Lessons learned from small business

Learn to ‘flan’

I had a fabulous business plan and some really great products, but I didn’t gain traction until I learned to ‘flan’. ‘Flanning’ is a combination of planning and going with the flow. You have to make plans and then be prepared to change them as circumstances change or you get more knowledge about what customers and clients really want. I thought I was going to sell ‘apples’ and I did, but not very successfully. When I tweaked the idea and starting selling ‘bananas’ (apples with a supercharged twist), I had trouble keeping up with demand.

The other aspect of ‘flanning’ is time frames. You might want to be at a certain point in two years, but if a family member gets sick or one of your staff commits fraud (both happened), then the plan has to be flexible enough to change.

Trust your instincts

I have been on the receiving end of some doozy sales pitches from marketing and branding gurus. "Don’t pay me, I will work for 10 per cent of the increased profits you make". (It doesn’t take long to work out how many inherent nightmares there are in that one-line pitch). "It doesn’t matter if you overpromise and underdeliver, that’s what people expect", "It doesn’t matter if you don’t understand the marketing campaign, you are not your clients and this is how everyone is marketing at the moment" and "You must make social media your highest priority".

Trust your intuition when a service provider either promises you something that sounds too good to be true or tries to sell you something you don’t understand. If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. If you don’t understand it, then your clients won’t either. ‘Flavour of the month’ anything is not good if it doesn’t contribute to your bottom line. I don’t have the time or resources to put into ‘flavour of the month’ advertisements that fail to deliver me business.

Have the right motivation

At an internal level, we motivate ourselves either ‘towards’ what we want (a business which nets me $450,000 per year) or ‘away from’ what we don’t want (to work for someone else for example). One of these works incredibly well and the other is a recipe for a yo-yo small business cycle.

The yo-yo small business cycle goes like this. You have a strong initial motivation to take action and remove yourself from your source of pain (e.g. working for someone else). Once you are away from the source of pain, your enthusiasm starts to wane until one day you look at your bank account and realise things are not great and the source of pain is looming again (I am not making enough money and I might have to work for someone else again). Then you work like crazy and get the business back on track… at least until the pain is removed again and you start to take it easy all over again.

The best way to overcome this cycle is to have some solid business goals you would like to achieve and then take the steps to get there.

Don’t be too clever (keep it simple if you have a choice)

If you are running a small business, aim to keep it as simple as you can. For example, when you are choosing a business name, a logo or a ‘tag line’, don’t be seduced into being too clever. Keep it simple. If you clean houses at Caloundra, then ‘Caloundra House Cleaning’ is a great name because it says where you are, what you do and is something people are likely to type into their search engine. If you were to call it ‘Cleaners 4 U’, it is not clear what type of cleaning you do or where you are located. It is also going to be difficult for people who have heard your name to know how to type it into their search engine.

When it comes to names:

• Choose something that is spelled how it is pronounced and does not include numbers so it is easier for people to do an internet search for you.

• Choose a tag line that simply states what you do. It took me 15 minutes of conversation with a man to eventually work out from the tag line on his business card and the ‘pitch’ he gave me to understand that what he did was put shelves in shops. Potential clients shouldn’t have to work that hard to understand what you offer.

Face and overcome limitations

It never ceases to amaze me how stunningly brilliant humans are at self-sabotage. We will live much smaller lives and have much less successful businesses than we could if we acknowledged, accepted and worked through our limitations.

Let me give you an example of how even family expectations can limit us. Is it OK to be a thief? You would probably say ‘no’. What if you came from a family of pick pockets who have made their living that way for many generations? In that case, you could be ostracised by your family if you chose not to be a thief. Our culture, our social network, our families and sometimes even our closest loved ones can provide unexpected limitations when we decide to run a business. "Don’t get too big for your boots". "You don’t have what it takes". "Are you sure about this?" "She’s the only one in the family who didn’t’ go into medicine; waste of brains really".

Your other limitations come from your beliefs about and attitudes towards what is and isn’t possible for you. There is a famous story about a motor car dealer in America when the global financial crisis hit. Other dealerships starting talking doom and gloom, laid off staff and cut back on stock. Instead he got his staff to drive vehicles out to rich estates and offer free test drives. Once you’ve had a test drive in a new car, your old one isn’t ever quite as nice. He didn’t experience a downturn as the other dealers did because he had different beliefs and attitudes.

Forget how it’s always been done

We are in times of unprecedented and accelerating change. Doing things the way they have always been done is no longer going to be good enough. We are still using business and management systems that were designed for the business world that existed decades ago.

The capacity to embrace change is increasingly a skill necessary for us to cope and thrive in life and business. Now to succeed in small business, you will need to have a beginner’s mindset – open and curious about what could be done differently and how it is likely to change in the future.

See it as a challenge, laugh in its face and enjoy the ride. Queensland has a not-for-profit family law firm – that is a complete mindset reversal for the average lawyer. I have a colleague who has developed a ‘virtual body’ for trying on clothes online – a complete reversal from walking into a shop and trying them on yourself. What is possible in your industry? Start to think more flexibly about how you could approach the way you run your business, the systems you use, the people you employ or what you sell. Is there a twist you could give things to give them more value or make them unique?

In small business, it isn’t always possible to stay on top of all the knowledge yourself, but if you can talk to other people you can still be well informed on what is happening.

We need more successful small business in Australia and we also need more people with the courage to step out and lead the way. Ensure you get some great advice and then enjoy the incredibly rewarding journey of your small business.

Petris Lapis, director, Petris Lapis Pty Ltd