Your Role In History As An Entrepreneur

IMAGINE   M A N U F A C T U R I N G

Adapted from the book 30 DAYS TO THE NEW ECONOMY written and published by Peggy Salvatore

The flexibility of the global markets – everywhere, everyone, all the time – means products and services can be delivered from your place of business on the Internet to the customer’s location in the same way.

 

VIRTUAL products (e.g., software, books, music):

already a natural medium.

PHYSICAL products: now becoming a natural medium.

3D printing allows many kinds of products and parts to be assembled on site by downloading software to build products by the customer. Customers only need the material to create the products on location.

One of the issues with matching mass production to local markets has been transportation and warehousing of raw materials and finished products. 3D production eliminates, or will soon eliminate, one or more of these transfers for a wide range of product-based businesses.

Efficient production puts factories near the source of raw materials which could be halfway around the globe from your market. With global markets, raw material processing happens near the source of materials which are then delivered to where products are produced at the customer site.

Throughout history, efficiencies have grown markets.

This development is no different.

 

While assembling products onsite requires only the transfer of raw materials to the customer location, the expansion of markets grows the number of end users.

Economic development happens more rapidly in areas that now need mainly an Internet connection and a reliable source of power to become a viable market for your products – both virtual and physical.

The limiting factors remain the availability of power and water. The new entrepreneurs believe those problems can be solved, and they are actively seeking answers.

As noted earlier in this series, we are very early in the New Economy and are still building the infrastructure so much of the opportunity is building the virtual roads and rails into the future.

Even in situations where finished products are mass produced and need to be transported, robotics simplifies production. Robotics reduces the number of humans needed to assemble products and, consequently, also the number who need to be trained as assemblers, as programmers, and as equipment calibration specialists.

Local education and workforce availability is

not a major factor in locating a factory today.

 

Since line-driven powered machinery was invented, workers have revolted against automation fearing for their jobs. However, in each instance, the quality of peoples’ lives have improved, as well as the quality of products produced, and people’s time is collectively –presumably, for those outplaced– freed for higher level pursuits.

 

The promise of manufacturing in the New Economy turns on how you view progress. You’re likely to have one of two views of the world:

• View 1: You believe advances solve problems, make solutions available to more people, and raise all of humanity in waves.
• View 2: You believe knowledge is finite, all that can be known is already known, and we can’t solve our problems because our known resources do not meet everyone’s needs.
  

Entrepreneurs (Especially INTERNET entrepreneurs)

in the New Economy hold fast to View 1.

They believe that what lies beyond the known frontier

is the place where advances for humanity lie.

Internet Joe senses what is there and moves toward it

because he knows problems=opportunities,

and he knows it’s his choice.

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Where does the past still control the present in your business pursuits?

C’mon back TOMORROW 10/6 for Day 21 —

 Imagine INVENTORY and DELIVERY. . .

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With Hal and Peggy’s wealth of business coaching experience, you’ll learn how YOU match up with what successful entrepreneurs are thinking and doing RIGHT NOW. Get ideas you never imagined. Gain the traction you need within 2 hours — not days or weeks or months. Simply call 931.854.0474 Central Time: 11AM to 4PM Monday-Friday for details, to explain your business pursuit focus and to reserve your seat! $99 total for 2 hours. Satisfaction Guaranteed.

———-

For more information on Peggy Salvatore’s book: 30 Days to the New Economy [© Peggy Salvatore 2015. All Rights Reserved.] click on ENTREPRENEUR NEWS or visit ow.ly/RysnP for the E-book

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Hal@Businessworks.US      Peggy@Businessworks.US

Open Minds Open Doors

Thanks for your visit and make today a GREAT day for someone!

“Oh, it’s Saturday night

                                               

  and I ain’t got nobody. 

                                   

I got some money cause

                                 

I just got paid…” 

 

You know that song? Are you singing it right now? Then you know what? Too bad you “ain’t got nobody,” but you’re a lucky boss because it’s not everyone these days who can say they’re getting paid.

If you’re not getting what’s owed you and you own or manage a business, there are other options besides law suits, bankruptcy, or hiring a couple of thugs from you-know-which-State.

This screwed-up economy being what it is, if you haven’t stepped back to re-visit your Accounts Receiveable policies and practices recently, maybe this coming week is a good time to jam an up-dated A/R assessment into your schedule.

You might start with an up-to-the-minute cash flow analysis so you have a sense of the shifting sands.

Next, take a good hard look at what your customer payment and credit arrangements are. Have you adjusted terms to both encourage sales and account for customer needs to avoid major lump-sum payments? Have you done this is a way that also allows you some breathing room? Take some deep breaths

HOW you explore this issue is influenced by the type of business you’re in.

Retail and wholesale operations do not have the same dynamics as manufacturing or B to B. (i.e., what works for a car dealership won’t work for a mattress manufacturer or an IT consultant.) 

Every business, though, has key customers.

And special allowances must be made for theses entities whether you’re drilling their teeth, constructing their townhomes, providing their office supplies or maintaining their insurance coverage.

                                                                

Will your key customers fold or migrate to lower-priced competitors if you don’t extend them better terms? This need not mean lowering your prices, but it might mean extending payment time terms, or offering special incentives for timely payments. Can you go to a “baker’s dozen” with product sell offers, or with service hours? Take a lesson from construction guys.

Can you put more of a burden for collections on third party negotiators — your bank, finance company, credit and collection firms?  It may be less expensive to bite the bullet and pay for outsourcing help than to drag your staff people, who are inexperienced with the finesse needed to succeed at this task, away from the work they do best.

                                                                 

Careful if you opt in this direction . . . 

                                                                

Insist that contracted people who actually connect by phone or letter or email treat your customers respectfully and courteously. Be sure you are in control of all interface scripts and personnel. Plant a “secret-shopper” or two on the list to gain a firsthand accounting of how your hired guns perform, and make sure they are honoring your sensitivities. They are contacting YOUR customers, not theirs. 

In their zealousness to earn their percentages, many collection organizations “rough-house” targeted debtors or unleash a barrage of annoying calls from (too often) non-English-speaking callers to the point of prompting backlash, instead of gaining cooperation. 

Okay, okay, I know. It IS Saturday night, after all. So go enjoy. But make a mental note for Monday to check out if the policies and practices you’ve been following are working for you or against you. The same can be said, by the way, for evaluating candidates, so:

HELP SAVE THE ECONOMY November 6th, 2012.

Vote to move small business forward… Support 

those who endorse free market competition and 

 job creation tax incentives for entrepreneurs! 

____________________________________ 

302.933.0116    Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Mind Over Undermine

                                                                                                           

     At some time or another, every business and professional practice boss discovers a hired or inherited employee or group of employees whose sole mission appears to be to undermine operations—from manufacturing to customer service/patient care to administration to sales.

     Sometimes it’s vindictiveness, jealousy, bitterness, resentment…all good stuff, right? Sometimes, though, it’s naivety, ignorance, immaturity, misplaced loyalties, or just plain stupidity. While the reason might be important to uncover, what’s most important is to act on the discovery before it has chance to fester.

     If it’s too late to contain the infection from spreading out and affecting others in your organization, it may require you to rise to the confrontative occasion and call for all the cards to be put on the table. This, however, is not always the best solution.

     Why? Someone who may have been undermining you or your business or practice may be truly innocent of premeditation, or was perhaps unwarily acting out someone else’s issues. In that situation, you could be pulling the plug on someone who is a valuable potential asset to your operations or reputation.

     This may be the right point, instead, to pull in a professional to facilitate differences and/or re-train problem employees, or to counsel you on how to do it, or to force the situation to a head on your behalf. At any rate, it’s certainly worth the time to discuss the circumstances with an outside consultant before making that decision. 

     Prepare a short bullet list of issues and individuals involved with your own assessments of how effectively each performs in the roles for which they/he/she were/was hired. Try to keep your comments as objective as possible so as not to prejudice an outsider’s opinions, but articulate your issues and concerns clearly.

     Make your mission clear, and make your goals for each position that’s involved clear ones. In the process, look to your self as well, and question what (if any) contribution your own statements or behaviors may have contributed. Ask your consultant for a straightforward, unvarnished opinion and recommendation.

     Decide when, where and how to act, and what to say. Be receptive to whatever responses you provoke, and assess those in private. In the end, you will have given enough time and energy to the situation to justify moving forward from the point of implementing your decision. Then move forward.     

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Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116 

 Open minds open doors.

 Thanks for visiting.  God bless you. 

  Make today a GREAT day for someone!