It’s very thrilling when you first started pursuing your goals as an entrepreneur. At some point, however, your excitement starts to dwindle as you are barraged with so many urgent things to do. If you are experiencing this very same sentiment now, you are not alone.

According to Entrepreneur Daily, the level of optimism has waned among small business owners, from 80.4% in June to 69.5% in Aug 2007. Maybe you’re wondering if it’s still worth it to achieve your goals, even if you don’t feel an ounce of excitement right now. In case this is you, here are some tips on how to battle your inner demons:

Watch Mission: Impossible

An uninspired and negative thinking entrepreneur starts looking for any excuses as soon as a problem crops up. Be Ethan Hunt (the fictional character played by Tom Cruise in the movie Mission: Impossible) and love the challenge of solving seemingly impossible problems. Consider all probable angles to solve your problems and do not give yourself any excuse to bail out.

Take a Time Out and Smell the Roses

Overdriving is a killer. While many of us love the rush of running the day-to-day operations, it will take its toll at some point of our career. Why not take your family for a short vacation and free your mind from worries. If you’re still reluctant, a short coffee break or a walk in the park might help clear up your perspective.

A fatal business mistake committed by some entrepreneurs is pretending they know everything there is to know about running their business. Maybe it’s pride that’s keeping them from asking “stupid” questions. Leading your startup means relying both on your expertise and consulting with your employees as well.

I have stumbled upon an interesting management style from Jim Collins, author of the renowned book Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t and it’s called “lead with question”:

Leading from good to great does not mean coming up with the answers and then motivating everyone to follow your messianic vision. It means having the humility to grasp the fact that you do not yet understand enough to have the answers and then to ask the questions that will lead to the best possible insights.

This is a good combination with another management style discussed previously, leading by listening. You can call an informal forum with your trusted employees and open the session with a general question like, “what should we be worried about?”

In case you are wondering what specific questions you can discuss about, Write to Right provides 10 questions to answer your business direction.

Business ethics represent your moral principles or values. Unfortunately, some of the age-old business practices are either unethical or considered part of the gray area. Common unethical practices include price fixing, bribery, bid rigging, and selling substandard products.

As your small business continues to expand, you might encounter decisions that will challenge your business ethics. Given this situation, you should know how to influence your employees to maintain your values all the time. Here’s what you can do:

• Set a clear policy and standard procedures about the right values and ethics related to customers, employees, and suppliers.
• Gather your employees and run several “what if” scenarios related to common unethical practices in your industry. This will greatly help your employees maintain their composure under pressure.
• Recognize employees who uphold your business ethics even if it results in lost revenues. Doing the right thing might result in significant losses. However, if you are dead serious about this, you should learn to accept it and reward those who do the same.

Do you know that business ethics can be a competitive edge? Find out how at Business Pundit.

If you want to boost the productivity in your workplace, you should start by saying “thank you” to your employees. According to Brain Based Business, these two simple yet powerful words can transform both your personal and professional relationships.

Say thanks to somebody – for something - according to Dr. Robert Emmons … and watch the power of gratitude transform the human brain. It also brings benefits not found in any ordinary workplace.

Managing your employees is very similar to marketing to your customers. They also need appreciation and recognition. Whether you are saying thanks to your employees or customers, you should observe the following:

Timing is Important

Saying thanks right away instead of waiting for another hour or day renders maximum impact to the receiver. Showing your appreciation is more about courtesy and less about creativity.

If you want to send a thank-you gift to a loyal customer, you should do it before or after holidays, but not during holidays. Chances are, many businesses including your competitors will do the same and that will not make you unique.

Thank Even Complaining Employees and Customers

You should not limit your appreciation to your good employees and loyal customers. In fact, you should try to give a little more attention to your complaining customers and employees. Outspoken employees might help you correct some of the recurring problems in your company such as miscommunication or unsanitary workplace.

Also, a complaining customer is most probably a buying customer. Annoyed customers do not usually complain about your products or services. What they do is shift to your competitors. If a customer complains, it means they he or she is still interested in your product or service, provided you correct your mistakes. Thank them for giving you that one more chance.

Offering incentives is a common practice to motivate employees and increase sales. However, you might have an impression that incentives are for employees only, particularly your sales force. Yes, it is very important to some businesses and you might want to read Young Entrepreneur’s comprehensive discussion on creating a sales incentive program.

But do you know that you have a hidden sales force waiting to be tapped? Yes there is, and they are your beloved customers. Their incentive program comes in different names such as a finder’s fee - which is common in real estate- and affiliate or referral fee for online marketing.

Powered by word-of-mouth marketing, your existing customers can help you get new customers and encourage trials of your products or services. Even if you do not have extra funds to create an incentive program for customers, you still have alternatives such as:

1. Product discounts
2. Group discounts
3. Free samples or consultation
4. Extended warranties

To make this incentive program effective, you should consult with your customers and brainstorm what rewards will entice them to actively recommend your products or services.

Before deciding on who should write for your business blog, you might still be wondering whether your business website should even have a blog. My general answer is yes. Companies with a business website can benefit from having a weblog for a multitude of reasons, including staying fresh in the search engines. Here are some other perspectives:

1. Customer Evangelists offer 7 reasons to business blog.
2. Rohit Bhargava points 5 lesssons he learned while building up his blog and getting a million impressions in a week. Also check out his article 5 ways to improve your blog.
3. David at xfep asks if blogging is a skill worth having.
4. Des at Business and Blogging suggests that it is worth having, since blogging is a transferable skill.
5. To drive home the importance, Mack says that blogging is a strategy for companies, not a fad.

At the very least, a blog for your business can help you establish some authority in your industry. You don’t have to update it every day, but some consistency of posting schedule helps.

If you’re not convinced, feel free to comment here. State your concerns, what you’re hoping to achieve.

One of the problems with running a business online is the pressing need for fresh articles on your company website - else risk stagnation of search engine results. Writing was hardly a requirement of most business owners, even in the first decade of the Internet. Now, with blogs so popular and so many people saying a business website should have one, you are probably considering it. A good blog can be an ideal branding tool for your company. But who should write for your business blog, and what should you write about?

Maybe you’re too busy, and you may not have a PR department, let alone people with writing skills. What about a comments moderation policy, handling comments, or commenting elsewhere? Should all this be handled by executives, C-level management, non-management employees, or a hired blogger?

If you decide to have a blog, these are concerns you must deal with. Basically, it boils down to this. If you don’t have someone capable of writing regularly - even short summaries - at least 3 days per week, you should either hire someone capable or put the decision to blog on the backburner.

Recommended Reading

Here is some recommended reading:

1. Chris Garrett’s How to business blog without being unprofessional, which is aimed at bloggers who blog for businesses. It’ll give you the perspective of any blogger you might hire.
2. Also check out the Bloggers for Hire blog, run by Jim Turner and Tris Hussey, who run One By One Media. Jim and Tris communicate with a lot of business owners and help them find suitable bloggers. Particularly read Hiring bloggers gaining steam.
3. David Dalka’s Where are the C-level people? which points out that having a non-blogger manage blogs might not be in your business’ best interests.
4. Marshall Kirkpatrick’s Introducing good bloggers and companies to hire them, which is referenced by all the articles in #1-3 above. Marshall writes about how he is currently getting a lot of requests to help hook up bloggers and business owners, and how he’s helping.
5. Liz Strauss’ Successful Blog talks about blogging, developing conversations, and in a general sense is about business blogging.
6. Debbie Weil’s BlogWrite for CEOs offers advice for executives who blog. She’s also the author of The Corporate Blogging Book.

Summary

I know everyone above except David and Debbie, and I know that most of them can help you in some consulting capacity. Some of them are even available for blogging. You can also drop comments in this post, and I’ll do what I can to help you find a blogger, or can point you to resources. (Your email address will not appear in the comment unless you actually put it in the body of the comment.)

We’ll cover what topics your blog should cover in a subsequent article: What is Your Business Blog About. Don’t forget to check out our sister Design blog, which covers various aspects of developing websites and weblogs, including general blogging issues for any type of blog.

After you read Seriously Business’ post about how Body Shop’s Anita Roddick succeeded through hard work, you might be more energized and inspired to turn your dreams to reality. On the other hand, how can you really tell if you are a hardworking entrepreneur just like Ms. Roddick?

A typical hardworking entrepreneur is the one who spends countless hours in his office. You might want to rethink that notion and redefine the concept of a hardworking entrepreneur. You should focus now on business results rather than the number of hours you devote to your small business. Always strive for work/life balance by finding ways to work efficiently. Here are some tips you can apply:

Monitor Your Performance

Aside from evaluating day to day operations, you should be aware of your work habits and identify areas for improvement. Try to make a list of activities you’ve accomplished every single day and you will see how much time is wasted on doing unimportant tasks. You should end micromanaging and empower your employees to make business decisions.

Set Your Work Hours

Discipline yourself to be like any other employee working 8 hours per day. Learn when to stop working and start spending quality time with your family and friends. A good way to do this is to set a fixed working period and follow it religiously.

Want to know what factors lead to success? Biz Plan Hacks has an interesting summary about a seven-year study on 500 successful people. As expected, “strong focus” is one of the key success factors.

If you are a starting entrepreneur, you might find it hard to focus considering that there are so many things to do with so little time. You might be confused where to allocate most of your time and resources. As a guide, you can start by doing one thing better than your competitors by focusing on the following:

1. Concentrate on customer service. It is not enough to sell product to every customer; you must delight them always so they will crave more. One way to create this addiction is providing superb customer service.
2. Focus on getting your hands dirty. Know every detail of your business from marketing, selling, accounting, and even some IT-related stuff. This will help you craft more practical strategies and set realistic goals.
3. Concentrate on what you are doing wrong. By keenly evaluating your business mistakes, you can easily arrest these problems and make any much-needed adjustments.
4. Focus on best practices. By copying what the competitors are doing, it will be very difficult to overtake them. Instead, you can study the best practices across industries and apply it to your business.

One difficult aspect of running a small business is the collection of past due invoices. Some entrepreneurs find this part very uneasy but it is really necessary if you want to survive in the long run.

The first thing you need to do is keep your cool and do not resort to any form of verbal or written harassment. Assume that it must have slipped their minds and it is your duty to remind them. In case you are facing this situation now, here’s what you can do:

The Ring

Make phone calls to your delinquent customers to remind them of their past due payments and politely ask them to settle it immediately. This is also your opportunity to determine the circumstances involved why that customer failed to pay on time. If they cannot pay in full, it is better to come up with an installment payment scheme instead of getting nothing.

Unleash Hell

If a customer is not yet willing to pay his debts after several calls from you, it is time to take a stand and claim what is rightfully yours. You can contact your legal counsel or refer this matter to a collection agency. You must act quickly; otherwise you will have to write off that debt as an expense.

Ask for Upfront Payment

In case you still don’t have the wherewithal to confront your delinquent customers, it is better to take a more proactive approach by asking your customers for a deposit upfront or a staggered payment based on milestones. However, always check the prevailing business practices in your industry to check if this acceptable.

Via BizInformer