Wyoming Entrepreneur Blog

Is your sustainability message a bit stale? Spice it up and make it memorable!

Even though we are heading into warmer months of spring and summer, here’s proof that your sustainability messaging doesn’t have to be boring: In late January, the World Wildlife Fund launched a website (sweaterday.ca) for National Sweater Day (February 9). The premise? Canadians were encouraged to lower their thermostats a few degrees and put on a sweater to stay warm – thereby making grandmothers happier all over the country.

We spend a lot of time in the Shelton creative department discussing creative strategy and the best way to make things “stick” with customers – what makes a campaign memorable and what makes people act sustainably. Some of you might recall former President Jimmy Carter’s famous “sweater speech,” in which he encouraged everyone to minimize their energy consumption and break out the cardigans. Thirty-two years later, the same request was made of Canadians through a completely different approach – and without political agenda. Let’s take a look at what this new sweater campaign did right.

First, “The Granny Call Centre” took a request for sacrificing one’s personal comfort (which we know is a huge motivator for consumers) and put a fun, positive spin on it. Its approach was human and universal  – most of us have a beloved grandmother, and most of us have received an overdone/overblown/oversized sweater from her at least once. It even made the sacrifice seem downright cozy, if not a bit tongue-in-cheek: as one Scottish granny says, “Don’t be ornery – just put on your sweater!” By taking an age-old, grandmotherly adage and marrying it with an accepted societal joke, the campaign became a prescriptive instrument of engagement and awareness.

Secondly, the campaign has the potential to create change by going viral. This fun, buzz-worthy campaign can be passed along to friends and family to create change through subtle peer pressure – people wearing sweaters and lowering the thermostat not because of kind, rosy-cheeked grannies, but because their hipster Canuck friend Dan found a fun, slightly loopy campaign online and decided to play along.

Regardless of how folks get there, the end result is positive. Wonder if any of those grannies are familiar with the term ‘win-win’?

Guest article by Stephanie Alexander, Senior Copywriter for Shelton Group, LLC

Why Family Businesses are Special Today

Family-owned businesses are stable and optimistic, even in times of economic uncertainty. A recent national study by Kennesaw State University, the American Family Business Survey of family-owned businesses, studied the strengths, challenges and changes since a previous study done in 2002. It found that family business owners:
1 | Are optimistic about future growth - Even during some generally depressed business conditions, family business owners express optimism. Figures confirm that family businesses are better able to weather economic hardship and stabilize the economy than their non-family counterparts.
2 | Lack a sense of urgency about retirement and succession planning - Family businesses face some significant succession challenges. Over forty percent of business owners expect to retire in the next ten years, but many are less certain about retirement. Almost one third have no plans to retire, ever. Nearly another third report that retirement is eleven or more years away. This means that many owners plan to die running their business, which is not beneficial to their family, the business, its employees or its customers. Furthermore, nearly one third have no estate plan beyond a simple will.
3 | Select women as leaders - There has been an almost five-fold increase in the number of women leaders in family businesses in the last decade, far more than the increases seen in non-family businesses. The trend indicates that increased female leadership of family businesses should continue.
4 | Hold themselves and their employees to a higher ethical standard - Since family businesses are family and relationship oriented, they operate more ethically. Family owners have a major influence on their business and their values are emphasized in the business. Family orientation seems to translate into more ethical behavior and the resulting actions contribute significantly to their family’s identity in their communities.
5 | Expand on traditional management - There is a misconception that due to the relational nature of family businesses they are less professional. In one way this may be true, with only a few businesses having a written strategic plan or formal planning process. This is only one higher level of professional behavior. Despite the lack of formal strategic planning, they use other types of planning tools. Buy-sell agreements, business valuations, boards of directors, formal recruiting, performance appraisals, and benefits administration indicate their professionalism.
6 | More unified family values - Family unity and cohesion are critical to family business success and an important goal. Family members that agree on values, attitudes, and beliefs exhibit that unity and cohesion. The practice of these values result in increased levels of employee loyalty, commitment, and organizational citizenship. Similarity of values between family members in business and their customers can also improve relationships and foster economic stability.
7 | Place their trust in family members as key advisors – Overwhelmingly the business owner’s spouse is seen as their most trusted advisor, followed by their accountant, a business peer, parent, lawyer, and financial advisor.

A Brief Press Release "How To" for Small Businesses

Press releases are a Great way to publicize your business and, best of all, they don’t cost anything but some time and effort.  There is always a trade-off for “free,” however.  Unlike a paid advertisement, there is no guarantee that a press release will be published, who will publish the information, or how the content will be edited.  On the positive side, if the information you released is published as an article in the media, that exposure, via a credible third party, offers a legitimacy that advertising does not. 

Typically, the objective of a press release is to attract favorable media attention to your business, product(s), or services.   Your objective is to pitch an angle about your business to the media that their particular audience will perceive as news, entertainment, or useful information.  If the audience will benefit, then the chances of getting your release printed are good.  Remember, the press is always looking for news.   

Small businesses often do not realize that they truly do have “news” to write about.  Community newspapers especially are often particularly interested in local business news.  You can write about sales growth, new or improved products or services, new offices or personnel, industry awards or recognition, participation in special industry events, philanthropic activities, and even “thought leadership,” or what your company’s stand is on key issues, views on trends, expert analyses, etc. 

Before releasing news, think about:

• Relevance.  Does your news relate to the community, a hot issue, or a prominent individual?
• Timeliness.  Does your news relate to a holiday, event or a particular time of year?
• Uniqueness.  Is your news unusual or thought provoking?

Creating a template for your releases will save time.  Be sure to include a date if the news is time-specific or use “FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE,” if you simply want the news released right away.  List a contact name, phone number and e-mail address.  Use a strong headline, typed in all capital letters to bring attention to your news.   Keep the release to one page.   Begin the release with the city and state from which the press release originates and the date.  Your first paragraph should highlight the purpose of the release and include the “5 W’s” (who, what, when, where, why).  Tell your story concisely and precisely, limiting that first paragraph to three sentences.  Additional paragraphs should provide more detail about the story.  Quotes from company executives or customers are very effective.  Use bullets to break-up your copy.  Your final paragraph should include a short “boilerplate” paragraph about the company and links to the company website.  Use “###” at the close of the release to indicate the end.

Avoid jargon and self-promotion.  The purpose of your press release is to communicate news or information, not to blatantly advertise your company. 

When distributing your release, consider your media and select carefully.  Don’t waste time on media that are not a good fit for your news.  Decide whether to distribute by fax, e-mail or mail. 

What makes a business an ethical business?

If you ask any business owner whether their business is ethical, they will probably tell you that they think it is ethical.  Usually they have some reasoning to go with it, if nothing else “because I am ethical”.  In the same vein, almost all drivers believe that they are “above average drivers” when asked.  When evaluating whether your business is ethical or not, you need to look at your organization as a whole, beyond the individual component.  Rest assured there were both ethical and unethical employees at companies such as Enron, which, as you know, had large-scale ethical misconduct. It is just that given the corporate culture, many were sure they were doing “the right thing”, which to them often meant short-term profits or financial statement tweaking to appease stakeholders.  Worth mentioning, Enron did have a code of ethics and in other cases of unethical business behaviors, some of those businesses beforehand promoted an image of being ethical without evaluating whether they really were.

The best place to begin evaluating your organization’s ethics is with your organizational culture.  What does it value?  Profits first and then everything else?  There is a perceived paradox in which one assumes bottom line is sacrificed in lieu of being good, but the reality is that ethical companies with ethics programs are on average more profitable than companies without ethics programs.  Having an ethical corporate culture among your employees is foremost to being an ethical organization. 

To help develop that culture it helps to have a code of ethics that doesn’t get stuck on individual issues, but instead develops a framework for ethical decision-making.  It is impossible to imagine all the individual ethical issues that will arise and address them, so instead have a written framework for ethical decision-making, plus it is imperative to have an escalation process for situations when the individual cannot be sure of how to handle a decision.

The next step is ethical training: Share this code of ethics regularly with your employees in a meaningful way, not merely reading a document that is initialed and then filed in HR.  Discuss, interpret and try to apply the code to real life or potential decisions people in your organization may face to see how it works.

Finally, you need to have ethical leadership.  More than anyone else management needs to demonstrate ethical behavior to make your ethics program a success.  Your employees will make note if you cut corners to make a buck and will do the same for themselves.

After you have your program in place, monitor and adjust it as needed and keep your ethics program alive rather than a piece of paper locked away once written.  If you need help writing a code of ethics, please contact us at Wyoming Entrepreneur for help.

Jim Drever

Holds a Certification in Teaching Business Ethics, University of New Mexico

 

Americans are Fed Up --- But Not With Small Businesses

In a recently published survey by the Pew Research Center entitled "The People and Their Government: Distrust, Discontent, Anger and Partisan Rancor, respondents were grouped by whether they were "content", "frustrated" or "angry" with the federal government.  As of March, 2010, 19% were content, 56% were frustrated and 21% were angry (with 5% marking "don't know". 

Small business faired much better than the federal government or large corporations.  When respondents were asked whether they felt small business had a positive effect on how things are going in the US, 73% of the contented, 74% of the frustrated and 68% of the angry respondents said "yes". 

This contrasts with 36%, 24% and 23% of the respondents respectively who felt that large corporations were rated positively.  Banks and financial institutions ranked the worst, with the respondents showing a postive rating at 39%, 18% and 16% respectively.

It seems like small business is the place to be if you want to be positively viewed by the American public.  What do you think?

The survey can be found here: http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/606.pdf

The Great Sell Off of American Businesses

According to a Federal Reserve survey, approximately 50,000 businesses changed hands in the United States in 2001.  By 2004, the survey reported the number of companies sold increased to 350,000, and it went on to project that in 2009, 750,000 would be sold.  While there are 23 million businesses in the United States, about 17 million of them are small mom-and-pop businesses.  Will all the companies be sold?  Probably not.  Historically, about one third will be passed on within the family and two thirds will be sold.

Just looking at the baby boomer population numbers, a fair approximation of the coming flood of business sales is evident.  A tidal wave of baby boomers reaching retirement, judging from the Federal Reserve survey mentioned earlier, indicates that the selling wave has already begun.  It should steadily rise over the next 10 years or so, peak during the 2020s, and then slowly taper off the following 10 years.  So, over the next two decades it appears that there should be a lot of opportunities to purchase some great businesses.

What does that mean for our current business owners?

If you’re a business owner, the best thing you can do for yourself is to begin thinking about exit-planning now, even if you have no intention of selling your company.  The second thing is to get professional help from a financial professional trained in this field when you do.  Once you have sold your business, you will only know how much you got for it, but not how much you could have gotten if you would have had professional advice.  The difference could be substantial.  Usually at least 20 percent more and as much as two to three times as much as when you sell it yourself, according to Dennis Roberts, CEO of the McLean Group LLC, a national, middle-market investment bank.  The dark side for the business owner in all of this is that these sales will happen in a relatively short amount of time because of the wave of business owners hitting age 65 in the next 20 years, and there are a lot of them.  At some point, there will begin to be a glut in the market place and a need for more buyers, which could conceivably drive prices down.  The best way to avoid getting caught in that is to get ready now.

Wyoming Business Leadership Institute: April 16-18 in Laramie

The second class of the Wyoming Business Leadership Institute, a collaboration between the UW College of Business and the Wyoming Business Council is scheduled for April 16 - 18 in Laramie.

The three day seminar is aimed at business owners, managers and entrepreneurs and designed to help participants strengthen management and leadership skills, increase company profitability, develop succession planning to ensure company sustainability, and receive customized training geared toward company needs.

Folks that participated in the first class found it to be extremely helpful.  The class costs $950 and the application deadline is April 1.  For more information go to www.wyomingbusinessinstitute.com

Were you one of the previous participants?  If so, let us know what you thought about this program.

Tough Market Conditions Present Opportunities to Build Infrastructure

As a former [read as: reformed] banker, I find that a majority of my friends are either bankers, portfolio managers, or business service providers.  Perhaps that is because of the propensity to see these same individuals at the golf courses and other "social networking" venues I still frequent.  Whatever the case, my current responsibilities as a business counselor and legal specialist with WyomingEntrepreneur.Biz makes for a synergistic partnership with these colleagues.

So on the frequent occasions I have to visit with these "finger-on-the-pulse-of-the-economy" friends of mine, I always ask them, "What should I be telling my business clients to do in this economy"?  The resounding response is: "Grow!"

Now, "Grow!" can mean a lot of different things to different people.  Perhaps my commercial lending compadres are suggesting the time is ripe for a huge expansion loan...but I doubt it.  Maybe my investment friends are suggesting I tell you to go diversify your portfolio...but they always say that, so I doubt these tough economic times warrant any special treatment.  No, I think what "those in the know" are suggesting is that this is a good time to invest in your business.

Investing in your business can also mean many things, but to me that means working on your infrastructure.  We all know that infrastructure is just a big word that means "the nuts and bolts" of your company.  That new record keeping software, that piece of equipment that needs refurbished/replaced, the certification you have put off, even resurfacing the parking lot or a new coat of paint on the office walls...they are all infrastructure.

When business is good you are too dang busy to worry about those small details.  How many times during "peak sales" did you say to yourself, "Ah, I need to take care of {insert problem area here}."  But you never did because you were too busy making money to find time to spend it...I mean, reinvest it in your company.  With the economic slowdown, the slow sales, and the fear of just covering the bills comes a temptation to withdraw and save every penny.  Problem with that is, we KNOW [emphasis added] that things will rebound.  Already $1.5 trillion has been earmarked for something called "economic stimulus" nationwide.  Whatever that really means, it means there will be a lot of money that needs to be spent.  When the "good" times come back, will your business be poised to capitalize?  Or will you be woefully unprepared?

One final thought...if you think that you have your business as prepared for the rebound as it can possibly be - and you have employees - then consider investing in your greatest asset: your staff.  Employee training [training = training, certifications, continuing education, licensing, skills assessment, skills improvement, etc., etc., etc.] is a fairly low-cost, high-return, and easy investment in the people who make your business run.  If you are unsure what training your people need, or how to find the training you know they need, contact your local WyomingEntrepreneur.Biz office for a no-cost consultation to point you in the right direction.

Whether it be in the equipment, the real estate, the business plan, or the people...an investment in your business today [when things are slow and manageable] will lead to rewards when the inevitable bounce-back arrives.

Trends for 2009

By now, we're probably all tired of hearing about the state of the economy. Yep, it's bad, we get it. But for aspiring entrepreneurs, one of their biggest questions is what type of businesses are "recession proof"?

Entrepreneur Magazine has published a list of "2009 Trends to Watch" which outlines a few different types of businesses that are currently either hot or are managing to weather the storm for the time being. For instance, they estimate that online retail sales will rise 17% this year to over $200 billion, with apparel, computers, and autos leading the way. Ok, so not every entrepreneur has the resources or the desire to sell cars. But that doesn't change the fact that online sales are still going strong.

Among the other potentially successful business ideas for the next year are environmental services and alternative fuels (think green), health care services, IT and technological services, and credit and debt management services. 

If you want to keep up with current trends and innovative ideas, consider following sites like Trend Hunter and JWT Intelligence. Both sites have worldwide trend watchers that compile information on the latest innovations and ideas and offer forecasts for what's coming next.

What other business ventures may be able to handle the current economic climate?

Wired Wyoming Companies Do Business Around the World

In an Associated Press news article dataed November 24, 2008 entitled "Information superhighway drives entreprenuerial spirit", Mead Gruver discusses the impact that companies are having in Wyoming that take advantage of our state's excellent internet bandwidth and connectivity.  Eleutian Technologies in tiny Ten Sleep has nearly 300 teachers who use the internet to teach English to Koreans of all ages.  They currently serve more than 15,000 students, using the free internet calling software called Skype (www.skype.com).  Other companies who harness the internet to serve far-flung customers include a company in Laramie that sells high-end computers to day traders and a lady in Green River who writes software for transportation systems.

I've said to many of our clients that it is extremely hard to survive in today's economy by only focusing on local customers.  We need to widen our horizons and begin exporting.  For some that may mean shipping products all the way to South Dakota, Utah or Colorado.  For others, it may mean working with people in Korea to teach them English.

What do you think?  Can businesses survive without selling outside of Wyoming?