an uneven path, fraught with unforeseen frustrations and difficulties. Thrashing out those difficulties is a key part of the planning process.

Being in business is a journey, not a destination -- with NO made roads or freeways, despite what some franchisers would have you believe. Every business travels into the uncharted territory of the future. But, no matter how good a driver you may be, how well you know the route, or how quickly you can load and unload the vehicle, if you fail to put fuel in the tank, air in the tires, oil in the engine, water in the radiator, or otherwise adequately maintain and service the vehicle, it will soon grind to a halt.

You'll go nowhere. Sadly, this is the case with most small business owners. They're good drivers -- plumbers, hairdressers, retailers, lawyers, accountants, printers or whatever their trade or profession may be -- but they haven't a clue what's required to maintain and manage their vehicles. So they rarely make it to their chosen destinations.
To complete the journey to your chosen destination you need a suitable business vehicle.

Expert Business Advisors Will Help You Grow Your Business

Expert Business Advisors Will Help You Grow Your Business

Many otherwise talented business owners, especially those who are inexperienced at running a business (they don’t know what they don’t know), call on outside experts only when they have already lost control of their sales, cash flow, profitability… and their dreams..

It is unfortunate that there are still business owners who make the mistake of thinking that the use of a professional business advisor is a troubleshooting exercise that a company undertakes only to manage crisis. This can be a fatal mistake for the business because by the time a company is in crisis it may well be too late for even the best and most qualified of advisors to help.

The fact is professional business advisors should be used when a business is successful because they are third party experts who can insure a business makes the right decisions that lead to continued and heightened profitability.

Professional business advisors should be used to look at issues related to business in a broad perspective. Helped by their expertise and business acumen, as well as by being from outside the company, professional advisors can see things from a point of view which the owner may fail to see them because of the owners deep and passionate involvement in the business. Professional business advisors can often identify fresh ideas and approaches to issues and opportunities and help ownership weigh the pros and cons of each strategy and the situation, again with a fresh perspective.

Professional business advisors should be used to supply resources (and time) which the clients may not be in a position to provide for themselves because they do not have the staff or personal expertise to do so. Usually, the key resource needed is expertise… experience, knowledge, creativity and special skills. Time and people are other resources, which the client might not be able to spare, which can be provided by professional business advisors.

A key aspect of what the professional advisors also bring to their clients is their team of experts, technical advisors with expertise in specific areas. The professional business advisors main personal strength is that they have broad skills in multitude of areas such as marketing; sales; finance; corporate strategy; and human resources but when needed have specialized expert sources they can call on for items like e-commerce; manufacturing processes; IT; and other non-management activities, including compliance with various safety and health regulations, technology application to name a few.

Our point?

Small and medium sized businesses benefit from professional business advisors and there are many advisors who specialize in small to medium sized entrepreneurial businesses who know the challenges business owners face and recognize the cost-value relationships that needs to be created and leveraged. These small business orient advisors become trusted and valued resources because they have only the owner and the business in mind and focus on items that directly improve the bottom line of the company.

So, instead of shying away from hiring professional business advisors, what is required is to identify the right advisor so that the owner and the company can focus on their core activities that will ensure smooth operations and which will ultimately reflect on the profits as well as the overall growth of the company.

Prepared by the Organization for Entrepreneurial Development Editorial Staff

OED is a 501(c)(3) public charity that, through its Local Business Assistance Program, assists business owners identify qualified and Certified experts to assist them with their business needs. Visit OED at www.oedglobal.org

Networking Master

by OED Trustee ERIC W. LEAMAN
Why Network? Study after study has been released showing that owners of small businesses consider networking as THE number one way for new business development.

INTRODUCTION TO NETWORKING

The word conjures up all sorts of interesting pictures. Men in recliners smoking cigars and making deals in back rooms. MLM distributors cheering at training sessions and trying to recruit everyone who comes within 3 feet of them when they're done. Even computer wizards doing arcane things behind the scenes to make your Internet connection work.

Networking is about connections. For your purposes in business, it's making connections that bring you customers.

WHAT IS NETWORKING? Networking is cultivating mutually beneficial, give-and-take, win-win relationships.

Networking is the process of developing and nurturing professional contacts to obtain:

1. Referrals

2. Advice

3. Information

4. Support Networking is the ability to relate to and talk to anyone ... anytime ... anywhere, with honesty.

Those who know how to use a network realize:

We are not dependent on each other; nor are we independent of each other ... we are interdependent with each other! The strength ... excitement of networking/networks is that all the people who are part of your network are parts of other networks and their own! Remember ... the "Law of 250" ... Each of us has a sphere of influence of 250 people. (The people who would attend our wedding or funeral). The more people you meet (network) the larger your sphere ... they all have 250 also! A couple of basic working definitions are in order.

Contact A person with whom you have developed, or are developing, an ongoing relationship of trust and mutual respect, SPECIFICALLY REGARDING BUSINESS MATTERS.

To read this complete article & download the complete resource document, visit the OED Community!

How to Beat Business Burnout

Earlier this week we talked about reducing stress in your business. Easier said than done, you may say. Well, the reality is stress, strain, and the all consuming energy placed in to your business can lead  to burn out. When your life's work is tied up in your business though, it pays to work through it.. So how do you avoid it?
Burnout -- and the boredom that results -- constitutes the No. 1 reason small business owners pack it in and either sell out or shut down.
According to market research published in Family Business, burnout is the primary motivator in 50 percent of all business divestitures.

It makes sense. Successful business owners don't just commit themselves to their companies...they become consumed by the quest. Many put in long hours. They neglect their health, families and outside activities; then end up physically ill, emotionally depressed, even divorced.


Ironically, a major cause of burnout is success, achieving a single goal long sought. That's why many owners get restless, discontented, bored.

Fortunately, it doesn't have to be that way. To beat burnout:

1. Separate work and play...and be sure to take time to play. Make it a household rule not to discuss business after 7:00 P.M. Or make the kitchen or family room and, most definitely, the bedroom a "No Business" zone.

2. Get adequate sleep...no less than six hours a night. Long-term sleep deprivation can distort thinking and reduce productivity. But adequate sleep can enhance stamina and clear-headedness.

3. Devote time to mental regeneration every day. Some business owners meditate, others read the Bible or review inspirational books.

4. Exercise daily, even if its only half an hour of walking while working out a business problem.

5. Have a mission...a sense of purpose. This goes beyond mere objectives. A mission describes (1) what you want to achieve and (2) why you want to achieve it.

6. Believe in what you're doing. There's nothing more exciting or challenging than being a business owner. What you do benefits your customers, your employees and, most of all, your family. Don't lose sight of that.

7. Be organized. Maintain clear objectives and activity plans for the year, quarter, month, week and day.

8. Work smarter...not just harder. An hour of planning can save ten times that in increased productivity. Follow the carpenters rule: Measure twice, cut once.

9. Don't settle into success. Repetition of a successful process or activity can lead to mind-numbing boredom. Take at least one calculated risk each year.

10. Maintain your priorities. Business is important...but not at the expense of health and happiness. Also, remember that it is relationships that give true meaning to what you do.


More great New Year tips to reenergize your business (and yourself), check out the OED Community!