But It’s My Business!
Why you actually have to follow the rules
The Director’s Cut
Dr. Laina Turner-Molaski
Copyright 2011 Dr. Laina Turner-Molaski
Smashwords Edition
Contents
Opening Credits: I’m a Business Owner Now!
Scene 1: What is your passion?
Scene 2: What’s your vision/mission?
Scene 3: What is your business plan?
Scene 4: Do you understand your financial situation?
Scene 5: How do you find your target market?
Scene 7: What is the best way to build an effective sales force?
Scene 8: How to manage your workforce
Scene 9: How to recruit, interview, and hire the best
Scene 10: How to write an accurate job description
Scene 11: Why you need an employee manual and how to write one
Scene 12: How to provide training and development opportunities
Scene 13: How to fire an employee
Scene 14: Why you paid so much in payroll taxes
Scene 15: Miscellaneous stuff you need to know…
PROLOGUE
“Welcome to Fight Club. The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: you DO NOT talk about Fight Club!” —Fight Club (1999)
As I was thinking about how to write the opening of this book, this quote kept coming back to me, partly because I liked the movie, the actors in it, and the quote, but also because as an entrepreneur, business owner, head honcho, or whatever you like to call yourself, one of the reasons you might be traveling down this path of business ownership is because you don’t like to follow the rules. We’re the people who got tired of the corporate rat race and knew we were smarter than those folks already out there making their millions (right?), so we decided to try it ourselves. But who are we trying to fool? Let’s be honest. There are rules, and sometimes, we have to follow them. The rules for a business owner are often simple: 1) learn from your mistakes, 2) don’t make the same mistake twice (which you won’t if you adhere to the first rule), 3) learn from others’ mistakes and successes, 4) don’t try to reinvent the wheel just because you can, and my personal favorite…5) don’t screw around with any governmental agency that uses an acronym for its name.
As a human resources expert, I focused this book on the people end of being a business owner, but as a business owner you have to be informed about all aspects of business ownership to be successful. So I wanted information included about those other areas too. I have found in my struggles as a business owner (this being one of the reasons I decided to write this book) that I find myself saying almost daily, “If I would have known this….” Because I’m not an expert at anything except making mistakes in those other areas, I have relied on the great minds of my peers and fellow business owners to provide you with the “rules” outside of human resources. They were also kind enough to provide best practices and some funny stories to keep you entertained while you read.
My dad once told me a joke that I think lends itself well to the experience of being an entrepreneur. The joke goes like this: A little boy goes up to a bull rider at a rodeo and asks, “Mister, how do you know when you have become a real bull rider?” He answered, “Well, son. You give yourself a mouthful of marbles. Each time you ride a bull, you spit one out. When you’ve lost all your marbles, then you’re a real bull rider.” Being a business owner can often mean losing your marbles…over and over and over again.
Opening Credits: I’m a Business Owner Now!
Yippee! You wake up one day and decide you want to own your own business. Whether you purchase an existing business or start one from the ground up, at some point, you will realize there is a lot to running a business that you never considered. Most people become business owners because they are good at a certain thing, not necessarily good at accounting, managing human resources, or operations that all come with business ownership. Many parts of starting and running a business aren’t always at the forefront of your mind when you get that bright idea of being a business owner. I certainly know they weren’t when I decided to start a business. Creating a business plan, determining your target market, marketing, hiring and managing employees, and accounting are complicated parts of business ownership, and people are often ill equipped to deal with those tasks. I’m not an expert in all those areas, but as you jump into business ownership there are a few basic things you need to know. While this book is designed to be a guide to some of the best practices and some things to avoid, my primary advice to you is to outsource anything you can to experts. Keep in mind as you come across things you don’t know how to do, that there is someone out there who does.
To make it easy to navigate, this book is divided into two sections. The first section is a high-level overview of the general areas you need to be aware of as a business owner. The second section will give you an in-depth look at how to hire and manage a workforce. Many tools in this book have relating forms and more in depth tools online as well. With this book, I hope to help you grow your business through your employees by clarifying your goals and expectations for them and by helping to remove obstacles that stand in the way of their success while working for you. To see the return on investment you deserve and need, you must spend effort and money.
This book is an easy read and it takes a realistic but humorous approach to business. My goal is to help you feel confident in structuring your workplace for success. I hope the stories and situations I explain in this book keep you entertained during the process. As a business owner, I know that time is a precious commodity, so I want this to be worth your while.
Let’s get started.
ACT ONE
Scene 1: What is your passion?
“Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes it rains.” —Bull Durham (1988)
Today is the day you decided to go into business for yourself. But are you willing to do whatever it takes to make it work? And I do mean whatever. That could translate into eighty-hour work weeks, begging for money, begging for extensions on your bills (did I mention begging for money?), dealing with annoying customers, and trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear because you had a vendor screw up your order. It can mean begging a customer for forgiveness when your company screwed up and that you can’t afford to lose them. It can mean working to keep your significant other happy by still striving for something resembling a work-life balance. And if you don’t have a significant other, you still have family and friends who will want to see you occasionally.
Does this scare you? It should. Does it intimidate you? It should. Does it make you want to change your mind? It should. Did you change your mind? No? Okay. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you. Going into business for yourself is way too difficult and thankless if you aren’t passionate about whatever your business is. Being an entrepreneur isn’t an 8-5 job. It is a 24/7 (or rather 32/8) job that leaves you often wishing there were more hours in the day or that you could clone yourself. So why do it? There are many reasons people decide to start their own business. Some people feel they can do a better job than other companies providing a particular service or product; some people get laid off, and some have a talent or hobby they want to turn into a business. Regardless of what that reason is, the steps to starting and running a successful business are the same. All kinds of new business owners experience the same craziness. To embark on this journey without being extremely passionate and driven about what you do is a recipe for disaster. While I firmly believe passion and excitement are 90% of what it takes to be successful, you do need a viable business idea, service or product, and commitment to your dream. Often, all it takes is some planning and thinking about how to take your passion and make it in to a viable business. Just be careful not to let the passion overtake your business sense, because it can happen easily enough.
Success or failure can hinge on attitude. Attitude can make a huge impact on all you do, and if you can be passionate about and follow your dreams, you have a bigger chance at being a successful, happy business owner. But it will not be easy. Donald Trump and Bill Gates worked their butts off to get to where they are. They both have faced extreme adversity but never gave up. They always had that positive attitude. Did they always feel positive? Probably not. But they learned to fake it ’til you make it. It’s a cliché, but it’s true.
"What I know is that if you do work that you love, and the work fulfills you, the rest will come."
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah’s right. We hear it a lot with books like The Secret and The Laws of Attraction. When you want something and have the right vision, good things happen. With a positive attitude and a lot of work, you can turn your passion into a viable, workable business that will produce a substantial income. You can achieve anything you want. It may be a challenge, but you can do it if you want it bad enough. That’s why it has to be a passion. You have to want it. I mean really want it, because it’s not an easy journey.
You need to have realistic expectations of what will be involved to take it to that level. Some people have a clear vision of their passion or skill. Others may feel they are good at several different things, so the path is not as clear cut. But if you think about what it is that gets you up in the morning—what do you enjoy doing, what things make you happy—you can get to the root of what you want for your life. That exercise can help point you in the right direction and the result may surprise you.
My main point here is you have to pursue what you love. Many of us work in jobs we are good at and don’t hate, but we don’t love them, either. Life is too short not to love what you do. Trust me, I have made that mistake. By education and professional training I’m a human resource “person.” I went into this field because I enjoy people and management and working to get the best from them. I worked in retail for years, and am now a faculty chair at a university for the undergraduate human resource and retail management programs. For the last few years I have been a consultant. Don’t get me wrong. I like what I do. I enjoy helping business owners and employees. I love my teaching job and still truly enjoy the field of HR, but that’s not my passion. What my true passion is, and has been since childhood, is writing. However, I was never confident about my writing and never thought about how to make it into a business. A few years ago, I realized that writing a book and then selling it is a legitimate business. It was the confidence in being able to write something that would actually sell that I had to deal with. Since you’re reading this book and I wrote it (with a lot of help), you could say I did it. I followed my passion, and yes, I have. It’s not easy but it’s worth it.
I hope this book can help you with turning your passion into a strong, thriving business.
Rule #1: Be passionate and be committed, but be realistic.
The Dailies
What have you always dreamed of being when you grew up?
What do you want your legacy to be?
What is your story?
What is your dream job?
How can you turn your passion into a vision? Into a viable business?
Are you committed enough?
Scene 2: What’s your vision/mission?
“Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” — The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
You must formulate a vision or mission, and a purpose statement. As I said in the last chapter, you have to have some sort of executable plan and structure around your passion to create a viable business. One of my friends, sales coach Jeff Bowe, who owns Actum Group, is a master at creating what he calls a "framing statement." A framing statement is one short sentence meant to generate interest in and provide information about your business. While this is not a full mission statement or definition of your vision, a framing statement helps you narrow down what your company does, what your goal is, and what you want others’ perceptions of your company to be. It will have a dual function helping you focus and helping others understand what your business is.
You might wonder why you need to write down your vision/mission statement—especially if you are a business of one. I recommend putting your thoughts to paper because most of us know when you write something down, you are more committed to making it happen. When you write your goals down, you make them real. There are a million different books that talk about how to create a vision board and about positive affirmations, and it’s all true. Write it down, plaster it on the walls, and reinforce your dreams daily.
A vision statement is simply taking your passion and putting words to it so you can talk about it and decide where you want it to take you. Plus, you want to be able to share your goals with people, and after you get them on paper, you can rewrite and fine-tune them until you have them right. Your vision is a component of your beliefs and what you want to stand for; a vision is that idealistic view of your hopes and dreams for your venture. What do you see in your future? For example, McDonald’s vision statement is:
“To be the world's best quick-service restaurant experience.”
Being the best is a lofty statement, but it’s McDonald’s vision. This vision is clear and easy to understand. It’s inspiring to the employees of the company and keeps them focused on why they come to work every day: to be the best. The mission statement is the vehicle to articulate how the vision will become a reality. It is your statement of purpose. Your mission statement portrays the look of your business in the future. It’s ok if it seems somewhat farfetched. You’re going to work hard to get there. For example, let’s look at Coca-Colas mission statement:
* To Refresh the World...in body, mind, and spirit.
* To Inspire Moments of Optimism...through our brands and our actions.
* To Create Value and Make a Difference...everywhere we engage.”
This mission provides a solid framework for what Coca-Cola wants to accomplish. It’s very global, but it also gives them an overarching framework they can use to put strategies in place to achieve that goal.
Your vision and mission will be the foundation you use to create the culture you want for your business. Again, even if it is a business of one, you will eventually grow, and you want that mission to be already in place. When the times get tough, you will want to have something to remind you of why you started your business in the first place. Plus, customers respond favorably to a company with ideals in place. When you have a mission in place, it’ll help remind you to refocus and reenergize on the bigger picture. Clarifying your vision/mission will also help you create the framework for a strong culture.
Every business has a culture—some by design and some that just developed on their own. Some are good and some are not. You want your business to have a strong, positive culture for internal and external reasons. Again, even if you are currently the only employee for your business, you should strive to establish a strong culture because it informs potential customers’, employees’, and vendors’ perceptions of your business. The culture of your business is a snapshot of your values. It’s the way you take ownership of how people associated with your business act and how you are perceived in their communications, actions, and practices with clients, vendors, and each other. The culture needs to be defined in the form of a mission, vision, or company philosophy so that all employees of the company and anyone doing research on the company—potential employees, vendors, and clients—know your values. But that isn’t enough. You must also make sure the culture is alive and practiced on a daily basis. People today tend to carefully consider a company’s culture when choosing a place to work. They want to know if they will fit in at that company and if the outward signs of a company’s culture give them clues. It’s not enough anymore to just work for a paycheck. People today are looking for a working environment that is aligned with their values. Many businesses these days look to work with people who have the same ideals.
I asked one of my clients how he would sum up the culture at his company. He said that getting up every day excited to get to the office because of the people he worked with was all the evidence he needed that he had it right. His goal had been to create a fun environment with employees who always went the extra mile for their customers. He was successful in building that culture because he began with that intent in mind, and he practiced that mindset daily. You want to get up excited to go to work every day, and you want your employees to feel the same way. We have all worked in environments that were negative or draining; you don’t want to create that type of environment for others.
How do you create a strong, positive environment? Not by chance. You have to know how your business and your vision will work together to create that culture and develop activities to support the culture and hold people accountable to that standard at all times. You must be able to articulate what you want your culture to look like so that people can understand it and contribute to that goal. A clear vision, mission, and culture will carry you through many obstacles.
Rule #2: Articulate your dream/passion into words and create a mission statement.
The Dailies
Think about what your big picture looks like for the future.
Determine your ideal. Think big!
How can you attain your big picture vision?
Who is your audience?
How will your vision affect your audience?
What is the purpose of your company? What greater good does it achieve?
Define your culture through your mission and vision.
Make your culture a daily focus.
Articulate your culture to your employees, vendors, clients, and peers.
Live and breathe your culture and work towards your ideals.
Scene 3: What is your business plan?
“May the force be with you.” —Star Wars (1977)
The business plan is the cornerstone of your business. Like an architectural drawing of a new building, it will tell you where your business is going and how it’ll get there, and you may not get financing from a bank without one. While I believe it is important to have a business plan, there are many successful businesses that didn't. You don’t want to spend so much time writing, re-writing, and tweaking your business plan that you never get around to actually opening your business, and you don’t want to get so married to that business plan that you refuse to alter it, even if it’s obviously not working. The plan doesn’t need to be perfect, and it’s not set in stone.