Three Kinds of Businesses That Thrive in a Recession

When we visited Cancun, Mexico this past winter for our annual 5-week R&R trip, we were amazed at how many storefronts and clubs were completely empty. Senor Frogs had virtually no business, and the shopping centers for tourists were so empty that they echoed. It was like walking through a very luxurious ghost town. Some stores in our local town back here in Colorado are starting to look the same way, but not all businesses.

There are three kinds of businesses that seem to thrive during any recession: discount stores, maintenance shops, and stores that recycle goods.

Discount Stores
Of course, Wal-mart is coming up roses with its low-price guarantee. The giant retailer increased its annual stock dividends by 15% in March, while other retailers are closing their doors. But other kinds of discount stores are also doing very well.

For instance, beauty schools all around the country are seeing a surge in business. People want to look good, even as the economy comes crashing down around them. At just $5-$7 per haircut and $35 for a hair color (versus $25 for a cut and $75 for a color at a regular salon), beauty schools are attracting customers like crazy. Discount stores empower consumers to stretch their hard-earned dollars, and are earning profits on their sheer volume of business.

Maintenance Shops
Drive past any new car dealer and you’ll see a shiny ghost town. No one wants to buy a gas-guzzling new car in this economy. Instead, people are doing their own oil changes and trying to make their older cars last longer. Car service centers are experiencing a surge in business, with people bring their cars in for more complicated maintenance issues. Experts predict that service centers will see even more business if the price of gas stays low, as many people plan to take road trips this summer as an inexpensive way to get away. Those road trippers will want their cars tuned up before hitting the road. Other maintenance-type businesses growing include all kinds of repair shops, from shoe repair to computer repair.

Recycled Goods
When it comes to saving money, consumers are thinking thrift shops, eBay, pawn shops, and auctions. Second-hand stuff has never been more valuable, and people are flocking to second-hand venues to both buy and sell. While major retailers like Macy’s are laying off thousands of employees, some thrift store chains are doubling the size of their staff. Experts are also predicting an increase in swap meets, better business on eBay and other auction sites, and a rosy future for pawn shops. Investing in recycling used goods is about to be very big business.

Does this give you some ideas for your small business?

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Photo credit: the current bane of my existence

Tags: businesses that thrive in a recession, discount stores, maintenance shops, recycled goods

Small Business Owners: How Long Should You Keep Tax Documents?

This is a question that bugs a lot of small business owners, and I’ve never been clear myself. I’ve heard the numbers 3 years, 7 years, and 10 years thrown around. I decided it was time to find out for myself, straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.

You can find the specific IRS regulations regarding how long you should keep paperwork here:

IRS: How long should I keep records?

Be prepared. The first two paragraphs on this web page are pure legalese. Blah, blah, blah. Basically, there is a “period of limitations” for each situation, with the period being different for each situation.

When You Need to Keep Tax Records Indefinitely
There are only two situations when you need to keep your records indefinitely. If you fall into either of those categories, then you and your small business are in hot water anyway, so count on keeping your records forever (or burning them and running to some South American country!). Those two situations are:

1.    You file a fraudulent return
2.    You didn’t file a return when you should (oops!)

Aside from these situations, you’ll find a complete list of the “period of limitations” for all other situations. The number of years you need to keep your paperwork ranges from 2 to 7 years. Check out the list. If you still have questions, call your accountant to double-check. Remember, the tax code is over 18,000 pages, so be safe rather than sorry!

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Photo credit: Filing Box and Label Printer

Tags: how long to keep tax records, IRS, small business tax documents

Technology CAN Give You 48 Hours Per Day

“I wish I had 48 hours in every single day!”

If you’re a small business owner then you know what I’m talking about. There is always so much to do and so little time. I always used to think that you couldn’t squeeze more than 24 hours into a single day, no matter what. Not anymore. Not after I read this little doo-da in Paul Zane Pilzer’s book, “The Next Millionaires.”

According to this futurist, technology is the key to expanding almost any kind of limited resource, like time or land. Things that appear limited can be multiplied and expanded if you apply the right kind of technology to it. Just look at history.

Expanding Land with Technology

Paul looks back at the history of our nation to prove that while certain resources seem to remain constant, the application of technology can increase the yield of those resources.

Land is one of his prime examples. People always used to say that land was one of the best investments because there is only a limited amount of it, which means that demand for it will always rise. You can’t increase the amount of land. Well, that might be true until we colonize Mars or the sea floor, but let’s go with the assumption that land is a limited resource.

Back to Paul’s example, he points out that the U.S. stopped adding land in 1912, when Arizona became the last state added to the union. Yet the economy has continued to grow since 1912, despite the limited land resources.

In 1930, the U.S. had 30 million farmers and those farmers fed 100 million people. Between 1930 and 1980, the number of farmers dropped from 30 million to just 3 million. We only had one-tenth as many farmers, and at the same time the number of people in the nation grew to 300 million. They all had to be fed, and they were. And, we didn’t absorb any more land into our borders.

Those 3 million farmers not only successfully fed all 300 million people in the country, but grew an extra 50% that could be sold around the world. So what happened?

Technology.

The use of technology increased the production of the average farmer 4,500 percent, and the productivity per acre by 1,000 percent. So we literally expanded the land in this country with technology, by increasing the production of every acre with technology.

Technology and the Small Business Owner’s Time

Now, how can you apply technology so that you increase the number of hours you have in a day? The same way. Make every hour more efficient by leveraging the power of the internet. Here are just a dozen simple ways to harness the power of the Internet to cram more hours into your day:

1. Use autoresponders to handle routine business requests
2. Use a product rating service to allow testimonials from your happy customers convince new customers to buy from you.
3. Add a product recommendation service to your company website to sell new products to existing customers over time.
4. Promote your expertise via a blog, which brings customers back to you when they have a question or need to buy something else.
5. Add a detailed resources section to your website so your customers can “self-serve” when they need info.
6. Outsource routine tasks to virtual assistants, who can live half the globe away from you and work while you sleep.
7. Offer an affiliate program so that others can help you sell your product.
8. Join an affiliate program that offers complementary products to bring an extra income stream into your business.
9. Offer electronic products like ebooks and e-course in your online store. These products take up no space, require no interaction from you, and are pure profit.
10. Use mobile devices to check and respond to emails during “snippets” of time during your day, especially if you travel frequently.
11. Take advantage of online stores that drop-ship products to your office to save time (like Quill, the online office supply store that offers free shipping).
12. Sign up for “clipping” and online listening services like Backtype, Whostalkin, and Google Alerts to do online research for your company. Find out what your customers are talking about, looking for, and need, all without speaking with them directly.

This list could easily expand to hundreds of items. All of these are simple ways you can apply technology to expand the productivity of your day. OK, so maybe you can’t really cram 48 hours into a single day, but you can get 48 hours worth of “stuff” accomplished in a day, even while you sleep. It’s called technology, baby!

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Photo credit: John Deere

Tags: expand resources, Paul Zane Pilzer, small business resources, Technology

Three Kinds of Skills You Must Have in This Economy

Need a Ouija Board for Your Small Business?

The rocky economy has everyone guessing what’s coming next. In fact, that Magic 8-ball is starting to look pretty good to some people. A crystal ball or Ouija board might work, too.

Well, if you need a little help in the visionary department, check out “The Next Millionaires” by Paul Zane Pilzer. The guy is pretty savvy when it comes to putting his finger on current and coming trends. In his book, he offers some simple formulas that might help you evaluate where you are in your life and career, and where you might want to go from here.

Three Kinds of Skills You Must Have in This Economy

One of the best things I like about Paul’s book is the way he identifies the three kinds of skills that we all need to have in the coming years: basic skills, functional skills, and adapting skills.

Most of us already know about the first two kinds of skills. Paul defines basic skills as “you ability read, write, speak, calculate, and process information.” These are the basics that we learned in school, and are needed in just about every kind of work or job. If you gaps in any of these basic skills, Paul suggesting taking the time to fill those gaps now.

Functional skills are the specialized skills that we have developed since we left school. These include skills from “on the job training” and from further schooling. For instance, accountants have functional skills in accounting and number-crunching. Auto mechanics have functional skills in fixing vehicles.

In the past, we learned that having basic and functional skills guaranteed us a job for life. No longer. These days, having specialized skills in a specific niche can be deadly to your career. It’s like having special skills as a carriage driver as the automobile makes its entrance onto the transportation scene. Talk about being a dinosaur! These days, people with niche skills are going the way of the dinosaur faster than ever.

Why Every Small Business Owner Needs Adaptive Skills

The speed at which business and industry are changing means that we now need that third set of skills – the adapting skills. Paul defines adapting skills as “the ability with which you learn new things.”

If your business goes the way of the dinosaur, do you have the skills to adapt and change quickly? If a competitor comes up with a copycat product, can you take advantage of something else, like a new marketing technique, to distinguish your business from your competitor’s?

With the economy unpredictable, your ability to generate and sustain wealth is dependent, to a large extent, on your ability as a small business owner learn something new. You have to be able to learn something new quickly and thoroughly.

This kind of gives you food for thought when it comes to the old business standbys like:

“Not invented here.”

or

“This is the way we’ve always done it!”

Do you need to come up with a new affirmation or mantra for your business?

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Photo credit: Fortune Telling Collectibles

Tags: adaptive skills, basic skills, functional skills, Paul Zane Pilzer, small business, three kinds of skills

Laid Off? Business Closed? Go from Ow to Wow

If you’ve been laid off or you have had to close your business, and you’re sitting at home waiting for the “interview call” that never comes, I’ve got a better suggestion for you. Go in for some continuing education – get an internship.

An Internship? Yes, Really.
Yeah, I know, the word “intern” conjures up some wet-behind-the-ears kid who just graduated college and needs some life experience. Well, in today’s economy, internships are not just for the young anymore. They are for the young-at-heart, as well.

For the most part, internships are unpaid or offer a very, very low wage, which can sound depressing when the bills are mounting up. However, you might think about it this way: you normally have to pay for college, but you don’t have to pay for an internships. It’s a free education. You can learn new skills, maybe bridge your technology gap, for free.  Not bad. In this economy, anything free is good.

New York City In the Lead for Internships
New York City is leading the charge with internships, especially for those laid off from the financial sector. Two programs in NYC, Fastrac and JumpStart NYC, are both targeting the unemployed in the financial sector by either offering free training or helping them start new businesses. JumpStart NYC puts interns through a boot camp, and then gives graduates a 10-week unpaid internship with a startup company. Nothing like doing “senior year” all over again, right?

For women, there is a program called Women on the Web, or wowOwow.com. This program, started by Joni Evans, targets women over 40 who have been laid off, or whose spouses have been laid off. The program has so far offered 30 women “crash course in editing and Web technology skills.”

Age is a Good Thing for Internships
If you think that internship might be the right move for you, don’t worry if you aren’t a spring chicken. These days, companies look favorably upon “mature” interns. Your work experience will be valued, and most corporate HR departments consider older interns far more reliable and responsible.

Before you take an internship position, be clear about what you want to get out of the position. Know that the internship will likely not turn into a paid position, but you will learn some valuable new skills. Be sure to set a timeframe for your internship, with 3 months being a typical average. Finally, pick an internship where you can learn skills that suit your personality and interests. Most of all, enjoy!

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Photo credit: Store Closed

Tags: business closed, internships for older people, laid off

50,000 Reasons to Unplug This Weekend

50,000. That’s a pretty big number, right?

That’s how many thoughts the average person has in a single day. It takes a lot of brainpower to produce that many thoughts.

Now throw email, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook into the mix, and you can imagine the chaos of those 50,000 thoughts. Plus, with the advent of mobile, most entrepreneurs and small business owners have a really hard time unplugging. For most, the weekend is just like any other day of the week. A day to work. Another day towards getting burned out.

How do you know if you’re getting too burned out and really need to unplug? According to therapist Dr. Jack Singer of Laguna Hills, California, if you experience any of these symptoms it’s time to take a break:

1. Extreme competitiveness
2. Rapid speech
3. Impatience
4. Hates lines and waiting
5. Difficulty delegating
6. Fear of failure
7. Need to be in control
8. Irritable
9. Multi-tasking
10. Resistant to change

Does this describe you? If so, then yank that plug! You might want to take up a hobby, like being a politician. Here’s a little joke about the political brain to launch your weekend off right.

“A man went in for a brain transplant operation and was offered a choice of two brains by the surgeon. He could choose either the Architect’s brain which would cost him $10,000 or the Politician’s, which was $100,000.”

“Does that mean that the Politician’s brain is much better than the Architect’s?” exclaimed the clearly puzzled man.

“Not exactly.” replied the surgeon. “The Politician’s brain has never been used.”

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Photo credit: Unplugging the Machine

Tags: entrepeneur, small business owner, unplug

Small Business Owners: Expand Your Time!

In our time-crazed society, time is one thing that most of us don’t have, especially those of us who own small businesses. Yet, all of us would like to have more time. So what can you do about that? Expand your time. It’s simple.

Time, after all, is a man-made function. Showing up for work “on time” is just an artificial rule made to coordinate the actions of multiple people. Being a man-made function, time also responds to your thoughts and feelings (hang in there with me, I know it’s getting a little out in left field).

Are You Pressed for Time?
For instance, if you feel like you’re chronically short of time and that you’re always PRESSED for time, that’s what you get — compressed time. It’s always a perfect match between the way you feel and how much time you actually have.

Do you ever notice that when you’re feeling expansive and free, your work gets done a lot faster? It’s also easier to do, right? That’s because when you’re not feeling pressed for time, you think more clearly and act more productively.

Expand Your Time
So, if you want to expand your time rather than compress it, all you have to do is expand your internal feeling about time. How? Simple. Whenever you feel pressed for time, just begin to act as if you had all the time in the world.

How do you act when you have a lot of time? You move at a leisurely pace and you enjoy yourself. You rarely do any of the things that you do when you’re in a hurry — drop things, forget things, bump into things.

So, even though you may need to get a task done quickly, try slowing down your actions and thoughts for a minute or two. Those minutes of “slow time” will literally expand your time horizon and something in your day will adjust to give you more time. Try it, it works!

Also, one last quick tip: If you want to have more time, stop saying things like, “I just don’t have time!” Remember, thoughts are things and words have wings!

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Photo credit: Keeping an Eye on Time

SCORE with Your Small Business

I just got back from a local seminar on small business management and leadership. The seminar took place during lunch, so the speaker didn’t have a lot of time to cover his points, but he did review the basics of success for a small business. He was an inspirational speaker, and even after the talk was over the small crowd of attendees still buzzed with excitement.

How Do Small Business Owners Get Help?
Most of the people hung out after lunch for an informal networking meeting. I dropped in on multiple conversations, and the most common thread among all the conversations was lack of resources. In other words, most of these small business owners knew what they needed to do, but didn’t know how to go about doing these tasks.

For instance, almost everyone at the meeting knew that they needed to identify, locate, and reach out to their “target audience,” but a lot of them had no idea how to go about doing this. Plus, a lot of them were too busy with daily operations to spend much time on this kind of high-level strategy. Still, people were asking each other, “Where do I get this kind of information? How do I find my target audience?”

If you are wondering the same thing about your small business, then it’s time to SCORE!

SCORE for Small Businesses
Check out SCORE, which is a resource partner with the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), and is dedicated to helping small businesses. SCORE is staffed by 11,200 volunteers, most of whom are working and retired executives and business owners who donate time and expertise as business counselors.

Here’s a really cool resource on SCORE to help you locate the info and stuff you need for your small business:

The Score Quick Biz Assessment

This test asks you 15 questions about you and your business. For instance, it asks how you spend the majority of your time, whether you know your target audience, and how well you understand the financial aspects of your business. At the end of the test, an entire page of recommendations pops up.

If the test identified that you didn’t know your target market well, it makes recommendations, including how to identify your market by age, income, occupation, location, and education. The recommendations also include sources of demographic information, along with books and online resources that teach you how to find and reach your target market.

As a bonus, it’s all free. Co-sponsored by E-Myth Worldwide, Michael Gerber’s company, the test is a real eye-opener. It also offers you access to a number of small business resources you might not have known about.

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Tags: SCORE, small business owners, small business resources

What Are You NOT Getting To in Your Small Business?

Almost every small business owner I know faces the feeling of guilt – frequently – about all the things on their to-do list that didn’t get done. You know what I say to that?

Get over it.

There’s no time for that kind of wallowing. Get off the pity pot and all that. One of the first things that my first business mentor told me was, “You’ll never get it done. Face it and then get over it.”

So you’ll never get everything on your to-do list done-don’t feel guilty. Instead, take the time you would have spent swimming in guilt and identify the ONE THING that you really need to do for your small business, but are not getting done.

That One Thing That Makes a Huge Difference

How do you figure out what that one thing is? Only you can figure that out, but here are some hints that might help you pinpoint the one thing for your business. The one thing might be:

- something you are afraid to start because you don’t know how
- a nagging item that’s been endlessly rolled from one to-do list to another
- a task that might take a whole day of focused attention (we think we don’t have that kind of time)
- distraction-free musing time about the direction of your business
- something to do with Big Brother (you know, the IRS, etc.)
- part of your business plan you have turned a blind eye to (like social media)
- an overflowing in-box or a totally messy office

Whatever the one thing is for your small business, it’s probably driving you crazy and keeping you from being as productive (and happy) as you could be. The one thing is very important, but not necessarily urgent. Most of the time, small business owners get so busy putting out fires and taking care of urgent stuff that the one important thing gets ignored.

So do yourself and your small business a favor. Stop everything. Take a deep breath, and then do the one thing you are not getting to. You will feel a whole lot better. You can also consider that you’ve done your small business therapy for the week!

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Photo credit: one red paperclip

Tags: small business productivity, to-do list

Breaking the Email Addiction

When I first read The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris, I thought the guy was nuts. I could swallow a 4-hour workday, but a 4-hour work week? The guy had to be nuts.

I’m still not sure that everything he suggests in his book is right on the money, but the guy has some serious time-savings ideas for the small business owner. One of his tips that really “popped” for me was checking email only twice a day.

Check Email Only Twice (Yes, Twice) per Day
He suggests picking two times-and two times only-during the day to check email. Why? Because email is a distraction. It’s also an addiction for a lot of people, although these days Twitter might be more of an addiction than even email. In any case, the latest studies show that over 11 million people are emailaholics. With mobile devices, people are now checking email at the dinner table and sitting on the toilet. Ick!

As a small business owner, checking email all the time can really take you away from the important aspects of your business. One reason that Tim doesn’t recommend checking email first thing in the morning is because that plunges you immediately into distraction.

Use Your Mornings to Make Money
Instead, he recommends you spend your mornings in important, money-making projects that will really fuel your business. You need some serious head-space to really work on these projects, and email has the effect of dragging you down into the minutiae of your business. When you’re down in the trenches of your business, it can be really hard to see the big picture, which is where, as a small business owner, you have a chance to really make your business unique and profitable.

Some More Email Tips
Having successfully followed Tim’s advice, for the most part, I have to say that he is right. Here are a few of my own tips that I would add:

• When you do check email, be prepared to act on them. Deal with whatever issues they bring up and get them out of your inbox. If you can’t handle them right away, delegate and defer them. Again, get them out of your inbox.
• If you are concerned about handling any urgent issues that have cropped up during the night, consider hiring a virtual assistant to check email for you first thing in the morning. A quality assistant can respond to people who have emailed during the night, and soothe any ruffled feathers until you are ready to tackle email.
• Consider sorting your email alphabetically by sender when you go to answer your emails. This allows you to handle some emails in bulk. For instance, I subscribe to a lot of email newsletters and ezines. When I’m pressed for time and know I don’t have time to read these emails, I just delete them. Having my inbox sorted by sender allows me to delete them in bulk.

You’ll be surprised how much time you can save by not checking email all the time. It’s tempting to check your email every time you hear that familiar “Ding!” that tells you that you’ve got mail. To avoid this temptation, don’t have your email program open except during your chosen times during the day. As they say, “If you walk into a barbershop, expect to come out with a haircut.” If you have your email program open, expect to wilt in the face of temptation and check it!

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Photo credit: Twittering from the toilet

Tags: 4-hour workweek, email addiction, Tim Ferriss, time-saving tips