Perfect Phrases for Managing Your Small Business

Perfect Phrases for Managing Your Small Business

The Right Phrase for Every Situation . . . Every Time! As a small business owner, you may find yourself overwhelmed with endless chores, decisions, and day-to-day responsibilities. Communicating clearly with everyone from vendors to employees is critical to your success. PerfectPhrases for Managing Your Small Business provides the phrases you’ll need to take charge, perform your tasks, and succeed in these trying times. Inside you’ll find: Hundreds of quick, ready-to-use concepts and phrases for nearly every business situation - Targeted coverage on topics, from starting your business to hiring and motivating employees to dealing with challenging customer situations - How to market and sell your products and services Robert Bacal , the bestselling author of Perfect Phrases for Performance Reviews , owns his own consulting firm. He has presented and offered training for the U.S. Department of Transport and at several prestigious conferences. Nancy Moore is a systems analyst and serves as a senior associate with Bacal & Associates. Robert Bacal , the bestselling author of Perfect Phrases for PerformanceReviews , owns his own consulting firm. He has presented and offered trainingfor the U.S. Department of Transport and at several prestigious conferences. Nancy Moore is a systems analyst and serves as a senior associate with Bacal& Associates. Perfect Phrases for Managing Your Small Business By Robert Bacal Nancy Moore The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Copyright © 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All right reserved. ISBN: 978-0-07-160052-1 Contents Chapter One Introduction Some people gush glowingly about the joys of owning or running a small business. The sense of freedom, the joys of succeeding on your own, the financial returns, and the "no more idiot bosses" are often the things that both attract and reward successful business owners—or at least that's the dream. There's a dark flip side, though. For every happy, successful small business owner, there is someone else who has encountered grief, financial ruin, family conflict, and even divorce. Not everyone is cut out to start or run a small business, because it's hard. It's really hard. It's challenging, and it requires behavioral skills (what you do), linguistic skills (how you communicate), and cognitive skills (how you think) that not everyone possesses. This book is intended to help you plan, think about, and develop your business—and succeed. At minimum, you will find out whether you are suited for the small business life. There's more value here than that, though. You will learn what you need to know to succeed, both financially and personally. The book is relevant not only to new business owners, though. The skills, thinking, and behaviors needed to start a business are pretty much the same ones as needed to manage a small business, even an old established one. So if you are thinking about starting a small business or buying into one, if you already own one, or if you are responsible for running a small business for someone else, this book is for you. Good News About Small Business Failures Let's start with some encouraging news about small business. If you've researched the small business world, you've probably come across some rather disturbing numbers about the failure rates of small business, particularly during the first year or two. There are numbers that indicate the failure rate is as high as 90 percent of new businesses. Others indicate the number is somewhere between 60 and 70 percent. There are also some figures that are at least a little more optimistic. That doesn't sound promising, does it? There are several things you need to know about these numbers before you let them depress or discourage you. First, it is probably accurate to say that we don't really know, with certainty, what the small business failure rate actually is. The studies use so many different criteria for "failure" that the results are hard to interpret. For example, some studies classify as failures small businesses that have been sold. However, in this era, starting a business with a clear "exit" strategy is a common and lucrative practice. Ask the Web entrepreneurs who were bought out by giants for millions. Failures? Hardly! So, number one—the statistics, best called estimates , regarding business failures are all over the block. Second, the rates of failure are quite different for different industries and types of business and from region to region. Overall failure rates simply do not help you determine the chances of success for your business in your field and in your geographic location . The bottom line about small business failures is this: A fair number of small businesses fail. We don't know exactly what that number is. Even if we did know the overall number, it wouldn't be useful, because it wouldn't tell us what your chances are. Your ability to succeed has little to do with the "odds," but