What is your inspiration?

Another great article from entrepreneur.com today here, I find myself frequenting their website more and more even without ideas of blog posts, just to read some of the things they have posted. They really have some great articles there, so if you're thinking about getting into the business world, especially the startup business world, someday, I would suggest giving some of their articles a look over.

This article discusses finding your inspiration for your business. I think it's an issue that many people forget or don't do, in that they want to start a business just to start a business and make quick money. However, without the inspiration and drive behind your idea, you are certainly not going to get very far and get burnt out very quickly. As the article points out, it's having the inspiration to actually do what you're doing that can motivate you to get through the tough times of running a business. Anyone can operate and run a business for fun when the profits are up, the business is running smoothly, and there is no worries. But it's when issues start to arise and you have to knuckle under, that the issue comes into play as to whether you will stick behind your project or let it go. If you have no reason to even be doing it in the first place, what is going to keep you on board when it quite frankly sucks to be running it?

The article also gives a good example of inspiration in the life of a woman who had both herself and her best friend diagnosed with cancer. She started two companies, one non-profit for the help of people with cancer getting second opinions, based on her inspiration for preventing cancer. As the article says, "today, she runs two inspirational enterprises: her pajama company, which projects sales between $750,000 and $1 million in 2006, and her nonprofit, which provides online information and doctor referrals."

Finding a reason to do anything can make you that much more effective in carrying it out. It isn't only limited to running a business, but doing anything that is made more important to you is going to make you more apt to stay the course while you're doing it. Working out, studying, etc. can all be enhanced by simply finding a reason why you should be doing them and not just doing them to do them.

Levels of Trust?

I found a very interesting article from entrepreneur.com today here, talking about the virtues of trust within a business or an organization. I found it very interesting and while you never really think about issues like it, it rang very true. The author, Paige Arnof-Fenn, begins with a very great quote for the world, in that "I’d rather trust someone and be wrong than never to have taken the risk." How true is that? The world is filled with a ton of people who will never, or cannot ever really trust someone, but in the business world you almost have to sometimes to get ahead, or know when not to to make sure that you aren't ruined. Choosing your friends, and what investors, partners, or workers that you can truely trust and be associated with is one of the most important issues facing startup business owners.

As she points out, micromanaging professionals is often a slap in the face, and something that cannot be done all of the time if you are in and out of the place of business. So, having faith that whoever you leave behind will do the job is impairative. For example in the case of a restaraunt or bar, having someone managing the place when you're gone, having employees that you know aren't trying to scam you, etc. is something that can save you a lot of money -- and a lot of headaches. She throws a laundry list of examples and helpful advice for those who wish to be a bit more trustworthy in their business. They are (from the article directly):

• People who previously took advantage of their colleagues will probably try to pull a fast one on you, too. A leopard does not change its spots.
  
• Bullies in school turn into bullies as adults, and they’re just as insecure as you remember.
  
• Listen to your gut, your clients and your references. And don’t just listen to what is said, but listen for what is not being said as well.
  
• Beware of media buyers whose numbers don’t add up and PR people who get more publicity for themselves than they do for their clients.
  
• The same people who try to cut you out of a deal are the first ones to call when they need a favor. As my mom says, beware of the casserole ladies who show up the day after the funeral of their best friend.
  
• Partner with people who have great reputations. It’s a reflection of your brand, your quality and your integrity. Great people surround themselves with great talent, which increases the probability of success.
  
• Be original and creative, and always work with other innovative thinkers. There are many copycats and imposters out there who’ve made a career of corporate identity theft. When you discover people passing off others’ work as their own, run--don’t walk--in the other direction. Do your own homework to make sure you’re working with the real brains behind the deal.
  
• Karma catches up eventually, so do the right thing for the right reasons and keep the faith. It usually doesn’t take long for the violators’ intentions to be revealed and their plans to backfire. You never lose when you take the high road with a long-term perspective.

I find myself to agree with these very much, and for them all to be things that I have thought at one point in my life. I think printing these out and sticking them somewhere I could see them could help me out a ton while running a business -- as dumb and cliche as it sounds, because it's very easy to forget some of these and lose your head while you're under a lot of stress and pressure. Maintaining your composure, remembering your values, and who you can trust in the world is one of the most important and vital issues to a business manager, and lessons I hope I can learn before I have to jump into the world of management.

Drink of the Day (October 15)

I went to use a different resource for this recipe, you can check out this other cool drink website called Extratasty here. With it getting cold and disgusting outside, I figured I'd post a drink that's the complete opposite and makes no sense for the hell of it, the Summertime Martini.

Summertime Martini
Mix one part Coconut rum, one part Peach Schnapps, and three parts Cranberry juice with ice and strain the results into a glass. You can top it off with a lemon slice, or with a lemon twist in a martini glass and enjoy!

Small Business Administration

I used enough of their links, so I figured that I should probably give a post about one of the most resourceful resources (ha!) to potential business owners in the SBA -- the Small Business Administration. You can find their main webpage here.

The SBA is a governmentally funded organization that every year helps to find thousands of potential business owners loans to help fund their business (they helped to back funding for more than 100,000 owners last year alone). They also offer a lot of resources in text form for helping those who think they have what it takes to start a business, including advice for financial decisions, help with business plans, finding niches to go into and make money, ways to keep your business organized, etc.

I'll keep this post short, but I thought it would be important to throw a bone to one of the websites that I'm going to cite pretty frequently on this blog!

Business Loans Pt. 3 -- Investors

This main link page from Inc.com was really helpful and will probably spawn quite a few future posts about information I found there. The focus for now however is another way to obtain a type of "loan" for your startup company I suppose -- in the form of an "Angel Investor." You can check out the breakdown on the links to articles about these types of investors here.

An angel investor is basically what is sounds like -- an investor who can help you float the finances for your company singlehandedly, or help fund a large portion of the startup. Guy Kawasaki defines them as "high net-worth individuals who invest in entrepreneurial companies, usually at an early stage."

While it may sound like a pipe dream, these types of investors are actually readily available out there. Inc.com compiled a lists of regional networks for these angel investors at this Angel Investor Directory. The directory lists a large amount of companies in virtually every region of the United States, with their desired investment field, and desired investment range of funds contributed.

Most of these "investors" are not single individuals however, but a group of 6-12 wealthy individuals who can all chip into a large pot that they use to fund upstart companies. These groups have weekly or monthly meetings where they review their portfolios and review potential businesses. In most of the investing groups profiled, they only actually invest in a few out of the thousands that are submitted but those that are recieve money in excess of hundreds, if not millions of dollars, to get things going.

Finding such angels is a bit of a chore, as one can imagine. Networking is most likely the best way to get involved with those investors, as the investors can become more importantly, advisors as to how you should operate your business or help out with potential roadblocks (since most of them have been there before when running their own companies).

There's a ton of different ways to get the money you need to start a business, the ways of going about them are just all different. Deciding how to go about starting your business' funds can help you prepare for your future earnings, and stop worrying about your current ones.

Business Loans Pt. 2 -- SBA

The government is the best way to get your small business going most likely, as the Small Business Associaton (view their loan program website here) helps to fund a large majority of needed cash flow by potential business owners.

The SBA can be really helpful for business owners who may not be able to obtain the right amount of capital (or any capital) by conventional means. As the SBA website points out, the proceeds can be used for "most sound business purposes including working capital, machinery and equipment, furniture and fixtures, land and building (including purchase, renovation and new construction), leasehold improvements, and debt refinancing (under special conditions)." The SBA doesn't neccisarily offer the loans themselves, but rather enforces the loan through various affiliated banks.

They offer several loan programs including:

• Certified Development Company (504 program)
• Long term financing for businesses who need to aquire what the website calls "brick and mortar" capital, or things like machinery, buildings, real estate, or other ground level property needed to start the initial business.
• www.sba.gov/financing/sbaloan/cdc504.htm
  
• Microloan - a 7(m) program
• Short term loans which are used for aquiring small amounts of capital (the loan only maxes out at $35,000) for random goods you might need to either start up a business or expand it.
• www.sba.gov/financing/sbaloan/microloans.htm
  
• Loan prequalification
• Helps businesses by looking over their credit and credit applications and offering helpful insight and suggestions before they actually go and apply to a creditor. Helps to strengthen the application and increase the liklihood of getting the loan.
• www.sba.gov/financing/sbaloan/prequalification.htm

Obviously the loan is a tough and sore subject for potential business (and in my case bar) owners. However, obtaining optimum rates and the rights amount of capital can be key to whether or not the bar succeeds. Although I planned on keeping this to two parts, I think I'd like to go into business investing, and the choice of aquiring investors rather than loans from a bank to finance a project. Look for that in the next post.

Drink of the Day (October 8)

It seems like this is one of the most made drinks around the bars I go to (besides beer of course) so it seems like an important one to know how to make!

Long Island Ice Tea
Tons of parts make up a Long Island (obviously) so here ya go. Mix one part of each: Gin, rum (light), white Tequila, Triple Sec, and Vodka. Add two parts sour mix. Fill the rest with any type of Cola. Mix all of these in a cocktail shaker with ice cubs, and then pour into a collins glass. Add a slice of lemon on the top and enjoy!

Business Loans Pt. 1 -- GO Loan Program

My next two posts are going to be discussing the financial aspects of starting up a bar, in particular, loans and financing options for coming up with the money needed to start such an expensive venture. One interesting idea, although I doubt I would venture this far south, is the GO Loan Program. You can check their main page out here.

The GO Loan Program is a government funded loan given out by 32 banks in 4 different states (Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi) that awards up to $150,000 to potential small business owners who want to start their small business in any area affected by Hurricane Katrina or Hurricane Rita. The program is a one year program and is awarded to 85 percent of the applicants, meaning that most who apply will get their award. The program offers a prime interest rate of only 2.25% for loans of 7 years or less, and 2.75% for loans of 7 years or more. You'd be hard pressed to find any rates this good for amounts of loan capital this high.

I can't even imagine the tough life of running a bar downtown New Orleans around Bourbon Street, but I would think that if you would want to start one, and get easy funding, that this would be the easiest way I can imagine. With the huge boom coming back to New Orleans, it seems like a perfect time -- and a very good business venture. With both the national government and the city of New Orleans practically begging businesses to come back to the city, I'm sure there is more programs out there just like this one that offer funding and special offers for potential business owners.

Ideas for a Menu

Found an interesting message board post from MarketingProfs.com, a website that has a collection of marketing professors from around the country who advise on marketing issues. The issue here is ideas for potential menus for a resteraunt or bar, and because I would like some of the daytime crowd to my bar to be sport oriented, I found the posts very interesting. The posts can be found here.

I found a lot of the ideas interesting, in particular, they mentioned a few sports bars that used actual footballs that either had the drink menus or menus written on the outside -- or a football that split open (and was velcroed shut on the inside) with the menu on the inside. Waitresses could then even throw the footballs to the customers! (maybe a dicey idea though!) A few cool other ideas were using an actual home plate (albiet a little lighter than an real life homeplate) as a menu, or having a menu shaped and decorated like a letterman's jacket.

I think that making your bar or resteraunt stand out is a big part of the entire atmosphere. Any Joe Schmo can put together a bar in a good location with good prices. What really keeps people coming back over and over is creating an atmosphere where people will remember your bar and want to come back for it -- not for the prices. In a competitive climate where you can simply get undercharged, especially here in Columbia, and lose a lot of business, I think creating this environment is the only way to maintain a constant cash flow and a constant crowd coming back to your bar over and over again.

Keeping good records, the key to success?

Often in a business, the financial plan can be great, the ideas amazing, but the business falls apart because the owner and managers are either too disorganized or too lazy to keep accurate records. This article from MECC Small Business Devlopment Center discusses ways to keep your business organized and keep records in line so that you can accurately predict where your company will go in the future.

One difficult issue to decide when maintaining a business is whether or not to hire someone to maintain your financial records for you. While it can be an expensive proposition, as the article points out, "bear in mind that solid financial advice frequently can increase your profits, more than covering the professional fees." Thus, especially because I know a lot of people who are entering the field of accounting and finance as personal friends, I would probably go after a professional to maintain my records for my bar. However, even without a possible discount, saving yourself the time and stress to just go ahead and have someone do all of the dirty work for you would most likely be worth the cost.

But who should you hire and what should you look for when hiring someone to keep track of your accounts? As the article lists, you should try to find someone who has a good educational background and extensive and broad experience. Going into the bar business, I would probably try to look for someone who had a background keeping records for a bar or resteraunt that would know the ins and outs of what I was planning on doing. In addition, it would help having the experience to be able to give other forms of advice should issues arise.

Another good reason to maintain proper records (and to have someone make sure your records are properly maintained) is that time of year that is everyone's favorite, tax season. When the IRS comes to your company asking for accurate records, having everything stored away properly will save you tons of time and headaches. Without good records for your company, you could end up either overpaying or underpaying your taxes, crippling the future of your company. Running a bar, there would be a lot of potential things being bought and sold and tons of accounts to keep track of. Having to scramble at the last second to try and figure them all out could be next to, if not impossible.

The article gives a checklist that you should follow to make sure that your records are being maintained properly including the following:

• How much income are you generating now, and how much income can you expect to generate in the future?
• How much cash is tied up in accounts receivable (and thus not available to you) and for how long?
• How much do you owe for merchandise? Rent? Equipment?
• What are your expenses, including payroll, payroll taxes, merchandise and benefit plans for yourself and employees (such as health insurance, retirement, etc.)?
• How much cash do you have on hand? How much cash is tied up in inventory? What is your actual working capital budget?
• How frequently do you turn over your inventory?
• Which of your product lines, departments or services are making a profit, which are breaking even, and which are financial drains?
• What is your gross profit? What is your net profit?
• How does all of the financial data listed above compare with last year - - or last quarter? How do they compare with the projections in your business plan.
• How does all the financial data compare with those of your competitors? With those of the industry?

Answering all of these honestly is the only way to make sure that your company will perform at its peak efficiency.

Drink of the Day (October 3)

Quite honestly one of the most atrocious drinks I've ever had, but I'll give it a shout out here because my grandpa loves them to death. :) I have many fond memories of him drinking them over a campfire while deer hunting and while I hate them, I suppose they could be ordered at a bar quite often. So here it is...

The Manhattan
Garnish is almost more important to this drink than the ingredients, as it's pretty simple to make otherwise. Simply stir a blended whiskey and a sweet vermouth together with ice, and strain it into a cocktail glass. Add a twist of orange, top with a maraschino cherry, and there you go! Gulp it down quick because it's not a very good taste for the non-wiskey aquired drinker such as myself!

Small Business Ideas?

I'll continue with the ideas from the last post on small business startup with a post here about an article I read from The Entrepreneur Network by Jerry Glen on the pros and cons of starting up a small business. Relatively my entire family has made their living in life doing somewhat of a small business startup, so it's pretty interesting to me for more of a reason than just starting up a bar. My dad always told me when I was growing up that "no one made money working for someone else" and while I guess that's kind of untrue, it's also very true that setting your own hours, your own pay, and controlling everything about the way you work has to be a pretty nice way to go through life.

The article covers partnerships, sole proprietorships, and corporations and the pros and cons of each. This is an aspect that I definitely didn't think a whole lot about, as it would definitely be a lot easier to get things started up with investors or a few partners, but on the opposite side of things, it would also tend to restrict you a little bit more in regards with what you want to do with your business. I wish I could think of the quote about too many cooks spoiling the soup or something like that, but it eludes me right now and I'm too lazy to Google it. But think of it as that if you have any idea of what the hell I'm talking about. :)

The most intriguing part of the article I found was the questions that they list that you should be asking yourself before starting a business. They list a TON of questions for all types of situations, such as:

• Common reasons for wanting to start a business
• What type of business would be right for you
• Identifying your business' niche audience
• A pre-startup checklist you should go over before doing anything

These questions would all help you avoiding big problems down the line by facing issues that you had no idea existed, or that you had previously not anticipated. As has been the underlying theme with pretty much EVERY startup article I've read, being prepared is the number one most important thing to cover when starting a business. So with my next four posts over the next week or so, I'm going to try and cover my startup by answering and being truthful with myself for the questions they have listed in those four categories.

Drink of the Day (October 1)

I've been posting a lot of drinks that I've had/heard of quite a bit so I thought I'd expand my horizons here and post something I had never heard of. It was the drink of the week for the Drink Recipe website that I frequent but I haven't ever seen/heard of it. Perhaps I'm a bit sheltered. Who knows? And I couldn't find a picture of it, so instead you get a generic surfer.

HAWAIIAN SURFER
Five part drink here but not too complicated really. Mix an ounce of Amaretto, an ounce of Malibu coconut rum, a half ounce of sour mix, and then fill the rest of the cocktail shaker with half pineapple mix and half 7-up. Shake it up, pour it into a big glass, and enjoy!