Small Business Leadership and the Olympic Athlete

I confess – I am a big fan of the Winter Olympics. This must be due to my background as a competitive figure skater. My dream was to go to the Olympics (I didn’t even come close to this but I tried …). I spent my summers training in locations where the Olympic rings hung everywhere and they inspired me. They motivated me. They challenged me. And to this day, there is something very special about those rings for me.

So what does this have to do with small business? Everything. To successfully run a small business, you need leadership and courage. Olympic athletes display tremendous amounts of leadership and courage. Leadership is much more than being at the top of the organization chart and making big money (okay, not all of us are making the big bucks yet).

The athletes who compete at the Olympics are there because they love their sport. They choose to train 6-8 hours a day, six days a week in pursuit of their dream, an Olympic medal. The injuries, pain and successes that an elite athlete goes through, well, let’s just say there is a reason why most of us aren’t Olympic athletes.

As leaders, we encounter disappointments, challenges, personnel issues, issues out of our control and of course, our share of victories. In this respect, we are not that different from the Olympic athletes. Yet, the best of the athletes have a joy, a passion, a drive for what they do - even when they don’t perform as well as they could or should.

It is not uncommon to get frustrated and burned out when it comes to running our small business. This is when courage and leadership is needed most. Our employees look up to us, as do our customers, partners and suppliers. Yes, there will be hard days but great leaders find a way to step up.

What does it take – well, find your passion. Remember why you started your business in the first place! Your business should not be a job but rather a calling. Leading your business needs to be something that you look forward to doing every day, even if you know it is going to be a tough day. Parallel this to the athlete lifting weights, racing down mountains, falling, running, making their legs and lungs burn – you get the idea – to be the best they make their bodies (and sometimes minds) hurt! It is the challenge for excellence. It is looking for new outside of the box thinking; creativity, innovation.

When you talk to your team – inspire them, show them your passion for what you are doing and where you are trying to take the company. To put yourself out there - your commitment, your joy and love for what you are doing and want to do – takes courage because it most likely isn’t an easy road to get there but then again most athletes don’t win Olympic medals either.

To this day the Olympic rings are a form of motivation, passion and inspiration for me. What are your "Olympic Rings"?

Social Media: Finding the Right Person

With social media absolutely booming, many business owners are trying to keep up with the times and get their company name out in the cyber world. For most small business owners, however, finding the time to keep up with their social media efforts can be very challenging. Finding the right person who understands your industry and can portray your business well over the web may not be the easiest task. The right person needs to be able to position your company in a way that will help you meet your company goals and help make your business a success.

David Armano with Harvard Business Review gives six ways to help business owners find the right person for their social media efforts.

“As organizations move their social media strategies from theory to practice, they discover a difficult truth they must confront: Finding the "perfect" social media talent is practically impossible.

To start, the field is flooded with thousands of self proclaimed "experts" who have reinvented themselves to take advantage what looks like a growing business opportunity. Maybe they do know social media, but many don't. They need to be vetted.”

Read more…

Technology Isn't Everything

We all love our technology – email, social media, our websites and our PDAs. Technology is a great productivity tool and most of us have a hard time imaging life without electronic communications. However, there was a time, not too long ago, when we didn’t have email, laptops, smart phones, etc. As business leaders, we need to be able to leverage technology but maintain relationships.

Business owners will often say that people are their greatest assets. But in fact, their people are PEOPLE. And no amount of technology can replace human interaction. I am seeing too many business leaders using electronic communications as their primary way of communicating, in some cases it is their only form of communication. When is the last time that you dealt with an employee or vendor issue by issuing a tense email rather than having a meeting or picking up the phone and have a conversation?

Yes, it is easy to hit the send key at any hour of any day from anywhere. But there are times when in-person human interaction where you can see body language or at least hear voice tones. All too often, the tone we mean to send in an electronic communication is interpreted very differently by the receiving party.

I know of a business owner’s employee who received a very terse email from the owner. The employee was upset; the owner wasn’t clear in their communication and didn’t bother to talk to the employee before sending the email. The employee, who previously had been a high producing employee, suddenly went to “average” according to the owner. After having conversations with them, the employee felt that it wasn’t worth the extra effort to go above and beyond if the owner was just going to hide behind email and send messages without getting all of the facts because they wanted to deal with an issue quickly and easily.

We are a social species and thrive on interaction with others. The work environment is no different, our employees, vendors/suppliers, partners, etc. are great assets but more importantly they are human. To be a great leader you need to develop relationships, not just electronic communications. Technology should be used to enhance and improve the relationship, not take the place of 1-1 communications. I love my Blackberry and other forms of electronic media but email, tweets, Facebook messages and the like are not a replacement for in-person meetings or an old fashioned phone call!

Factoring on the Rise

The following is a reprint of sorts from Inc. Magazine. So many small business owners are looking for creative ways to raise capital, this is certainly timely. Just make sure you know what you are getting into if you use factoring.

Both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times have had stories in the past few days about small companies finding cash from sources other than banks and credit cards, which have restricted capital to entrepreneurs since the recession began in 2008. The Times piece covers purchase order financing, which it describes as a twist on traditional factoring. Purchase-order financing, says the Times, involves written guarantees from a buyer who commits to purchasing a product.The Journal's story focuses on asset-based lending, a collateral-based form of financing where borrowers put up equipment, inventory, accounts receivable, or other liquid assets. We told you about the rise of this kind of financing, in some cases known as merchant cash advances, which can have annual interest rates as high as 100 percent, back in 2008. Check out our profile of On Deck Capital, one of the asset-based lenders included in the Journal piece, which has doled out around $50 million to 2,000 businesses.

Please share your factoring experiences with us.