CHAPTER 9

Maintain

Maintaining Your Business

Once you build your business, you must constantly use best practices to maintain your effectiveness and grow your capacity. Without time and attention, businesses stagnate. Consider the following to protect your investment:

Risk Management

All plans have risks. Recognizing those risks provides a way to mitigate and plan for a response BEFORE a crisis. Once you know the risks you face, prioritize each and do what you can to mitigate each. In some cases, understanding risks creates new strengths and turns threats into opportunities. Decisions become easier to make because the information is readily available. As long as you are a privately held company and your risk management plan includes the key components, it does not need to be elegant. It only needs to be easily understood, followed, tracked, and refined to be worth the time it took you to prepare the plan.

Manage risk using:

SWOT Analysis

SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (Figure 9.1). Use this matrix as a collaborative tool to identify what works for you both internally and externally. Then identify what might impede your growth in the same way. Be open to considering new insights. Often in the midst of identifying risks and threats, new opportunities become apparent.

For example, an internal strength may be how agile you are at adjusting to changes in the market or how quickly you can ship a product after an order. An external opportunity might be how many Requests for Proposals (RFPs) are being posted that match your teams’ abilities or your customer’s loyalty to your brand making it easier to launch a new product. An internal weakness might be time wasted in unproductive meetings or frequent equipment issues. An external threat might be new competitors or new proposed regulations.

Creating and reviewing a SWOT analysis once or twice a year is a good way to take a step back and see your business from a different point of view. Use the matrix to look at your business as a whole or to examine where you stand in important functional areas such as marketing, sales, and production. Often, your team sees things you do not. Remember to include those impacted in your exercise to get multiple viewpoints.

Figure 9.1 SWOT Analysis

Risk Assessments

Every company is impacted by the world around them. There are always internal and external pressures. Understanding your environment often provides a competitive advantage that helps you avoid problems and take advantage of opportunities your competitors might not see. While a SWOT Analysis identifies risks, a risk assessment provides a more in-depth analysis. Some software applications provide a risk assessment tool; however, you can use any spreadsheet program to document and assess your risks as shown in the template below (Table 9.1).

Risk Register

Table 9.1 Risk Register

ID	Description	Related Functions	Category	Impact	Probability	Priority

To determine your risks, ask yourself:

Audits

Ask systemic questions about how your business is doing and how it is being run on a regular basis. Doing due diligence on your own organization provides insights you are unlikely to see in any other way. Even knowing that you do not know the answer right now is valuable. Identifying gaps in your understanding of how and why you operate shows you what you are missing. Use your insights to fill those gaps as quickly as possible.

Audits do not have to be done at the same time. It does help though if each one is done at the same time each year. Consider doing one each quarter. Put audits on your calendar so that you have a regular schedule from year-to-year.

Consider the following audits:

Financial Audits

An annual financial review is a good idea to avoid issues, make sure taxes are properly handled, and better understand how you are using your money. If you leave your financials to your bookkeeper and/or CPA and rarely look at your books, then an annual financial audit is a must. Regular audits ensure your financial records are meeting Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), which are best practices for any business. It is essential to understand how your books are being kept.

Regular audits help when applying for loans. Some lenders may require an audit as a part of the application process to validate the financials you present are accurate. Grantors may ask for audits as well to ensure the money given is being used as promised. Audited financials are also important during a sell. Perspective buyers often choose an outside audit firm to do due diligence. Most importantly, routine auditing discourages theft. Theft may be the biggest risk because small businesses are often too small to afford regular oversight and best practices that require separation of duties.

“Private companies and small business rank highest in occupational fraud frequency at 42 percent compared to large corporations, government and nonprofits,” according to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2018 Global Study on Occupational Fraud and Abuse led by Ben Davis, CEO of Certified Fraud Examiners (Davis 2020) Small businesses are most vulnerable to billing scams, payroll schemes, and embezzlement. Financial audits are best handed handled by third-party professionals to keep your business secure.

Operational Audits

Routinely auditing your operations with an Operational Assessment provides you with the opportunity to look at your business from a different perspective. Use these types of audits as a regular team collaboration tool. Give the audit assessment to your leadership team. Ask each team member to do the assessment separately and then they gather to compare answers. This is one way to keep your team leaders on the same page. Clear up any discrepancies before the gaps cause problems. Fill any gaps as quickly as possible.

Project Audits

Project audits of long running projects help ensure that project budgets are being used wisely and best practices are being used. Audits confirm quality standards are being followed and risks are being effectively managed as well. Highly technical audits may require a third-party auditor. Other audits can be performed by you or a team member.

Follow the steps below to conduct an audit.

Step One—Conduct the Audit

Step Two—Document and Present Findings

Safety Audit

Every business must be concerned with safety. Keeping your team members safe from physical threats is important. It is just as important to keep your equipment, hardware, and software safe from cybercrimes. Safety audits tend to be very specific to your industry and may be regulated by state and federal agencies.

Disaster Recovery Plan

Disasters happen. In the summer of 2021, the Washington Post reported that one third of the United States population was recovering from one or more events in an article by Sarah Kaplan and Andrew Ba Tran. Between wildfires, tornados, floods, and hurricanes, millions of small businesses were impacted. All of these things happened during a pandemic. Emergencies happened amid constantly changing regulations and shutdowns.

Having a well-documented, structured plan, you review regularly before disaster strikes allows your team members to begin to mitigate the damage right away. A plan that is easy to find and follow gets your business up and running again much faster. It often helps mitigate losses as well. (Tran 2021)

Disasters require immediate pivots. Preparation is key. Small businesses that routinely manage change using documented processes can change more quickly with less disruption. Use contingency plans you worked out in advance to mitigate your risks. Even the smallest business benefits from taking one day a year to consider what to do if disaster strikes. Many entrepreneurs report that having a plan makes them worry less.

Assess the risks of disasters by answering these questions to be better prepared to face the future regardless of what happens.

Plans that work have these characteristics:

Start by asking these questions:

Constant Process Improvement

An agile business never stops improving processes. Process improvement becomes a part of the culture when all team members focus on how they can do what they do better. In the fast-paced 21st century world of information and automation, every industry experiences rapid change. Use that change to be more cost effective and efficient.

This does not mean change for changes sake. Change must provide a clear benefit. Too much change can be as harmful as too little. Your teams will grow weary if they feel there is no consistency and no benefit behind keeping up with constant change. Innovation should do one of two things. First, make work easier, better, smarter, and less time consuming. Second, improve the quality of your product or service.

Effective Meetings

People are busy. You want your team members to be busy doing work that adds to your bottom line. Make sure meetings are necessary, focused, and include only those who actually need to be there.

Meeting together is often one of the most expensive things that happen in a work week. You are paying everyone sitting in the meeting and they are focused on the meeting not on other work. Add the hourly cost of each team member meeting and multiply that total by the time spent meeting you determine the real financial cost. Compare the cost to the benefit the meeting provides to determine if meeting is the best use of time.

Small businesses where everyone works together in one office often need fewer meetings than those who have team members working remotely. Everyone overhears what everyone else is doing. In a small office, there are few secrets. However, strategically held and planned meetings reduce communication issues by ensuring everyone is paying attention. They also provide much needed accountability to help team members manage their time and keep their promises. Remote teams must rely on meetings as the best form of vital team communication.

An effective meeting always spreads information in way that is more detailed and accurate than other communication efforts allow such as e-mail, text, or multiple face-to-face conversations. The best way to benefit from the time your team members spend meeting is to make sure that meetings are purpose driven, efficient, and effective.

Effective meetings have these characteristics in common:

Clear Leader

The team member who arranges and invites everyone to the meeting is typically the meeting leader. If a team member is creating a meeting for someone else on the team the agenda should include the intended leader’s name.

Stated Purpose

There should be a real purpose behind any meeting that can be stated in one sentence.

Agenda

All meetings should have a published agenda that is distributed before the meeting. Often, agendas are included in the description section of a meeting request. Agendas provide a number of benefits:

Start and End on Time. Attendees tend to enthusiastically attend and be prepared when they know your meetings do not go on and on. The best way to make sure your team members come to your meetings on time is to start without people who show up late. Team members who showed up on time should never be subjected to a summary of what has happened so far. Hold late team members accountable to catch up on their own. If you need more time, then schedule another meeting. Do not run over your promised end time.

 

Include Meeting Notes. No matter how important a meeting is, you will not be able to remember exactly what happened a week from now. Take notes. Typically, the meeting leader takes notes but team members may take turns as well or an admin may be pressed into service. Notes need to be detailed enough to document important discussions and decisions.

 

Document Issues and Action Items. An action item is really just any promise to do a task. Some people like to keep action items and issues listed separately but others choose to combine them. These lists can be kept as a spreadsheet or by using a wide variety of software task applications. However you keep your list, it is important that each item should have an owner, a status, and an expected resolution date.

 

Tend to Be Short. Most meetings should be short. There are a few exceptions. Brainstorming and planning meetings such as annual goal planning, budget building, or project planning take time. These meetings can last for hours and need to be scheduled when the team members required can be focused over a longer period of time. They may even need to be broken up into multiple sessions.

Keep meetings short by following your agenda and avoiding time wasters. Small talk, birthday celebrations, and sharing of food may be important to your culture. Have gatherings for those activities. Save meeting times for specific agendas. Consider encouraging brevity by having short meetings. If your team members tend to take a lot of time to give reports, hold stand up meetings in a location with no chairs. Most people use fewer words standing than they do sitting down.

There are three ways to handle something that threatens to derail the meeting.

Include Follow-Up. Meeting follow-up is the most crucial element of success. Just asking team members if they have done what they promised makes it far more likely that you will get a positive result. Asking in a meeting in front of others doubles your likelihood of success.

Useful Reports

Reports do not have to be formal to be valuable. They do have to be written and stored somewhere where easily found should there be a question later. All small businesses need a reporting structure. The key is to make reporting simple, useful, informative, quick, and easy.

Reports are the quickest way to determine if your business is headed in the right direction, your team members are working efficiently and effectively, and issues and roadblocks to success are being quickly resolved and removed.

Reports help everyone remember what agreements and promises were made. People are human and sometimes forget. Having a document to go back to saves time pointing fingers and helps create a culture of harmony.

Consider using these reports to make sure your business is headed in the right direction:

Operational Dashboards

Dashboards present the key metrics that tell you how the business is doing. The purpose of a dashboard is to provide the key data necessary for good decision making in one easy-to-access report. Entrepreneurs routinely follow financial, sales, and production data. SaaS companies follow monthly recurring revenue along with new and discontinued membership trends closely. Some business leaders also follow social media engagement metrics and customer satisfaction as well. The data important to you is dependent on the type of business you operate and the metrics that are meaningful to you.

Dashboards can be kept in a wide variety of ways. Some businesses use a white board while others use spreadsheets and still others use online tools. Most every management tool includes a dashboard of some kind. However, if your tools do not talk to each other, then online dashboarding may be disjointed and may require manual input. Often, a third-party app can be used to bring your data together in one view.

Before you create your dashboard, be clear about what metrics you want to track. Keep your dashboard simple and easy to understand to be most effective. Only track metrics you care about now.

Follow the steps below to create a dashboard (Table 9.2):

Example Dashboard

Table 9.2 Sample Dashboard

Financial Monthly Rev Cash on Hand AR Turnover AP Turnover MRR Margin Refunds/Returns/Recalls/Churn	Production On Time Back Ordered Overtime	Social Media Followers Gained Lost LinkedIn Twitter Instagram
Sales Leads Opportunities Qualified Negotiations Closed Lost	Inventory Cost COGS Turnover	Customer Satisfaction Survey Scores

Status Reports

Weekly status reports encourage your team members to plan work. When people get stuck or issues become stickier than first thought, it becomes clear to see. These reports give you the opportunity to step in and provide assistance at the earliest possible moment. Giving your team a way to report progress makes delegation easier as well. When you see that your team members are doing the work you expect with minimal issues, your trust in them is validated.

Reports are best kept simple. No report should take more than 30 minutes to complete.

It can be as simple as:

Figure 9.2 Status Report templates

Benefits

Work Planned moves to In Process and then Accomplished when work is going well. Reporting how work is coming along reinforces deadlines and encourages efficiency. When things do not go according to plan, the reasons become clearer. Bottlenecks become more apparent. Staff overload becomes more obvious. Issues can be raised and tracked.

Similarly, field status reports provide valuable insights. When work planned moves to work accomplished with fewer issues, your customers and clients are happy. Recall numbers remain negligible compared with number of first calls when work is done right the first time. Notes make responding to complaints and maintaining customer relationships simpler.

Reported issues do not get forgotten. Issues tend to move from Open to Resolved quickly. If not, you have a red flag that suggests your resource may need help or support. Routinely responding with questions or praise lets your resources know their reports matter. Regular recognition improves team member engagement motivating workers. According to CEO of People Element, Chris Coberly, “Increased employee engagement results in reduced turnover, improved productivity, better customer retention, stronger financial health, and most importantly, happier employees.” (Coberly 2021)

Sales Reports

Depending on the pace of your business, you may want daily, weekly, or monthly reports that roll up to your quarterly report. Quarterly reports then of course roll up to annual reports. Sales reports may attract a variety of metrics. The key metrics entrepreneurs care about tend to be sales funnel numbers, status, revenue gained, and revenue lost. Often, lost revenue comes in the form of cancelations, refunds, recalls, or returns. These reports highlight what is going well and raise early red flags when problems arise.

Financial Reports

The same reports that were important to your banker are important to you. Make sure these reports are easy to retrieve. Make sure you understand them. Set time on your schedule to review them every month.

Accountability Measures

The ability of your team to work when you are not around directly correlates to the value of your business. If your business falls apart unless you hover over your team members, then your absence due to purchase, illness, or any other reason is a giant risk to the viability of your organization. Worker autonomy is essential to growth. One of the ways purchasers, investors, and bankers determine whether entrepreneurs have built a resilient company is by asking owners when and how often they vacation.

These are the characteristics that are important in a business that has a culture of accountability:

Safe Confession

You may have heard it said that confession is good for the soul. It is also good for a healthy business culture. People need to be able to confess to a mistake so that the mistake can be quickly rectified. When people are afraid to be transparent, mistakes may be hidden in ways that cause a lot of harm to a growing company.

Strong Policies and Procedures

Good policies and procedures set expectations and guidelines for how your team members operate when working on your behalf. A Policies and Procedures guide, also sometimes known as an Employee Handbook, documents guidelines of behavior expected for your employees, key contractors, volunteers, and partners. This guide outlines the expectation and code of conduct for all resources. Policies and procedures are essential for even very small businesses of three people because these guidelines set a baseline for acceptable behavior.

Hold anyone who falls outside the agreed norms of behavior accountable. Reward those who go above and beyond. The larger your organization, the more important an Employee Handbook becomes because it is the first step in documentation should you need to separate someone who is not meeting your expectations. Expectations help you avoid accusations of favoritism, sexism, racism, and so on. Your policies and procedures provide a baseline to be sure all employees are treated fairly.

Each team member given a handbook must review and sign a document agreeing to follow the guidelines they read. Once signed, you have an agreement that helps your team members understand the behavior you expect. The agreement also protects your company should someone act outside of accepted best practices or violate local, state, or federal laws and regulations. Documented policies and procedures are part of the “Book of Your Business” that helps to show the real value of your organization.

If you do not know where to start, begin with a template. There are many free and low-cost templates online. Take care to customize your guide to meet your needs. A standard template is often not enough. Make sure your guide follows a local, state, and federal guidelines.

Standards

Most people want to do a good job. Standards help. Standards apply to everything you do. While many standards are about profit and loss and are designed to make a business efficient and effective, others are about safety and security. Still others ensure regulatory compliance.

Use standards consistently to ensure that materials, products, processes, and services are fit for their purpose. Industry-accepted standards are available for almost all businesses through trade associations, industry-specific regulations, and standard certification organizations such as International Organization for Standardization (ISO). You may want to create your own that are more precise to your organization.

Deadlines

Deadlines create urgency. Busy people tend to focus on what is most important. Your team members do not tend to make promises cannot keep. However, procrastination is a common human trait. If your team members know they have only a certain amount of time to take action, they become much more likely to do what they promised.

Follow up to be sure deadlines are met. Without the follow-up, team members may procrastinate or even forget what they promised to do. Even more likely, as time goes by the understanding of what was promised will grow fuzzy and the action to take will be less clear. Follow-up reinforces your expectation that your team members must keep their promises. Sometimes however, things do change or the effort to complete the action item or resolve the issue is more complicated than first thought.

Follow-up need not be difficult. Make follow-up the last part of any regularly scheduled meetings such as sales meetings, status meetings, and work planning meetings. One off meetings still need action items and issues documented if there are issues to be resolved. Use software programs that help by to automate reminders and help keep your team on track.

Understanding Your Financials

There is one thing that is very important to understand whether you have been in business a long time or you are starting tomorrow. If you want to have a healthy business, you must be profitable at some point. If your business is not making a profit today, that does not mean that you should quit.

Just like opportunities sometimes require an investment phase, your business may require one too. However, and this is the most crucial point, you must be able to predict the point at which you will become profitable. It does not matter if you are passionate about what you do. Successful entrepreneurs avoid passion about their business turning into an expensive hobby.

Your financials are not just important when you are pursuing a new opportunity, deciding to get a loan, or when you want to sell your business. Your financials are important because the numbers tell you about the health of your business.

You do not have to be good at numbers. There are any number of financial software options you can use to make accounting easier from spreadsheets to accounting. Applications such as Excel, Google Sheets, Wave, Quicken, Zero, and Sage50Cloud to name a just a few can be used to create those all important financial reports that help you stay on track. You as the leader of your business must make sure the numbers get in accurately by looking at key reports.

Building Credit

All businesses do better when they are creditworthy. Being creditworthy is not the same thing as being in debt. Even if you do not care about being bankable, being creditworthy is important. Individuals get better deals on a multitude of things such as insurance, car loans, and mortgages if they show that they are responsible with money. It is the same for businesses. Businesses that are creditworthy are better able to negotiate contracts, attract investment, buy insurance, and get loans. However, access to credit has been historically more difficult for minority and women owned businesses.

Patricia Greene PhD, founding member of the Diana Project and former head of the Women’s Bureau at the U.S. Department of Labor, studied access to capital for women in business. The Diana Project won the International Award for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Research in 2007. Greene states, “The women of the Diana Project wrote Clearing the Hurdles: Women Building High Growth Businesses quite a few years ago. The reasoning behind the title was that all businesses face similar types of hurdles, but those hurdles too often are set at different heights for women, and minority, business owners. Access to capital is certainly one of those hurdles.” (Greene 2021)

Credit History

Build a credit history as quickly as you can responsibly do it. Getting turned down for credit does not help your situation though. Be sure you understand the criteria used to determine acceptance before you apply.

Avoid using all your credit even if you think you need to do so. This can be the most confusing aspect of credit ratings. Your credit rating goes up when you use your credit and make payments over time. However, it goes down if you appear to be relying too much on credit and not enough on revenue. That can be hard to determine and so lenders use the percentage of credit you use as a rule. Credit ratings go up when you have access to money, but it appears that you are doing so well you do not need to use all of it. If you stay under 50 percent usage at any given moment as a rule you should be credit worthy.

On Time Payments

Make more than the minimum payment. Create a schedule of payments you can reasonably afford and stick to them. Not only will the schedule help you plan for your financial future, but it shows lenders and investors that you are a good risk.

Getting Help

The good news is that help is available should you need it, often at little or no cost to you. Government-sponsored programs such as the SBA and SBDC provide business advisors to help you understand your financials. Some colleges and universities offer free student-led support in their accounting programs providing accounting services which provide students with real-life experience. Accelerator and incubator programs often include a segment on financials as well and may provide business advisors who often help owners sort out their financials.

Understanding Financial Terms

Like all industries, the banking industry has its own language with its own acronyms that can be confusing if you do not have a financial background. Understanding the language can be the first step in getting past financial report intimidation. Here are key terms you want to know.

Cash Flow

Sometimes called Operating Cash Flow or Cash on Hand, this is the money you have on hand to meet your day-to-day expenses such as payroll, rent, inventory, and so on, each month. Cash flow can come from a variety of sources including investments, loans, and grants. Eventually, though, every entrepreneur wants a positive cash flow that comes from income. When you hear or read “Cash is King,” this is what is meant.

AR

Accounts Receivable is the money you take in every month from payments owed to you.

AP

Accounts Payable is your short-term debt or the money you have promised to pay for goods and services you received.

Aging

The amount of time it takes for invoices to be paid to you. Aim for no more than 30 days. Business that wait a long time to get paid are riskier than those who get paid more quickly for obvious reasons. Bankers worry about what might happen if your business customer falls behind or worse files bankruptcy making it hard for you to get paid.

Break Even

Point at which the revenue from an investment is equal to the costs of the investment or when calculated for your business the point when company costs are equal to income generated.

Earnings

Business profits which bankers and investors view in a variety of ways:

GP

Gross Profit Margin calculated by subtracting cost of goods sold (COGS) from net sales. Multiplying the answer by 100 gives you the margin in a percentage.

Net

Net Profit Margin calculated by dividing net profit by total revenue and multiplying the answer by 100. Multiplying the answer by 100 gives you the margin in a percentage.

Net Worth

Sometimes referred to as owners’/shareholders’ equity or book value which is determine net worth by calculating the total of all assets minus the total of all liabilities.

Owners’ Draw

Money taken from the business for personal use that is not part of a salary.

ROI

Return on investment measured by your net income divided by the initial capital cost. The higher the ratio the better the return.

Working Capital

Sometimes referred to as owners’/shareholders’ equity or book value determined by net worth. Calculate current assets minus the current liabilities. Current assets are assets that provide a value within a year such as inventory waiting to be sold.

Insurance for Resilience During Growth

Get connected. Isolation is one of the biggest issues that face business owners. Create a support system so you never have to again feel isolated and alone because relationships matter. Reach out for the advice and help you need. Offer the same to others. Connections make you stronger.

Groups available may include the following:

Advisory Board

An advisory board is just what it sounds like, a group of people with expertise in their field willing to offer you strategic advice. Board members test your leadership decisions against best practice principles, offer expertise you may not have, and may help you make connections you need for success. Board members may meet with you together in regularly scheduled quarterly or annual meetings or independently as your need arises depending on what works best for your business. Sometimes board members volunteer, other are paid a stipend, and other are given a gift of appreciation that reflects their contributions once a year.

Online Communities

Communities where Small Business owners and the resources who support them gather to grow capacity fraction by fraction can protect business owners from the isolation that is sometimes inherent with growing a business. These communities have a passion for small businesses whether they operate B2B, B2C, and/or B2G. They feel compelled to assist owners who work so hard. They want owners to be successful and can step up by helping small business owners and team leaders more easily, effectively, and efficiently connect to their future team leaders, team members, and customers.

Targeted cloud communities understand that a small business community stands stronger together. Participating in communities with the right connections and support can help all members grow the capacity to do and be more. These communities such as capacitysquared.net provide a place for members to support each other in an agreement to assist all members so they can all prosper. Memberships are generally very low cost but the ultimate goal of a good community is to support members in meeting their end goals.

Support Groups

Groups such as Entrepreneurs Organization, Vistra, or Score gather business leaders online or in person in peer-to-peer groups. These groups have a wide range of fees and may have qualifications such as a minimum revenue or number of years in business. Some members find the support of these organizations extremely beneficial. They say they are worth every penny while others find the investment did not help them grow. It is important to get references from current and former members of any organization that requires a large fee to join or stay connected to help ensure this type of investment in your future is worthwhile. Finding the right group and becoming actively involved can assist you in getting key introductions to potential customers and suppliers that build your credibility. You just need to be sure you found the right group.

Chambers

Chambers of Commerce can be local, regional, or national. The chamber’s entire job is to help business members grow their businesses through better connections to the community, other members, and potential customers. The type of chamber that is most beneficial will be determined by the type of business you own.

Small business owners who are active in trades often report that membership in local chambers increases the number of referrals they receive each year. Referrals build credibility because everyone wants to do business with someone they trust. Trust can be referred. A recommendation from someone you have done business with in the past to a potential customer increases the probability of getting the opportunity to bid on work. Potential customers are more likely to buy from someone who is not a complete unknown.

Networking Groups

Networking groups such as C Suite or Business Networking International provide a community of business owners and leaders the opportunity to connect for the expressed purpose of supporting each other success. Good groups make business support their number one priority and work a lot like local chambers to offer business members credibility by referrals. Some groups, however, exist to increase memberships so the business group owner earns more membership fees. Other groups, thrive over turn over. Business goes to a few key members who have been around a long time and tend to be in insurance, real estate, or financial services. These groups count on member turn over to be introduced to new clients.

Once again, it pays to check for references from current and past members in your industry to determine whether membership will enhance your credibility. Ask about turn over before joining. Read the marketing material to see whether the group markets members or markets group membership. The bottom line about any group is whether or not your alliance provides you with more clients, access to better opportunities, or information that helps you grow your business that bring more money in than you spend to be a part of the group.

Bankers

People including bankers are more likely to make an extra effort on your behalf if they know and trust you. Build a relationship with a bank that has a reputation for doing business with small businesses such as yours. Banks have target markets. If your business does $3 million a year in revenue and you chose a bank that targets businesses that do $10 million, you are in danger of being ignored. Some banks set aside funds for startups and others do not.

Ask if your banker will respond to e-mail requests from you. Before you sign, ask your banker if businesses such as yours are their target market. You can find out a lot by asking your banker who would be his or her best customer. The bank’s focus should be congruent with your needs now. If you are a woman and/or you belong to a minority group, make sure the bank has a history of treating diverse groups and women equitably before opening your business account.

Even if the bank supports business owners such as you, the banker in front of you may not. If you are not the customer that most excites the banker in front of you ask to speak to someone who specializes in companies with your revenue and your needs. Do not be shy. They want your business. They should have to earn it.

Maintain your relationship. Occasionally, invite your banker to lunch or to an event. Good bankers love to network. They appreciate being introduced to possible customers as much as you do. If your banker does you a favor like releasing a large check for payment before the banks’ standard waiting period, send a note, and say thank you. Connect with your banker on social media. Remember your banker’s birthday. EVERYONE appreciates being remembered. EVERYONE gravitates consciously or subconsciously toward helping people they know to be thoughtful. Make sure your banker hears from you when you do not need help first.

In Conclusion

There is nothing more rewarding, frustrating, exhilarating, and exhausting than owning your own business. Become the business you would want to do business with now. Use best practices to build a business you are proud to own and operate. It may not happen overnight. Implementing best practices and earning to follow opportunity cycles takes time. If you feel overwhelmed then slow down but do not stop. If you did stop, there is no time like the present to start again. Take what you know and use it to build your business capacity fraction by fraction. Go forth and prosper.