Small Business Boomers

The most difficult thing to do is to be honest with yourself.  You have to recognize when the quality of you product or service will not measure up to the market.  At that point, you have to make changes.
Sometimes you will see things that are not good or correct, but you will ignore them.  You’re focused on some other point.  You’re not exactly dishonest about things, you just aren’t paying attention properly.  You internal editor isn’t working.  Other times you just hope that your internal editor is wrong and you’ll prove it later.  There are those points where you have …read more

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Last Sunday there was a piece in my local paper, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which estimated that there are 500,000 Baby Boomers currently working in Southeastern Wisconsin.  The piece was written by Sammis White a professor of urban planning at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee. 
It’s major premise is that Boomers must be retained in the workforce for as long as practical, because there really aren’t any ready replacements on the horizon.  He mentions a number of excellent reasons for selecting and retaining Boomers as employees such as level of education, experience, work ethic, etc.   On the other side he …read more

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Taxes are a cost of doing business.  You’re going to have to pay them or go to jail.  As a matter of fact, if you find a business which has not been paying their taxes that is a warning sign of trouble.  Taxes are one of the costs you as a small business person should seek to keep to a minimum.
Everyone blames the government for taxes that they pay.  Everyone knows that taxes are the price we pay for a reasonably civilized society.  Everyone knows that you can’t get something for nothing.  Everyone doesn’t know that big companies use predatory …read more

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3 is the average numbers an owner operates a new small business before they take any money out for themselves.  Can you go three years without an income?  What can you do without?  What can is an absolute must?
Well, you’re not going to have a social life because you’ll spend every spare waking minute on the new business.  You probably don’t even need cable TV.  New car, never mind.  Health insurance, a must.  Nothing can sink your business like a health-care debt.  New clothes, I don’t think so.  By the way, that goes for your spousal equivalent, because you’ve got …read more

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My father told me that the second most expensive thing you can do in your life is to get married.  The most expensive thing you can go is to get a divorce.  If you’ve anywhere as long as I have you know this to be largely correct, though children are also expensive.  You’ve seen friends divorce and watched their individual standard of living decline.  Sometimes it’s much more complicated than the simple act of divorce.  Underlying factors such as substance abuse or physical abuse may be the prime cause.  But, a divorce is a real stressor of your personal economy.
One of the …read more

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I’ve just spent a morning reading a series of articles from the likes of Money, Fortune, Smart Money and a number of other places about Boomers who have started their own businesses or bought one or picked up a franchise.  Several things stood out.
First, none of the stories was about about someone who had failed in their start-up.  The stories were only up-beat about people who had struggled, but achieved some level of success.  Nobody wrote about a college friend of mine who lost every penny he had and then his wife.  I’ve never seen the story about the guy …read more

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A big part of my start-up is the sale of yoga exercise videos (streaming video or DVD).  Because this entire thing is to be the lowest possible marketing experiment, I’m the one doing the yoga on the video.  From a marketing point of view having an old fart actually doing the workouts is a plus.  The down side is that I have to edit the videos.
The editing part isn’t bad.  I’ve got top notch software and technical assistance.  The terrifying part is watching the video takes.  Even when it I do things well, it is painful to watch yourself.
We all …read more

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It’s a rainy weekend.  My favorite music festival has been hampered extensively.  Irish Fest in Milwaukee is the largest Celtic music festival in the world.  It fantastic fun because the range and quality of artists is top notch.
A friend once told me that in this one weekend I could see two-thirds of all the acts that came to his uncle’s bar in Cleveland in a year.  Not bad.
From a business point of view the artists can come here and sell their music directly.  The established groups won’t be hurt as much as the new ones.  The arts are a difficult …read more

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You know what they called a 401K when the .com bubble burst?  A 201K.  That was a little gallows humor. 
Every investment category took a hit.  Good investments took a hit because people needed to sell the good stuff to cover their losses and margin calls on the bad stuff.  The bad stuff just got hammered because nobody can determine just how bad it really is.  Nice, huh?
The Fed stepped in with some symbolic help when they lower the rates and extended the terms on their loans to banks.  It’s a seldom used financial function because of the stigma associated of …read more

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Today I consulted with an established mid-sized company.  The Chief Financial Officer was in the meeting.  For awhile we spoke about the nuts and bolts of what we thought this outfit had to do to improve their business.  After about half an hour the CFO stopped and asked if what we wanted to do would save 20& or more and not mess up the operation.  He didn’t care how we were proposing to get him the savings only if we could meet his financial goal.
Many people as fascinated by the how of things, but the important thing is the how much.  the …read more

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