In This Economy, Play “Small Ball” for Success!

Posted in: Blog by Glenn S. Phillips on May 19, 2009 | 1 Comment

Everyone loves the “Home Run,” whether it is in baseball or business.  That one play (or project) that scores for sure, makes the paper and even has a clear hero!   Unfortunately for many teams and businesses, home runs are not the most common play.  And in a slow economy, the home run deals become even less common for businesses, potentially putting companies at risk.

So if you are a good coach or manager, what do you do when the big hits are slumping?  You recognize the situation, you take what the opponent is giving and you adjust.  You deliberately play “small ball.”   That is, you manufacture scoring by patiently hitting singles, bunts and taking the walks.  You suggest smarter projects to the client for things they really need or did not have time for last year.  You find creative ways to setup projects and flexibly payment plans.  Does all this have more overhead and effort?  Probably.  However, it typical has less risk too and, in some ways, that reduces the overhead of all the strike outs you get swinging for the home runs.  

It the current economy, most businesses that may hire your company will likely have slowed or stopped the big projects for at least the short-term.  But business and commerce has not stopped, it continues on.  That means the companies that can step up and “take one for the team” by accepting smaller, flexible projects from their clients can stay busy and successful.  These companies also demonstrate stability that can add to their reputation when business heats up again.

Keep in mind that playing “small ball” with projects does not mean unprofitable.  Playing “small ball” in business means you are still advancing the bases, still limiting strikeouts and still playing the game with discipline.   In some ways, you are even playing with more discipline.  That can be a good thing for you and your clients!

Temporary finance for your business

Posted in: Blog, Funding by Brian Cauble on May 15, 2009 | No Comments

Imagine for a second that your business is experiencing a shortage in cash flow. You sitting at your desk late at night looking at the screen wondering how you make payroll. The funny thing is that accounting shows that you are profitable. You have made money. The problem is that your money is tied up by people who owe you money (accounts receivable). If you could only get those people to pay your invoices, you would be fine. So how do you do it? You can’t.

However, you can get the money that is owed to you through a method called Factoring. Factoring means that you are selling your invoices at a discount. Factors will buy (most of) these invoices and they will collect it. The upside is that you get your cash immediately, and you can make payroll. Another upside is that you don’t have to collect the money. The factor now owns these invoices. The downside is factoring can be an expensive form of financing. However, some times it can be a good form of temporary financing in your business.

If you have relatively good credit, you should consider borrowing against your assets instead of Factoring. You can borrow against your A/R, Real Estate, Inventory, Purchase Orders and anything else of value that can be liquidated. This is called Asset Based Lending and it works much more like a home equity loan for business. Except your collateral is not your house. It is your assets. Just like any loan, you pay a rate (normally lower) on only what cash you borrow and you pay it back in the future.

These are both good alternative methods of getting cash when you are generally a strong company but in need of temporary cash. Just use them sparingly and make sure that you shop around for the best rate. The are thousands of Factors and practically all banks will lend you on your assets. Good luck!

Networking is hard work, but totally worth it

Posted in: Blog, Networking by Brian Cauble on May 1, 2009 | 4 Comments

I have spent the better part of the last month networking. I have been to event after event all over town. OSBO, BNI, Innovation depot seminar, Bar Camp, Birmingham Entrepreneur meeting, Career seminar at New Horizons, Tech Birmingham breakfast, and more that I don’t remember. I have also spent hours responding to emails asking questions about what people are doing and finding ways that I can help them.

I know what you’re thinking. “I am way too busy” or “Why bother?”. Because frankly, this is how business is done and reputations are built. There are truly amazing people in Birmingham, and there are good opportunities in Birmingham. If you find yourself complaining about your job, I challenge you to become active in the community. Go to a variety of activities around town. You may not be able to attend them all or you may have to rotate each of them to get them all in, but do it. It will help you find wonderful opportunities and people.

My final points are simple. Be genuine and helpful whenever you can. The more you help other people, the more you get back in return. Offer to introduce people or pass resumes on. Just help them when you can. Second, become a leader of something. Create a group or join a group and volunteer to help organize. Being a leader opens doors that you didn’t even know were closed.

Truth be told, it is really hard work. I am tired. I was tempted to not even post tonight. Then I thought back to just people I met this week and I realized that it was totally worth it!

Why is passion important?

Posted in: Blog, Uncategorized by Brian Cauble on April 23, 2009 | 1 Comment

If you have heard it once, you have heard it a 100 times. You need to be passionate about your business to be successful. Do you really? Why? I guess it depends on your definition of success. You and I both know plenty of people that run fairly successful businesses that don’t love what they do. Their business has good growth and seems to be doing fine. When you talk to them, you can tell that they don’t love what they do.

So what gives? I believe that you can create a business in something you aren’t passionate about and you can be successful, but let me tell you why passion is important.

Starting a business is really, really difficult. It takes your constant time and attention. It will push you to wonder about your abilities and you will work harder and longer than you ever have before.  If you truly care about and believe in what you do, you will still get tired. You will still have stress. But it’s different. When you love what you do, it is so much easier to work that late night or weekend. You find yourself constantly thinking about how to improve your marketing, sales, products, and services. You feel satisfied about what your doing. As a matter of fact, you would do it for free. Making money at it just gives you more time to spend doing it. It just makes everything you do a little easier.

There is a second reason that it makes such a difference to be passionate. Have you ever heard of the 10,000 hour rule? It is discussed heavily in many books such as Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers. The thought is that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in your field. This means it takes that many hours of pure programming to become an expert software developer. Since there are other things you do every day even when you are working, that is roughly seven years till you are an expert. Do you think that you will get to the expert level faster if you are passionate about what you do? Of course you will. If you don’t care for what you do, you spend as little time possible doing it so that you can do what you care about.

Finally, life is short. Spending your days doing something you care about is possible and achievable. You may have to spend quite a bit of time thinking about what you enjoy doing and how you can translate that into a business. It won’t be easy, but it is worth it. Millions of people do it. Everybody you read about or talk to that is extremely successful has figured out how to take their unique strengths and interests and turn it into their living.

You and I know both know in our heart that passion is important. Now you just have to believe that it is possible and worth it.

Amazing technology

Posted in: Blog, Technology by Brian Cauble on April 1, 2009 | No Comments

I saw something truly amazing today. Imagine going to a doctor because you haven’t been feeling very well. Your head has just been really hurting lately. The doctor decides to do a CAT Scan after your initial examine because something is bothering him. 30 minutes after your CAT Scan, the doctor calls you back to give you the news. He pulls up your brain in 3D on a 50″ inch flat panel and shows you a extremely small tumor. It so small that you don’t see it until he zooms amazingly close.

Today I saw the prototype for this system. It exists and was developed in Birmingham. The only thing holding it back from saving lives is a source of funding. It was really amazing.

Creating entrepreneurship in Birmingham

Posted in: Blog, Uncategorized by Brian Cauble on March 30, 2009 | 2 Comments

Well, this is my first blog post so I guess I am officially joining the world of bloggers.  Many of you know this, but we started a group called Birmingham Entrepreneur back in December of 2008.  The goal was to promote and encourage entrepreneurship in Birmingham, AL in any way we can.  While we are still young, we have already attracted the interest of many.  We currently have 100+ people in our LinkedIn group.  If you are at all interested in owning a business or currently own a small business, please consider joining us on LinkedIn.

What do we want to accomplish?  Good question.  We are still finding our path a bit, but like I said before, we want to promote startups in the area.  I think we can accomplish this in several ways.  First of all, we (the members) have to get to know each other.  I firmly believe that we have to understand the passions, motivations, and skills of each other.  In this way, we can find others with similar interests and passions and complimentary skills.  Second, we can (and should) be resources to each other.  If I need to know something about accounting for instance, I hope that someone can step up and point you in the right direction.  I really hope that many people will want to help each other to see where it leads and because it is the right thing to do.  Finally, why reinvent the wheel?  There are many successful entrepreneurs in Birmingham and we should learn from them.  I believe we can provide access to successful people who might be able to save you time and the pain of learning it the hard way.

So here’s to enjoying this journey together and creating something worthwhile for Birmingham.

Brian