The next thing you need to do is check the balance sheet – not for the current year, but for the past several years. Obviously you will look at the profits. But keep an eye open for other things as well. Have there been a lot of ups and downs? If so why? Has the profit been steady with no real growth? This is not a good sign. Has all the profit come from operations or has some money come in from the sale of assets (even small things like computers and furniture)? Yes, obsolete equipment needs to be sold off, but is this the real reason? If the current year’s profits are exceptionally high, look carefully for the reasons. Could it be that the owner has artificially boosted the figures to make the purchase look sweeter to you? Understanding accounts is a fine art. If you are not competent to do this yourself, get professional help. It’s worth the cost.

Study the business and economic environment. Is the company dealing in products or services that are becoming outmoded? Or is there legislation on the anvil that will restrict the use of the product or service? If so, the business doesn’t have a future.

Check out the financial aspects that do not appear on the balance sheet. Get a copy of the owner’s credit rating. Is he in debt? Could it be that he has been using his personal funds to keep the business looking healthy? Check with the local Better Business Bureau to see what information they have on the business. Banks are notoriously reluctant to talk about their clients, but there is no harm in meeting the company’s banker and asking a few questions.

Meet the other stake holders – the web designer and hosting company, the computer maintenance people, the suppliers. They too may not be willing to say too much, but even from their attitude, you can learn a lot about how their relations with the company have been.

The employees will also not say much. But spending some time with them will tell you if the office atmosphere is positive or negative.

Buying a running business can be a good idea. Just be sure that if you are paying for an apple, you are not getting a lemon.

The other way is when you already have a product or service available. You need to find out where it can be sold, to whom and for how much. You need to know how to place the product or service in the market.

Based on the information gathered, you then have to plan your production, set sales targets and do your budgeting and costing, along with planning your promotional strategies.

Selling is defined as “To exchange ownership for money or its equivalent.” Is sounds simple but it is not. Selling is executing a plan. If running a business is like a battle, sales is the front line. Everything else are Headquarters’ operations. Selling is exchanging your products for money. How this is done is the sales plan. Marketing will tell you where the market is, but locating the customers, persuading them to pay for the product, negotiating prices and deliveries is selling. Selling does not end with the receipt of the payment. An important part of selling is ensuring the customer returns.

While they are separate functions, Marketing and Sales have to be closely linked. Marketing may develop plans that are not in touch with ground realities, which Sales knows best. Sales may not be aware of new markets of positioning opportunities which Marketing, with its broader perspective, will be able to identify. Marketing and Sales have to work together on the selling plan and financials. Is it better to look at lower volumes and higher margins or the converse? Sales will develop special selling campaigns and price schemes. But Marketing needs to be involved so that they can offer their inputs on how these campaigns can be used not just to increase volumes but the broaden the market.

Marketing is a cerebral function – gathering information, processing it, understanding what can be sold where and in what volumes at what kind of price. Sales is a physical function – taking the product into the market, selling it and bringing in the money. Neither function has any purpose without the other. Planning without implementation is worthless, as is action with out knowing where, when, how and why to act. If Sales and Marketing are able to use common support resources like Ringgle (http://www.ringgle.com) the synergies are easier to achieve.

Even in the smallest of companies, where one person may look after both functions, there is a tendency to give more weight to one which is a big mistake. Success come when Sales and Marketing act as two sides of the same coin.

THE BAD EDGE
• Never let success make you arrogant. Arrogance leads to over confidence which is a prime cause of mistakes and failures.
• Do not take success for granted. Because something worked last time, do not take the easy way out and try doing the same thing again. Every situation needs its own response. What worked in the past may be wrong in the future and trying the same thing again in changed circumstances can lead to failure.
• Never forget those who contributed to your success. If you do, they won’t be there to help the next time.
• Success brings its share of parasites – those who gravitate to you looking for a free lunch or a ride on your coat tails. Be discriminating on who you allow into your business circle. Let in those who can contribute and keep out those who have their own agendas. This is a tough thing to learn and you will make mistakes. But as you get more experienced, you will learn to spot the freeloader. Remember that locking out the potential a helper is as bad as letting in the parasite.
• One of the most unnoticed things that can happen to a businessman is to become scared of success. Yes it does happen! Success brings added work and responsibilities. Many people allow this to frighten them and subconsciously become fearful of taking on more. Examine yourself. Is this happening to you? If so, control it by:
o Looking at all you have achieved. If you allowed this fear to affect you when you started, you would not be where you are today.
o You don’t know how much more you can take on till you try.
o Your experience and the knowledge you have gained should make more responsibility easier to handle, not harder.
o You do not have to do everything yourself. Look for those who can work with you and share the load.
o Find resources that can help you. Outsourcing is a great way to reduce your current burden and allowing your focus to remain on more growth and success. Visit sites like http://www.ringgle.com and see where you can find the support you need to get to your next success

The PCP is nothing to do with cooking or selling kitchen utensils. It’s an analogy for the stress every businessman has to live with and how he deals with it. A pressure cooker works by building up steam pressure inside. This pressure speeds up the cooking process and also prevents a lot of the useful nutrients in the food being lost during the cooking process. The problem with pressure cookers is that if the excess pressure release mechanism fails, it may explode! So what’s this got to do with your business? Read on.

A business needs to be efficient. The more efficient, the more likely it is of being successful. Efficiency is created by work pressure. If your business requires only 4 hours a day of your time, you don’t need to be efficient. But you also are probably not growing. It’s when your business needs 20 hours a day that you need to be efficient so that you can manage everything in reasonable time frame. That’s working under pressure. Working under pressure is good for you and your business. It keeps you thinking of better solutions and pushes you for perform better. But many people make the mistake of letting the pressure overwhelm then. They don’t have the excess pressure release mechanism and like the pressure cooker, if the pressure gets to great, things blow up.

So how do you revel under pressure but ensure that it doesn’t blow up your business?

• Set your self reasonable targets – things you can achieve without killing yourself. Sure there is always more to be done, but there are ways of tacking that.
• Know when to outsource. This is the best safety measure. Off loading work reduces the pressure on you. Have a look at http://www.ringgle.com for ideas on this.
• Do you need to hire help? Many small business owners shy away from this because of the liabilities having an employee involves and the stress of recruiting and training which add to the immediate pressure. Sure, there are short term problems, but in the long run a growing business will need more than one person. Dividing the work load between 2 or more pressure cookers means the pressure for each one is reduced.

Just as the pressure cooker lets off a whistle when the pressure reaches optimum, know how to spot the signs that your business pressures are reaching the most you can handle. There are hundreds of books about overwork and stress. Read a few and know the signs. Keep listening for the first signs of the pressure cooker whistle and be ready to take action to prevent the vessel from exploding.

So how do you introduce an element of fun into your work? Here are some proven ideas. Choose any that suit you and look for your own original options.

• Routine is important. It ensures that regular tasks are done regularly. But some work is boring. Do you dislike accounts? If so finish it off the first thing every day. Then go on to the next least enjoyable task. As your day progresses, you will have more enjoyable work to look forward to.

• Let’s say you work 10 hours a day. Make it 11 hours and use the extra hour to do things you enjoy. Make a nice lunch for yourself. Try out new types of coffee. Keep time aside to read something nor related to work. Your work day has become a bit longer, but you will be surprised at how much faster times passes and how fresher and relaxed you are at the end of the day.

• Listen to music while you work. Do not choose music from your collection to match your mood. Listen to the radio where you do not know what will play next. The unexpected sound of something you like will perk you up.

• Get a dog so that you have to stop work a couple of times to take him for a walk. It’s a break you and your dog will enjoy.

• Join an online discussion group or form and use this to project the most outlandish ideas and concepts that you thought of but know will not work. Starting and moderating an outrageous discussion can be fun and a great way to make friends. Visit website solution sites like Ringgle. Even if you don’t need these services now, its fun to dream of when you grow so big that you will.

• If you have others working for you, make it a habit to share a coffee with them and exchange funny stories and talk about things not related to work. It eases many interpersonal tensions and makes the work place more relaxed.

Don’t make a joke of you business and work. It’s too important for that. But having fun does not do that. It is a tonic that, if taken everyday, will keep you active and creative. Doing fun things may add to the length of your work day, but you won’t notice because you have had fun. Remember not to let having fun take over your life. Strike the right balance and you will be the better for it.

But if you have grown your business, you have not only increased your business, but are better protected from this kind of set back. Lets look at some of the things you could have done over the last year to grow your business.

• You have been selling from your online store. Have you looked at selling on other sites with different product positioning? Could you have sold the dancing shoes through a party or formal clothes site as “party” shoes?

• What else can you sell along with the shoes? What about laces, shoe polish, socks and other accessories? You are staying within your area of expertise, but even is shoe sales drop, people will still need laces and polish. In fact, they may buy more laces and polish to maintain the shoes they already have.

• What about foot care products? They are needed by shoe wearers and even more by the barefoot dancers!

• Have you upgraded your website? Is it up to date in terms of design, interactivity and features? Does they site reflect the quality of your products and help your sales? Did you get expert advise from people like those at http://www.ringgle.com to help you get the maximum from your website?

• Did you examine the viability of selling other types of shoes? Even with a barefoot dancing craze, people still needs shoes for office!

• Have you created a list of your customers so that you can mail them about your special offers and new products and give them information about things like why wearing worn out shoes is bad for the feet? Or the dangers of barefoot dancing?

Above are just some of the things you could have done to help you business grow. This growth is comprised of two aspects. Firstly is increasing your turnover, which could happen, although more slowly, by just selling dancing shoes.

Secondly, growth adds variety to your sales options and product lines so that even if one area of operation is suffering, your business will continue with the support of the additional selling options and products available to you. Growth is not doing more of the same ting. It is both finding new ways of doing what you are already doing and also finding new things to do.

WHY

• Because diversification means you will have different business lines and if one suffers for any reason, you have the others to fallback on.

• Because you have gained a degree of business expertise and knowledge that you can profitably use in a new sphere of activity.

• Because your current business is stable and does not need your full time attention.

• Because you like the challenge and want the high of the days when you first started to visit you again.

• Because you can make more money!

WHEN

• As a business grows, expanding it requires more time and resources. Look at diversification when you are sure that the efforts you need to put into your current business could be more productive in a new line of operation.

• Look at diversification when you have an idea that you know will work and have studied the prospective new business in detail and know you can make a success of it.

• Plan on diversification when you know that the expertise, knowledge and experience you have will bring something new to your projected business. There is no point starting something new to be lost in a herd of others who were there before you.

• If you are planning to diversify into something new or unique, the rewards can be great, as are the risks. Are you sure you are ready?

HOW

• Study, study, study. The more you know about your planned new business, the better you can plan.

• Look at the big picture. Even if your specific business prospects are great, starting to diversify in an economy that is heading towards or already in a recession may not be a good idea. Having said that, doing something new when no one else is can bring a reward as big as the risk

• Be sure that your existing business will not be neglected. Its easy to take a stable line of business for granted and not notice problems until it is too late to do anything about them.

• You will be using resources created from your existing business to start the new one. Be sure that you have not taken too much from the old business and have left it too weak to survive.

• Make a business plan that covers everything involved with the start up and well as the first year of operation. Have metrics in place so you can constantly measure your progress and correct any problems.

• Know all the resources you will need, including manpower, or will have to create and be sure everything will be available when you need it. Look at outsourcing options can can help you by visiting sites like http://www.ringgle.com.

• Think everything over 10 times if you need to. Be sure of what you are doing when you start. Beginning a new venture with doubts will undermine everything you do.

• The only thing you can be sure of is that the unexpected will happen. Be prepared for surprises.

• Business runs in cycles. Be aware of what is happening in the economy as a whole and in your sphere of activity in detail. This will enable you to plan your growth to match your industry growth cycle.

• Evaluate the viability of what you plan. Do a SWOT analysis. Get expert outside help. Companies like Ringgle (http://www.ringgle.com) can help you to better understand where you are today so you can base your plans on realities.

• Create an action plan. The plan should be time bound and have milestones to enable you to measure your success.

• Know the resources you will need to implement the plan. You must know when these resources will be needed and what additional resources you will need to have ready.

• Implementing the plan will take time and energy. Can you do it yourself or do you need help? Do you need to employ more people? Or do you need outside help from companies like Ringgle? Or both? Be sure of your ability to implement the plan before starting.

• Once you start on your growth plan, you will encounter obstacles you had not planned for. Be prepared for them and be flexible in dealing with the unexpected. Being flexible does not mean abandoning your plan and switching over to a hastily formulated alternative. It means having a plan that takes into account the unexpected and give you room to maneuver. Do not allow yourself to lose sight of the reason you created the growth plan and the objectives it leads to.

• Launch your growth plan with confidence. Starting with doubts will always compromise the results.

• Using the milestones constantly evaluate your progress. Be objective in looking for areas where the plan is not progressing as it should and be prepared to give the weaker areas more attention. A growth plan where some aspects are lagging behind others will never succeed as it is meant to.

• Once you have successfully completed your growth plan, analyze everything you did. Hindsight is a great magnifying glass. Look for things you could have done better or in a different way.

• Once your growth plan has been accomplished, do not rest on our laurels. Start planning for the next stage of growth right away. It could be for something 2 years down the road, but that does not matter. Having your next objective in mind will have a positive impact on things you are currently doing. And the more time you have to plan and organize for the next stage of growth, the better your chances of success.

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Being able to know what you have in your personal armory to attack a problem is half the battle won. Being able to appreciate the opportunities and threats that surround you means you are always poised to either grab a chance or fight off competition.

STRENGTHS

Most people look at their strength in terms on their abilities, experiences and knowledge acquired. It is far more than these. You strengths can come from your family background, personal traits such as a sense of humor or a personal moral code and even physical strength that allows you to work for long hours.

Knowing your strengths takes time since everyone has latent talents that come to light only in specific circumstances. Also a strength is not always a strength. It depends on the circumstances. For example a tightly focused single minded approach to problem solving is a good approach when working alone, but will not pay dividends when working as part of a team.

WEAKNESSES

These are not so easy to identify as one may think. It requires a lot of objectivity on the part of the individual. As with strength, a weakness in one situation may not be so in another. Sympathy is a strength when dealing with colleagues who have problems but may not be a good thing for a team leader who needs to be focused exclusively on results. When dealing with a situation you need to know what your weaknesses are and protect yourself from allowing these to affect the outcome you want.

OPPORTUNITIES

Even the biggest of problem have opportunities in them. The trick is to be able to search for them and when fond, recognize what you have. For example, a drop in the demand for your products may adversely affect your finances, but the extra time it gives you could be spent in improving your business processes which will, in the future, protect you form such occurrences.

THREATS

A businessman will always have threats to his business and profits. As long as he recognizes them, he will find a way to deal with them. But he needs to go beyond this. He has to keep searching for threats and be aware of the possibilities and not just the obvious ones. This is not being paranoid. It is just being prepared so as to reduce the chances of being caught off guard by the unexpected.