Conway Daily Sun
The Entreprenologist
Sept. 25, 2013
By Michael Kline

Whether you already own a business, or are thinking about starting one, the short answer is yes, until it changes to no. You are not the same person today that you were ten years ago, and you won’t be the same person ten years from now that you are today. It does not matter if you are looking backward to when you started a business, or forward to why you want to start something, everything about you changes over time - your family, your financial needs, your personal goals, your attitude, your interests, etc.  It’s no different than a job that no longer suits you – you need to be responsible for your life’s outcomes and make the best of what you’ve got and know when to move on to better things that serve what you need at this time of your life.
 
A business plan is not enough. Convincing a bank to lend you money seems like confirmation enough that you have a good idea, but the bank, as careful and as smart as they are, does not ask enough questions or talk about the most important issues. Getting a bank to say yes, is not confirmation that your business will succeed. In fact, 100% of bank loans that have failed, originally proved itself worthy of a loan.

Next month, I will be teaching a business start-up seminar for our local SCORE chapter. In one full day workshop, we will cover absolutely everything you will need to know to decide if you should start a business, how to go about it, how to become an employer, choose a location, forecast revenue and profits, how to create a quality business plan and a marketing plan. One of my goals is to get most of my students to chicken out before they bet the farm on a bad idea.
Because I know something the bank doesn’t talk about, I want to take you a step further. You must know your industry, your competition, your market, your pricing strategy, your costs and your sales forecasts. You also need to know about leading difficult employees, negotiating with impossible suppliers and landlords, getting along with the IRS, and working 100 hours per week with no benefits, no sick days, no pay and no boss to give you the answers. That’s the easy stuff!

Three questions the bank won’t ask you: 1. What is your exit strategy - How will you retire or sell your business – to whom and for how much, and why would someone want it?  2. Are you physically up to the challenge – how well do you take care of yourself to have the energy to do what it takes and keep doing what it takes when it gets more demanding – and it will. 3. Tell me about your relationship with your mother/or father – yes, this may take more than an hour or two on the couch with a good therapist! Why do you want to do this – beyond making money and being the boss – why this particular business? Whom are you trying to impress? What romantic notions do you have about this industry and the glamor it pretends to hold? Are you limiting your potential not having enough faith in your own skills – or are you getting in over your head, beyond your skills? Are you psychologically fit for what awaits? Are you prepared for the tears (there will be many) and the joy (it may be great) and the successes (that may ruin you) and the rollercoaster ride that is the true nature of all businesses?

In the upcoming SCORE workshop, I will give you three things. All the technical/official information you need, plus  I will share true war stories from the road I have been on for the last thirty years and how we avoided disaster, survived in crisis and thrived in opportunity. Finally, I will also ask hard personal questions for you to take home and consider.

If you are already in business and want to talk exit strategy, email me or find another counselor, (SCORE has some good ones for mature businesses as well). If you are just starting out on your own, come to my class, prepare for an amazing adventure, and get ready to grow in ways you never imagined.

Michael Kline is a local retailer, success coach and trainer. He may be reached through his website, www.klineseminars.com, or e-mail, mike@klineseminars.com.

Conway Daily Sun
September 11, 2013
By Michael Kline

We love it when we have great meetings – a group conversation where people come prepared, listen attentively, respect one another, exchange new ideas, discuss and solve challenges and come to agreements to take action and accomplish something meaningful. Does this sound like the majority of your meetings? If not, please read  on. 

In our last column, we compared today’s business
meeting to ancient gatherings around the fire, where they shared stories, discussed ideas and solved problems. Humans have been meeting for ten thousand years and yet today communication is among our biggest problem in the workplace! It’s hard to believe we’re still stuck on how to talk to each other when we could be dealing with the economy, competition, changing technology, regulations, availability of talent, pricing pressures, cash flow, not to mention war, famine and pestilence!  Seriously, we cannot have a discussion about being competitive, if we don’t trust and like each other enough to have an honest onversation.  As long as people feel a need to protect their turf, manipulate others and hide their secret agendas, there will be little progress toward any of the important things.

After ten thousand years of going over this, maybe we need to slow down a moment so we can finally get this right. Let us get the basics down so we can tackle the big stuff more effectively.  So back to basics it is. Here are a few
tips to help turn meetings into quality group conversations.   

1.    Send out an agenda in advance – this is your invitation to tell people what to bring, how to prepare,
start and end time and the purpose. 

2.     Promise to start and end on time and keep your promise. Eventually everyone will start showing up on
time. Mark the official beginning and end of meetings to separate work or social time from meeting time. Make it special, almost sacred time.

3.      Stick to the agenda. Create practices that do this while respecting new ideas, or keeping them in a
new business section of the agenda.

4.      Consider yourself more of a host with a bell at a dinner party, than a judge with a gavel at a trial.
If possible, seat everyone so they can see one another.

5.      Create a method for quick breaks when the pace of discussion is out of control, there is cross talk,
emotions are over-flowing, or something poignant needs to be absorbed before moving on.  
 
6.      Make meetings a safe place for honesty and input. Make agreements at the beginning, or have living
agreements for all meetings. These agreements are custom to your members’ needs as to how we conduct ourselves, but might include: We will never interrupt a speaker, we will listen attentively, we will speak
purposefully, we will participate when we have something to contribute, we will turn off cell phones, we will keep discussions confidential, and so on.

7.      Do not ask for input and then dismiss the ideas you hear. We need to create an environment where the
conversation moves around the room with intention for everyone to have input, without judgment.

These tips are based on the PeerSpirit methodology of Circle Practice. I spent a week at the PeerSpirit Circle
Practicum in August, which is a total immersion program of living this practice all day, every day, with a diverse group of professionals representing a wide range of business and educational backgrounds. There are far more nuances than we can cover in short articles and the complexities that grow out of your specific situation and your members’personalities can be daunting yet very rewarding. 

Most of these tips are actually difficult to follow. It takes a great deal of time and patience to slow down a process to speed up productivity. Many people will find it boring and frustrating until they grow accustomed to it. When they see how much more productive and positive meetings can be, those same people will likely become big advocates for the new process.  The key phrase of the day is to slow down to speed up.

Michael Kline is a local retailer, success coach and trainer. He may be reached through his website, www.klineseminars.com, or e-mail, mike@klineseminars.com.