Our Business Builder Book Club resumes after the holiday season. Please click on the book image below for all the details on our January meeting. Looking forward to seeing you! We are excited about possible Google+ “Hangout” integration for this meeting as well.

January 2012 Selection

Our office sponsors the Business Builder Book Club. A few members of the group asked to discuss sales in our next meeting. The book our discussion will be based on is Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive by Noah J. Goldstein, Steve J. Martin and Robert B. Cialdini. 

In this book, the authors reveal 50 simple but remarkably effective strategies that will make you

October 2011 Selection

much more persuasive at work and in your personal life, too. These strategies are based on more than 60 years of research into the psychology of persuasion.

Every day we face the challenge of persuading others to do what we want. But what makes people say yes to our requests? Persuasion is not only an art, it is also a science, and researchers who study have uncovered a series of hidden rules for moving people in your direction.

This is our last meeting of 2011, as we take a break for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

During this Networking and Knowledge night, you will have ample time to get to know fellow participants. You will gain the knowledge of the key points of one current, excellent, top-rated business book. In addition, there will be one key action item from each book that you can take back to your business and implement immediately.

Refreshments are served. Please RSVP by 5 PM of the Friday preceding each meeting. Call 860-564-6777 or email rrenfree@inneroffice.com to RSVP.

I’ve been emphasizing for the past few years that, in the “information age” small business owners have to be far more careful about how they conduct business.  “Hiding” anything is virtually impossible except on the short term.  All that means is that interest and penalties will have built up by the time the truth is out.  Don’t cheat.  Push beyond accepting that easy solution – and besides being able to sleep nights, you will be rewarded with a stronger, healthier, more prosperous business.

To reinforce my point, the IRS has hired a small army new auditors. In fact, in every government agency all up and down the hierarchy, the only departments not being cut are audit.  Since big business has big attorneys and tax agencies don’t understand how they operate anyway, they concentrate most of their efforts on small businesses – just like yours.

One current big push is being made by the Wage and Hour division of the Department of Labor.  Between siding squarely with the Unions and wanting to stick it to every business they can conceivably make a case to stick, they are going to make life rough and expensive, for a great many small businesses.  While governmental agencies have traditionally worked independently, technology and the need to maximize punishment now have them sharing information in more ways. 

Even if you’ve never violated a single labor or IRS rule, you can still be penalized simply for not having your records readily available for the auditors.  Unlike income tax records, ALL employment related records, starting with applications and ending with any paperwork that ensued after the employee left must be kept for a minimum of 5 years.  I do mean every single shred of paper.  If you reprimanded them, rewarded them, piece work records, raise records, and more must be maintained.  If you pay someone – especially if you get an extra benefit for it, like hiring your children – make sure you keep records.  Nothing can be verbal and even if someone works the exact same schedule every single day of the week, write it down.  Leave NOTHING to chance or verbal record.

Logically, you might think this applies only to employees, alas, it does not.  It includes anything you pay anyone for at any time.  “Anyone” includes corporations, LLCs, and sole proprietorships from whom you purchase goods or services. The IRS dishes out some very healthy penalties simply for not filing your 1099s:

$100 for each instance a 1099 Form is not filed with the IRS.
$100 each time a 1099 Form is not provided to the payee.
The maximum penalty is $250,000 for each type of non compliance. 

 Make sure you understand those rules and comply with those filing requirements as well.

‎***CANCELLED***
Hurricane Irene was kind enough to extend her stay as our house guest, but now we need extra time to clean up! Our meeting tomorrow night, August 30th, 6:30pm-8:30pm at the AmericInn in Griswold has been cancelled. Please stay tuned for our September 27th meeting.

With hurricane Irene headed this way, take a quick tech / information security inventory. Make sure you have off-site backups since your site may be damaged. Make sure irreplaceable things are safely stored. Get your insurance information now. You may lose electricity and, horrors (at least to me), internet. We’ve gotten very used to storing information on the web and going to the web for answers. What do you need there? Store it elsewhere.

Every year, we pair up with Dr. Al and his staff for a summer outing. This season, we chose to go on the Essex Steam Train and Riverboat excursion. We could not have asked for a better day – the sun was brilliant, the air warm, the sky dotted with dollops of whipped cream – absolutely gorgeous! Because of this, we made a last-minute executive decision to upgrade our seats to the open-air car. We listened to a guided tour as the train ambled along the Connecticut River Valley, laughing as spots of coal began to fleck our skin. The Riverboat was equally as enjoyable with the intoxicating fresh air and humorous river guide.

A view from the steam train

  Once we got our land legs back, we lunched at The Black Seal, which felt a bit like an English pub. The carrot cake was wonderful…so wonderful that we felt we needed to do some walking to counteract it! We meandered around downtown Essex, popping in the boutiques and shops, taking note of all the creative small businesses. The day drawing to a close, but not wanting to leave the shore just yet, the group disbursed among park benches in a beautifully landscaped town green abutting the shore. The peaceful atmosphere was the perfect backdrop for reflection on the day and allowed for quiet brainstorming.

We all slept wonderful that night and are already looking forward to next year’s trip. We’d love suggestions for fun, local day trips!

Our August Networking & Knowledge Night is fast approaching. What a great time of year to get together to bid farewell to summer and embrace the fall season. Fall seems to be the perfect time to turn over a new, er, leaf [pardon the pun!] School is back in session, and beach days give way to routine. Routine doesn’t have to be boring though. Our N&K Nights are anything but! The only routine part about them is that we meet the last Tuesday night of each month, and that’s only to make things easier for the business owner who has a million things on his/her plate. I love having a set time to see everyone to catch up on how their businesses are going, and share in the excitement of new developments.

Part of our "Success Library"

This month, our discussion will circle around the book In Pursuit of Elegance:  Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing by Matthew E. May. I’ve recently begun to appreciate the art of simplicity in my own life. I undertook a massive ‘decluttering’ of knick knacks a couple months ago and found that so many of those items were meaningless energy-suckers. Bonus? Less to dust! I’m eager to see how the same principle is applied to business. “Less is more, less is more” is a mantra that keeps appearing in my readings. A creative writer by nature, it’s not easy for me to strip things down to the bare bones. It’s almost like trying to talk with marbles in my mouth. But, on the same token, I am open-minded so I am ready to embrace any techniques that will be useful to our small businesses!

For more information about our group, please check out: http://www.businessbuilderbookclub.com/

You can also join our Facebook group should you want to keep the conversations going, or if you can’t make the meeting but still wish to participate!

We would like to extend our warmest congratulations to our client Erin Perry, owner of Chocolate Rose Bakeshop, on her recent ribbon cutting at her new storefront. In addition to her bakeshop located in Griswold, CT, you can now find delectable goodies ready for purchase at 520 Boswell Ave, Norwich, CT. Her shop is located next door to McKenna’s Flower Shop.

Theresa Fanion & Erin Perry

Some of the baked goods available to purchase are muffins, cookies, small round cakes, cake by-the-slice, and cannolis. Also available are Chocolate Rose creations Cakeballs and Kornfetti. There are tables inside to stay awhile to chat and munch over coffee with friends or business associates, and there is also a patio in the back shaded by a beautiful grapevine arbor.

Chocolate Rose creation "Cakeballs"

Erin is active on Facebook, posting “Cakes of the Week,” delighting her followers.

Racheal Renfree-Hawes is on hand to congratulate Erin Perry during her ribbon cutting ceremony

I love listening to Chris Brogan and others talking about how their “sudden” rise to fame is perceived to be “good luck” when it was really the result of a decade or more of really hard work and paying their dues.  People have to hit “the tipping point” [Malcolm Gladwell wrote a great book by that title] before their names are recognized.  Once their name becomes recognized, progress towards fame moves quickly and, to an outsider, magically, without effort.

That same process is required for any small business owner to be successful.  Until you hit that tipping point – the point where enough people know, like, trust, and refer you, to keep you growing – you will struggle. 

It is undoubtedly more difficult today to hit that tipping point than ever before.  In the past, all you had to do was take out an ad on the radio, or in the local newspaper, and your phone would start ringing. 

Today everyone is so bombarded with advertising messages that everything is automatically tuned out.  Your advertisement does your competition just as much good as it does you.  If you’re a tire store running an ad, you probably reminded the listener or viewer that they needed tires but chances are they won’t remember anything about you, or the ad.  If they come to your tire store, it’s more likely the result of their best friend’s mother posting on Facebook that she was eating warm chocolate chip cookies while she waited for you to finish with her car.

It’s most assuredly not an instant process.  You have to consistently serve great quality warm chocolate chip cookies for quite some time before the “a” tells “b” tells “c” process causes you to hit the tipping point.  It generally requires several “fail fast” events, a brilliant idea or two, and a whole lot of hard work.  Please check our next newsletter for information on a better process for coming up with those brilliant ideas.

 There’s a huge difference between doing a certain kind of work for someone else and starting a business to do that kind of work. When you work for someone else, that “someone” is responsible for getting the work, doing the bookkeeping, keeping you supplied in tools, equipment, and even training. “Somebody” built the web site, negotiated the loans, and researched new developments in your field. If a vehicle was needed, ‘somebody” shopped for it, made the payments on it, kept it fueled, and changed its oil. The list of things that are provided to an employee is very long indeed. Once one moves to the realm of self-employed, not only do you have to do the same work, you now have to figure out how to get the work, schedule the work, do the bookkeeping, talk to the insurance people, and, oh, yes, you’re still probably a husband or wife, father or mother, son or daughter, and your family still needs you.

How many jobs is that?

Feeling a bit like an avalanche just rolled over you?

Some people just want to “be their own boss.”  They don’t want to “get big”.  They just want to do the thing it is they love, but to set their own hours, and perhaps, take home a bit more for their efforts.  Others want to have 40,000 square feet of space, a fleet of trucks, and dozens of employees.   Still others dream the very big dream of having an international operation, of becoming the next major corporation. We understand the difference and no matter what your goals are, we’ll help you reach them.

No matter what your goals are, I can promise you that you will work longer hours, and harder, than you ever worked before – but you should be loving every minute of it!