Wealth and Wisdom

Business Plan or BUST! Launch

B Smith — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 04:59:49 +0000

Sunday I reviewed Dan Boudreau’s book Business Plan or BUST! Overall I was impressed with how Dan managed to go in depth while making the book easy to read. I was also impressed with the tools and forms that accompanied the book.

As Dan says “a Book That Makes Business Planning Easy, Fast and Fun!”

Are you tired of watching your investments sink into oblivion? I know I am. I firmly believe that owning your own thriving business is the ONLY way to be immune to the ups and downs of the economy and be 100% in control of your financial destiny…

You can start your own business right now, wherever you are, with whatever you have, and succeed!But, let me tell you…success in business will ONLY happen if you have a well thought out plan.

Order Business Plan or BUST! today, Tuesday, November 18th on amazon.com.

Wealth and Wisdom readers will get hundreds of dollars worth of FREE bonuses that will skyrocket your business to the next level!

For more information and to view the entire FREE bonus gift offer, please go to

http://businessplan.riskbuster.com

Book Review - Business Plan or BUST!

B Smith — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 18:42:23 +0000

A while back I received a request to participate in the launch of a book on business plans. At first I was a bit leery. I tend to favor short business plans that focus on your key metrics (customer and market based). Also, I am always considering our community at Wealth and Wisdom. I get approached by people all the time but rarely find someone that I would be willing to work with.

Then I got a copy of the book and started reading it. I was surprised at how thorough a job Dan Boudreau did with his book. It was 400 pages of crafting a business plan. The end result is an in depth 25 page business plan that is more than adequate for any company. The other thing that impressed me was that Dan included a fast track business plan. This 7 page document is perfect for most entrepreneurs.

Other business planning tools have come up short

One frustration I’ve had with other business planning books and tools is that they always come up short. Often they don’t give you enough detail to build a business plan. One book I read said to do market research but didn’t include any tools or instructions. Needless to say I didn’t do the market research!

Another frustration is that the books and tools are inflexible. Unless it can be easily adapted to your market and needs you are wasting your time.

Business Plan or BUST! gets around this with the sheer scope of detail it provides. While this can initially be overwhelming in the end it will be needed. He takes you by the hand and goes through it step by step. This begins in the planning stage as he provides tools and the process to prepare for your business plan.

While I found this to be comforting I can see how it would frustrate others. I’m analytical so I’m looking for details. A pragmatic may be put off by how far in depth Dan goes. That being said, by the end of their business plan even the most pragmatic entrepreneur will be thankful for the depth of information and tools. Also, Dan writes in a way that is down to earth. This is written by an entrepreneur not an academic trying to impress you with his extensive vocabulary!

Other tools

Dan’s website includes tools and forms to help make your business planning easier. What this means is that you won’t have to create them from scratch. This is a huge timesaver.

He also has a blog that provides great info. It provides great info from an angle I see nowhere else.

What about the one page business plan?

One area I see lacking is a one page business plan. Many entrepreneurs don’t need financing and their markets, products, and services shift quickly. Others have several micro businesses and a full fledged business plan (for each) would be overkill. In these cases what is needed is a one page plan that focuses on the market, marketing strategy, and the customer. It is a living document that is used to frame day to day decisions.

This is an area that Dan plans on addressing in the next edition of Business Plan or BUST!, but I would not recommend waiting. It is a minor deficiency and a one page plan can be easily written.

Business Plan or BUST! is an excellent resource for the one page plan. You can pick and choose what sections of the book are applicable. The final document may be one page but you still need a lot of supporting information, forms, and documents. You basically distill a mid length-market focused-business plan to one page.

When is the book available?

Dan is launching Business Plan or BUST! at Midnight (EST) tomorrow. As part of the launch Dan is offering 20 free gifts to Wealth and Wisdom readers. This offer (and the launch website) will only be available for 24 hours. I’ll send out a post when it is live so you can all participate.

How Doing Things Right Grows Sales

B Smith — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 17:13:19 +0000

Hurricane Ike recently ripped through Houston. While we were blessed to escape with little damage we did need to replace our roof. I won’t go into how poorly our insurance company-Allstate-treated it’s policy holders. This post is about how our roofer grew his business by doing the right things.

What are the right things?

Offer a fair price for your service: Their price was fair and their service was the best. They exceed your expectations and leave you feeling like you got a deal. That is a powerful combination.
They did not take advantage of the situation: They could have used the hurricane as an excuse to charge a premium. Their customers were at their mercy but they didn’t take advantage of us.
Be fair and honest: I knew I could trust the owner. I watched how this company treated my neighbors and saw that they were forthright.
Be trustworthy: The owner and this company consistently showed integrity. It was apparent in the people he hired and the work they did.

The end result is that they are doing most of the houses in my neighborhood. And this isn’t due to a lack of competition. Most of us (myself included) had planned to use other roofers. Juan started with one roof that he got as a referral. Basically one neighbor had a roofer friend at church but he had his crew committed. He recommended Juan. From that one job he will end up with over 50 customers in my neighborhood alone. All of this was done with no advertising.

Contrast this with the competition

The competition came in quickly and landed a lot of roofs…then disappeared. Like most of the roofers they follow the storms. This meant that their crews were still in Florida and Louisiana working and wouldn’t be in Houston until next year. Once they got their sign in your yard it was almost impossible to get them to return your call.

As a result I see their signs disappearing and Juan’s signs going up all over the place. By the time they can react Juan will have replace most of the damaged roofs.

Where does that leave Juan when the storm damage is repaired?

Juan already is lining up renovation work. I know of three people on my block alone who are having him update their kitchens. I will have him do some trim repairs around my house as is another friend. Once his crews are done with storm damage they will have over a year of backlog.

And all of this by word of mouth.

Guest Post on the Dollar Stretcher

B Smith — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 14:39:39 +0000

Today I had a story published on the Dollar Stretcher. For those of you who don’t know about the Dollar Stretcher it is a great website for those who are trying to make a dollar go further. If money is tight or you are trying to do more with what you have I recommend you check them out.

Visitors from the Dollar Stretcher.

Welcome to Wealth and Wisdom! I’ve listed a few of my articles below that you might enjoy. Feel free to read them and any other articles that catch your interest.

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The Rising Cost of Education

B Smith — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 21:54:15 +0000

I was at lunch with an old friend the other day and the conversation turned to college. Len had the dubious honor of having his two daughters attend Baylor. While the school is top notch it is by no means affordable. Even with merit scholarships the cost was staggering. The thing that was causing the most stress was that his oldest daughter was nearing graduation. Instead of entering the workforce she was asking to continue and get her masters degree.

After discussing it for a while I asked Len point blank “if you were interviewing her would the degree make much of a difference?” We both focused on our lunches while he mulled things over. After a minute or two he looked up and said “you know, I don’t think it would matter that much. The degree is important but I look at the person more than the school. I would rather see real world experience than a masters degree. An advanced degree means much more when it comes after they have some experience.”

This got me thinking about my own experience. I truly value my education. I know having both a BS in business and in engineering has opened doors. In spite of that I have found my experience makes me stand out and helped me the most.

It also got me thinking about whether the traditional college degree is worth it. There is no doubt you will earn more with a degree. What I question is whether a prestigous degree is truely worth more in the long run. The studies I’ve seen don’t show much of a salary increase. It defininitely doesn’t appear to justify the significantly higher price!

These questions gain even more importance in light of the economy. If the job market tightens you may need every advantage you can get. Having a degree may be necessary to keep up let alone get ahead. It also is a time where money is tight. College can become a financial burden that breaks you, so how do you get a needed education without going bankrupt?

What is your experience? Have you seen a difference because of an advanced degree? In your experience does a degree from an elite institution have enough value to justify the cost? What about alternatives like attending community college for two years and transfering to a four year university? What about distance learning programs. I’m not talking about degree mills, I talking about fully accredited programs.

What the Bailout Bill Means to Small Businesses

B Smith — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 20:43:57 +0000

I originally was going to post this last week. Something held me back. I think it was the anger I felt at the bill and with US citizens being stuck with the tab. As my best friend once told me “be careful what you put out on the internet as it will stick around forever.”

This one has been tough for me. For some time we have been hearing about the financial markets collapsing. We hear about possible government bailouts. We have to wonder where the next collapse is going to come from

One one hand I fear the government doing nothing. If the banking system collapses the results could be catastrophic. The damage to everyone’s savings and retirement would be profound. The blow would crush our economy and would drag down economies around the world.

On the other hand I firmly believe in the free market. In my experience (and looking back at history) government intervention almost always makes matters worse. Americans are at our best when we are solving our own problems and that is easier when the feds keep away.

When I look at the bill that was proposed-and passed-my initial thought was hallelujah. Then the exuberance settled down. I realized that I knew nothing about the proposed bill. 24 pages had sprawled to 442 pages of legal jargon. No help there unless I need help curing my insomnia.

I’ve been reading articles and listening to the experts. The general dislike of this bill is growing and cuts across party lines. With an estimated potential cost of $1.8 trillion it may cost each household $17,064 to finance (source: Reuters).

CNET had a good article about the bailout bill. It broke it out based on expenditure and discussed some of the non-bailout measures. It does a great job laying things out and I recommend you check it out.

This may just be the tip of the iceberg

California has already said the state may need $7 billion. Why? Because their $14 billion (or more) annual deficit has driven them to the brink of bankruptcy. My concern is that other states will step forward as well.

Then there are the other industries that have been hurt by this subprime downturn. Now that we’ve saved the financial industry, what’s next?

So where does this leave a small business owner?

I see increased taxes to finance this financial behemoth. This will be an added burden on businesses and may (in the long term) hurt our economy. It also will make it more important to make the most use of corporate (including LLC) structures to help minimize your tax burden.

It may speed up the return to credit fluidity. This would be good news for everyone. The problem is that it doesn’t appear to be working yet but it would be unrealistic to expect things to improve overnight.

I am concerned with increased scrutiny from the IRS. While I never advocate tax evasion I don’t think increasing IRS powers is good for anyone. Even if you are 100% correct with your returns an audit is daunting and expensive. As entrepreneurs we need to be focusing on our customers and growing sales, not getting buried by paperwork and red tape.

The bill may also create opportunity.

The most obvious area is in real estate. The government will be offloading billions in subprime assets. I see a market in buying mortgages at pennies on the dollar or in foreclosed properties. This could be massive.

This can also create a whole support industry. How do you find and evaluate these properties? How about packaging chunks of properties? All of these foreclosures will need significant repairs and upgrading. This will help drive the construction market.

Increased IRS power will revitalize the tax preparation market. Demand for tax attorneys and accountants will increase. There will also be a need to have improved tax planning. As our tax bills increase we will need to legally find ways to relieve the burden.

There are also opportunities with the green initiative. Increased tax credits will drive clean energy development. It will also drive it down to the consumer as they find more incentive to install solar panels and energy efficient appliances.

What do you think?

This is what I’ve found in my research. It is my conclusion based on the input I’ve received and filtered by my past experiences. What I want to know is your opinion. Do you see the bailout as good or bad…or maybe a necessissary evil? Did I miss any parts of the bill in my synopsis? What impact do you see this having for entrepreneurs? Where do you see this creating opportunity?

How Entrepreneurs Look to the Market to Find Ideas

B Smith — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:27:20 +0000

This weekend started off pretty uneventful. Just a basic projects weekend to get several things off my to do list. And compared to the last few weeks it was a cakewalk. No hurricanes. No hunting gasoline to fill the generator. No clearing trees and branches. No fences to rebuild.

At least that was the plan. What started as several hours of work ended up taking two days.

How does a post on my weekend relate to the title? No this isn’t a bait and switch article. It is just that the weekend showed me that we need more entrepreneurs.

Task 1

We mounted a safe to our floor. No, we don’t have massive amounts of cash or jewels. We just wanted a safe place (no pun intended) to keep our passports, social security cards, blank checks, etc. It is a basic identity protection measure to put these items in a safe. And if the safe is not bolted to the floor then it can be picked up. Not much protection if a thief can walk out with it!

None of the steps were beyond my ability. I just don’t do this every day. By the time I figured things out and factored in the rework a one hour task took me most of the day. Since I calculate my time at $250/hour that was $2K in time. An entrepreneur could make a killing if he marketed top notch handyman skills.

Note: this is a hole it the market. Most handymen highlight their price. Few advertise their skill and quality, often because their work is second rate. While I enjoy doing these jobs it isn’t the best use of my time. The main reason I don’t hire out the projects is that most professionals do substandard work. Basically I do a better job.

Task 2

We switched from MS Money to Quicken. Simple right? Not even close. I’ve used MS Money for years because I comes with Tax Cut (and Tax Cut is comparable to TurboTax but for less). A month ago I got a surprise. MS Money stopped updating online. While the software still worked it would require me to manually enter everything. After a bit of research I found that Microsoft builds in obsolescence. Your license only includes two years of online service. After that you either need to pay $20 a year or buy the version.

Unacceptable!

The challenge is that Quicken has no easy way to import MS Money. The version I bought (starter) was bare bones as I don’t need the silly tools the deluxe version throws in. Why pay more to bog down my computer? Silly me. The simple version doesn’t track investments. It also doesn’t allow you to import you accounts from MS Money (or Quicken for that matter).

A quick upgrade (and $30) later and we were in business…or so I thought. Importing MS Money requires a separate program. While it was free it was cumbersome. Go to MS Money. Clean up you accounts and categories to make sure none were more than 15 characters. Also make sure there are no repeats (major pain in the @$!%). Do the same for your investment accounts. Create a transaction report (requiring extensive setup) and download to your desktop. Do the same with your investments. Click the import button. When the error message appears go back and spend half a day figuring out why it won’t play nicely.

Then the fun begins. You need to spend another day getting your accounts cleaned up. The nice (reconciled) MS Money accounts are now a mess.

So what does this have to do with the post title?

Both tasks represent great opportunities for the right entrepreneur. In fact, this is what entrepreneurship is all about. Look at your market and identify a need. Talk to your customers to refine the basic idea. Work with your customers to develop a product or service.

In fact this is what brought Wealth and Wisdom to life. We were watching Dave Ramsey one night and someone asked if there was a Dave Ramsey community. What a great idea! However we quickly found was that:

There are a lot of people focusing on personal finance 101
While we know a lot about the topic-heck, I used to counsel people on person finance-it wasn’t our passion.

We took the feedback and adjusted our product. We shifted to an area under served: what is the next step? Now that I am debt free and have my finances under control how do I grow it? This question is made harder because the traditional investment models don’t seem to work. Every crash drives home the point-in several weeks the market has given back the gains of the previous few years.

Our view is that the key is to start your own business. But owning your own business can mean endless work for the same (or less) pay. How do you balance your life, business, and wealth? Hence the slogan wealth and life balance through entrepreneurship.

As we listened to our customers (readers) we have slowly adapted. We have several changes coming up. In the next few weeks look for our first special report, a couple widgets, and more orderly posts (schedule and topics).

What do you think? What changes would you like to see? Let me know as I believe in building my business around my customers.

Update on Hurricane Ike: a Survivor’s perspective

B Smith — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:00:25 +0000

This post was written on Monday. As we were still without power or internet I was not able to post until today. One thing I learned is that I need to figure out how to post by email. My blackberry was partially functional and I could have had a couple post up earlier!

Wow, the last few days have been an emotional rollercoaster ride. Friday night I went to bed with a catagory 2 hurricane on track to bulldozer right over our house. Saterday I woke up to a huge mess but minimal damage. I have friends who lived further inland than I do that were directly hit. The damage was significant.

It is the aftermath that will stick with me forever. It warmed my heart to see so many people pull together. I was dissapointed to see several neighbosr refuse to help but they were by far the minority. The funny thing is that I was not friends with them before the hurricane. I now think even less of them.

Today we got to my neighbors back yard. We leld up because I was hoping to have my chainsaw operational (the tree was big!). Unfortunately repairs are taking too long so we cut it up by hand. The part I’ll always remember is the tears running down my neighbor’s face. It is a profound feeling to touch someone so deeply.

Wile we are still without power life is coming back to normal. About half of the area retailers are back in business. It was nice to go out to dinner and eat something that wasn’t cooked on the grill! Perhaps the biggest shock was to see the mailman.

As things settle out and we have a more steady supply of gasoline our ration of electricity is improving. Right now three houses are sharing one generator. While it isn’t enough to run our air conditioners it will allow us some lights and fans. We even were able to watch tv for the first time tonight. It was surreal to see the aftermath. As the pictures of Houston and Galveston rolled in it hit us hard. These are all places we know.

Galveston is a perfect example. We go to the beach every few weeks since Galveston is so close. In fact, we were there last weekend. It is strange to think that it may never be the same.

We still have a long road ahead of us. There is a ton of cleanup and repairs. As you move closer to the clast the damage becomes more profound. Areas near Galveston are decimated.

7 Lessons Natures Wrath Can Teach Us

B Smith — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 21:27:24 +0000

This post is an article I wrote the evening after hurricane Ike hit my home. Unfortunately I did not have power or internet and was not able to publish it until today. I will be following up tomorrow with a post I wrote a couple days later (again without power or internet).

Last night I was hit by a category 2 hurricane. Ok, it wasn’t quite a direct hit. The eye of the storm shifted about 25 miles to the east instead of right over my house. This dropped the top wind speed by about 15 MPH and that was just enough for us to escape serious damage. We personally were lucky. We lost part of our fence and a few shingles on our roof. A couple screens were ripped off, wadded up, and thrown at our house.

All in all this is not conducive to a good nights sleep!

The winds surged and at times roared. When it was at it’s peak I could hear my windows straining and I’m stunned none broke. Like I said we were lucky.

Not all of my neighbors were so lucky. One lost most of their shingles. A good friend just a few housed down the street had a tree resting on his roof. Several neighbors had leaking roofs. The number of branches on the ground was prodigious!

A further complication was the loss of power. 3.5M Houstonians (metro) were in the dark. As I write this only 100k have power back. Most will be in the dark for a week or two. The worse hit areas may be down for 3-4 weeks.

Yes, the damage is amazing.

But there is a positive

My mind has a need to find a purpose or a lesson in any situation and tends to go into overdrive as things get worse and worse. Several business ideas popped into my head and started fleshing themselves out. Solutions to problems magically appeared. These should start showing up in Wealth and Wisdom over the next few months.

W are also now closer to many of our neighbors. Our friends are now proven and closer than ever as we cleared branches and debris. For the neighbors we don’t know well we are now friends as we helped each other recover.

8 Lessons Natures Wrath Can Teach Us

1) Preparation is critical: We had a full supply of the necessities. We filled up our gas tanks. Our propane tank (and a spare) were full so we could grill for a week or two. We had several days of water, candles, and batteries.

As a result we are not desperate. The lines of people looking for food and water are mostly due to lack of preparation. This is what is flashed across your evening news!

2) The best laid plans: No matter how well you plan life still happens. In our case it was my chainsaw. It worked fine a couple of months ago. Today was a different story. Gas started pouring out when the fuel lines failed due to old age.

3) Have a backup plan: Once the chainsaw went down things got more physical. A good old bow saw is a godsend when your chainsaw stops working!

4) Who needs to workout when your chainsaw is broken? Clearing downed trees is a hell of a good workout.

5) Thank god for neighbors with generators: While I won’t be watching American Idol - not that I did when I had power - I was able to run my refrigerator and freezer. This will keep our food from spoiling for a week or two until we get power back.

6) Most people are good: It warmed my heart to see everyone pulling together. It also reminded me that friendships are formed and tested in times on need.

7) But some people are bums: Several neighbors strolled out after all the work was done.

Don’t think this wasn’t noticed by everyone else!

7.5) Karma: My bonus lesson is that karma is alive and kicking. We spent several hours working with a few neighbors clearing the storm damage. We did it to help our friends and neighbors while expecting nothing in return.

It turns out our neighbor has a generator. Guess who has extension cords stretched to his house? Suess who is not worrying about his freezer?

Karma.

Staring Down the Barrel at Hurricane Ike

B Smith — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:35:49 +0000

This may be my last post for a while. As things stand today Ike is on a crash course for Houston and it’s path is currently projected to pass almost right over my home. I’m inland and probably won’t sustain too much damage but it is likely I will be without power or internet. My hope is that it will be over quickly (or it veers to the north). Then again hope is never a strategy. If Corpus Christy or Baton Rouge are used as a standard to predict power outages then it may be two or three weeks. Or it may not go out at all.

I’ll let you know how we fared when the dust-or water-settles!

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