Unique Core Differentiators - Set Your Company Apart from the Competition!
Thursday, June 7, 2007
When: Thursday, June 7, 2007
1:00 PM Eastern (12:00 PM Central, 11:00 AM Mountain, 10:00 AM Pacific)

It's estimated that up to 70% of owners of Small to Medium Businesses don't have a formal strategic plan. That means they have little idea where they are headed, change priorities constantly, have confused their employees about the purpose of their jobs and are chasing goals they have little or no chance of achieving.

There are a number of common reasons business owners give for failing to develop this vital business tool. Here are 3 that are pure myth - and why.

Myth 1: My business is too small to need a strategic plan

From the SOHO on up EVERY business can benefit from a strategic plan. A strategic plan can help you make informed decisions about time management and budget allocations to different activities. You can use your strategic plan to help you determine whether it's worthwhile attending a particular event or advertising in a particular medium.

It can be used to outline for employees the specific set of goals you want the business to achieve so as to provide them with direction and focus for their activity. Your strategic plan can really form the basis of all measurement activity in the business and keep you informed of how the business is performing.

Doing the right things and doing them efficiently and economically are activities that every business needs to get right and a strategic plan is the basis for achieving that.

Myth 2: It will take forever to produce

The real value of a strategic plan for your business is in taking some time out to think about your situation - to work ON the business instead of just IN it.

There will be some time involved pulling together information about your current way of operating, about what's happening in the wider market place, about your customers; but gathering and analyzing it is actually not a burdensome job, especially with the assistance of a trained advisor who can help you do a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis and draw up a strategy with an unbiased eye.

Thinking strategically doesn't involve working out all the individual tasks you will need to do to achieve them right there and then. For example, suppose a goal is to grow revenues at an annual rate of 7%. This sets off all kinds of nitty gritty task-oriented thinking about labor needs, promotional materials, space planning, etc. that can immediately bog you down; whereas the strategies work on a higher level - developing a new product to broaden the service base and decrease reliance on ageing lines for example. Only when a true strategy is decided is it time to think about the individual tasks needed to accomplish it.

Myth 3. A strategic plan is out of date from the time it's finished

Too many small business owners treat their business plan as a closed book. That's not what they are about. A business plan should be an active document that gets reviewed and updated at least monthly.

Your strategic plan won't be doing what it is supposed to be doing unless you have regular meetings with the people responsible for making the goals in it happen and checking progress against the planned goals. When you track the results of your efforts you can make mid-course corrections to get back on track if you need to. Regular meetings give the opportunity to make the best decisions you can as you progress, and manage the plan as a team.

A plan's purpose is action. Without action, the plan is useless and the dollars invested in creating the plan are wasted.

Treat your business like a real business. Business advisors who work with different sized businesses know that those that perform at the highest level usually have some sort of formalized strategic plan in place and have implemented it well. On the other hand, those businesses that struggle usually have no plan in place and seem to flounder in their attempts to be successful.

Information in this article is sourced from RAN ONE, Inc.

By Teri Milligan, QuickBooks Consulting and Implementation

One of the benefits of using QuickBooksTM is the ability to create sub-accounts to create a means of breaking down categories of assets, liabilities, income or expenses.

For example in the snap shot of the profit and loss report below there is an expense category called "Telephone" with the subaccounts "Long- Distance", "Local", and "800 service" which breaks down the different types of telephone expenses for the business. As a business owner this allows you more information to manage your business.

Expense

However, if you are turning this report in to your bank or your accountant, they probably don't need to see this detail. You can change the view of the report to only show the main expense categories by clicking on the "collapse" button at the top of the report.

To view the subaccounts again, just click on the "expand" button at the top of the profit and loss report.

To learn how to use QuickBooksTM more efficiently in your business you can contact Teri at 619-463-6851 or by email

By Christopher W. Olmsted, Attorney

Although California state law (as in other states) does not mandate that employers provide sick and vacation benefits, once those benefits are provided, the state regulates their use. A recent appellate court case titled Anderson v. City of Santa Barbara serves as a reminder to employers not to discriminate against employees seeking to use their benefits in the context of a workers' compensation claim.

While Mr. Andersen was employed as a finance supervisor for the City of Santa Barbara, he developed pain in his elbows, wrists and hands. He filed a claim for workers' compensation. Andersen later returned to modified work, but needed to obtain medical care for these injuries.

Pursuant to ordinance and policy, the City required him to use his earned vacation time rather than sick leave to attend the medical appointments he needed to care for these industrial injuries. Workers with non-industrial injuries could use their sick leave for such matters.

In applying for workers' compensation benefits, Mr. Andersen alleged that the City discriminated against him, within the meaning of Labor Code section 132a, by forcing him to use vacation time rather than sick leave, as non- industrially injured employees were allowed to do.

Section 132a prohibits, among other practices, discrimination against any employee because he or she has filed a claim for compensation.

The Court of Appeal determined that the City's practice illegally discriminated against industrially injured workers. "The City could choose not to provide sick leave to any of its employees. But, if the City provides sick leave to its employees, it cannot refuse to permit its use for industrially-related medical appointments when non-industrially injured workers are not so restricted. Here, the City permits non- industrially injured persons to use sick leave for medical appointments but requires industrially injured persons to use earned vacation time."

Finding in favor of Mr. Anderson, the court concluded: "The City may not discriminate against active, industrially-injured workers in the use of sick leave for medical appointments, as compared to non- industrially injured workers. Such a policy contravenes Labor Code section 132a."

In light of this court ruling, employers ought to review their benefit policies to ensure that industrially injured workers are entitled to the same benefits as other workers.

Mr. Olmsted is an attorney with Barker Koumas & Olmsted, LLC, in San Diego. For more information about labor and employment law issues, you may reach him at (619) 682-4040 or by email or you may visit www.barkerkoumas.com.

This article is intended as a brief overview of the law and is not intended to substitute for legal advice. Any questions regarding any statute or case law should be addressed to a licensed attorney.

By Don Begg, Do IT Smarter

The more companies rely on their network to conduct business the more responsive IT firms have to be. An unresponsive IT firm means increased downtime, decreased employee productivity, and lost revenue for many small and medium businesses.

As simple as it may sound, many IT companies do not have the ability to be responsive. A responsive IT partner is one that can always be contacted and has the resources available to solve a variety of issues. Often times a firm can be contacted but doesn't have any experts to solve difficult problems. Still other firms have the experts, but you can't reach them when you need their help.

Let's look at some of the reasons why this might occur.

1. Business Model
Many computer service organizations are built around a "value-added reseller" or VAR model. In the VAR model engineers are trained by manufacturers who rely on their VARs to install their products. Organizations with this business model have to keep their engineers constantly performing implementations in order to be profitable. Therefore, engineers are shuffled from job to job implementing the latest manufacturer product. VAR's are not designed to offer IT support after implementation. With this model an IT firm can not be truly responsive.

2. Help Desk and business processes
An accessible help desk plays a key role in the ability of an IT company to be responsive. However, many computer service organizations do not have a help desk. Without a help desk an IT firm can not support its clients after implementations of new technology. Help desks' monitor the service level agreements and make sure customers get the answers they need. The help desk is also responsible for the escalation of complicated issues to the appropriate specialized IT professional.

3. Expertise
Lastly, an organization's ability to be responsive is limited by the experts they have. With today's networks you need 5 distinct disciplines to ensure adequate support. It's important that your computer support organization has access to experts in each discipline. An IT firm that does not have experts in security, database, network, server, and desktop can not provide the adequate support required for a stable and healthy network.

When considering a computer support organization it is important to ask the right questions. Ask about their helpdesk, service levels, and standard hours of operations. Ask about their business model and how their organization is set up to ensure responsiveness. And ask about the expertise of their engineers. If you aren't comfortable with the answers to your questions, you need to explore other computer support firms. Unsatisfactory answers often lead to unsatisfactory results.

For more information contact Don Begg

A man to carry on a successful business must have imagination. He must see things as in a vision, a dream of the whole thing. - Charles M Schwab