Listen now to the Small Biz Ahead Podcast: Welcome to another episode of the Small Biz Ahead Podcast. Sign up for the weekly newsletter so you never miss an episode. Do you have a question you’d like Elizabeth and Gene to answer? Submit your question to the Small Biz Ahead Podcast. Links Discussed in This Episode: Intuit Marketplace

Listen now the Small Biz Ahead Podcast:

Welcome to another episode of the Small Biz Ahead Podcast. Sign up for the weekly newsletter so you never miss an episode. Do you have a question you'd like Elizabeth and Gene to answer? Submit your question to the Small Biz Ahead Podcast.

Links

Why Do I Need to Write a Business Plan?

The Secret to Setting Goals for Yourself and Your Business

Elizabeth: Hi, Gene, how are you today?

Gene: Elizabeth, I'm doing good.

Elizabeth: We're laughing, because this is the first time we've recorded in the same room. Usually we've been doing this over Skype, so it's kind of weird to be right next to each other, but nice.

Gene: Yeah, I know. I see your pets jumping up and down behind you. You're doing it from you home office. It's nicer face to face. It's a really good thing.

Elizabeth: Yes, yes. Usually I have my puppy in the background whining because she's not on my lap, so it's really great. We have Gene in Hartford today at The Hartford, who's the sponsor of our podcast. They're letting us use their very fancy recording studio for the first time. We're changing up the format this week a little bit. We asked the Small Biz Ahead community if they could submit some questions for us to answer, and they responded with some really good questions. They really run the gamut across all types of small business industries from sole proprietors to people with a lot of employees. We're going to jump in after we hear from our sponsor. Ad, ad, ad.

QUESTION #1: Do I Need a Business Plan?

Elizabeth: Okay, question one is from Heather in Seattle.

"I'm a first time business owner and wondering if I needs business plan. I feel like taking the time to work on something that I may not end up using is a waste of time. What do you think?"

Elizabeth: I'm going to jump in before Gene.

Gene: Please.

Elizabeth: I think I'm going to say the opposite of what Gene is going to say. Yes, you need a business plan, but you probably don't need an elaborate one, which actually I think Gene would agree with.

Gene: Right.

Elizabeth: We have a great quick article on this on the Business Owner's Playbook. Just go to Google and Google "Business Owner's Playbook business plan", and that article on writing one should come up. I'll include a link in the show notes to this. You don't need a 30 page plan, but I think you can get away with something like two pages, three pages. The reason for that is you're going to get so many questions when you're launching a business, and it's great to just sit down and put down on paper what you're doing, what your business does, who your target customer or client is, and what you're going to be delivering to them, and how you're going to get that information to them. The second reason is I think it really helps with goal setting, especially in the beginning. Now I'm going to let Gene totally disagree with me.

Gene: No, no, no. It's actually the other way around. I agree with a lot of what you said. I think that business plans, sometimes they get overused and overrated, but I'll tell you this much, Elizabeth. I do not know a successful business owner or entrepreneur who has not succeeded without a plan.

Listen now the Small Biz Ahead Podcast:

Welcome to another episode of the Small Biz Ahead Podcast. Sign up for the weekly newsletter so you never miss an episode. Do you have a question you'd like Elizabeth and Gene to answer? Submit your question to the Small Biz Ahead Podcast.

Links

Why Do I Need to Write a Business Plan?

The Secret to Setting Goals for Yourself and Your Business

Elizabeth: Hi, Gene, how are you today?

Gene: Elizabeth, I'm doing good.

Elizabeth: We're laughing, because this is the first time we've recorded in the same room. Usually we've been doing this over Skype, so it's kind of weird to be right next to each other, but nice.

Gene: Yeah, I know. I see your pets jumping up and down behind you. You're doing it from you home office. It's nicer face to face. It's a really good thing.

Elizabeth: Yes, yes. Usually I have my puppy in the background whining because she's not on my lap, so it's really great. We have Gene in Hartford today at The Hartford, who's the sponsor of our podcast. They're letting us use their very fancy recording studio for the first time. We're changing up the format this week a little bit. We asked the Small Biz Ahead community if they could submit some questions for us to answer, and they responded with some really good questions. They really run the gamut across all types of small business industries from sole proprietors to people with a lot of employees. We're going to jump in after we hear from our sponsor. Ad, ad, ad.

QUESTION #1: Do I Need a Business Plan?

Elizabeth: Okay, question one is from Heather in Seattle.

"I'm a first time business owner and wondering if I needs business plan. I feel like taking the time to work on something that I may not end up using is a waste of time. What do you think?"

Elizabeth: I'm going to jump in before Gene.

Gene: Please.

Elizabeth: I think I'm going to say the opposite of what Gene is going to say. Yes, you need a business plan, but you probably don't need an elaborate one, which actually I think Gene would agree with.

Gene: Right.

Elizabeth: We have a great quick article on this on the Business Owner's Playbook. Just go to Google and Google "Business Owner's Playbook business plan", and that article on writing one should come up. I'll include a link in the show notes to this. You don't need a 30 page plan, but I think you can get away with something like two pages, three pages. The reason for that is you're going to get so many questions when you're launching a business, and it's great to just sit down and put down on paper what you're doing, what your business does, who your target customer or client is, and what you're going to be delivering to them, and how you're going to get that information to them. The second reason is I think it really helps with goal setting, especially in the beginning. Now I'm going to let Gene totally disagree with me.

Gene: No, no, no. It's actually the other way around. I agree with a lot of what you said. I think that business plans, sometimes they get overused and overrated, but I'll tell you this much, Elizabeth. I do not know a successful business owner or entrepreneur who has not succeeded without a plan.

Listen now the Small Biz Ahead Podcast: Welcome to another episode of the Small Biz Ahead Podcast. Sign up for the weekly newsletter so you never miss an episode. Do you have a question you’d like Elizabeth and Gene to answer? Submit your question to the Small Biz Ahead Podcast. Links Discussed in This Episode: Why Do I

Listen now to the Small Biz Ahead Podcast: Welcome to another episode of the Small Biz Ahead Podcast. Sign up for the weekly newsletter so you never miss an episode. Do you have a question you’d like Elizabeth and Gene to answer? Submit your question to the Small Biz Ahead Podcast. Links Tim’s Company, Better Life Better Life […]

Listen now to the Small Biz Ahead Podcast:

Welcome to another episode of the Small Biz Ahead Podcast. Sign up for the weekly newsletter so you never miss an episode. Do you have a question you'd like Elizabeth and Gene to answer? Submit your question to the Small Biz Ahead Podcast.

Links

Tim's Company, Better Life

Better Life on "Shark Tank"

Gene: Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Small Biz Ahead. My name is Gene Marks, and I am here with Tim Barklage who is the CEO, co-founder, owner, and master of Better Life, a natural cleaning products company based here in the St. Louis area. Tim, thanks for coming on the show.

Tim:  Yeah, thanks for having me, Gene. I really appreciate it.

Gene: Tim, I'm going to ask you to introduce yourself so that you can give a little bit of background. Tell us your name, your title, and the name of your company, and we'll get into it. Go ahead.

Tim: Sure. Hi, my name's Tim Barklage, and I am the co-founder of a company called Better Life. We are a company which sells natural household cleaning supplies. We sell directly to the consumer through our website, but primarily most of our sales are done through retailers like Whole Foods Market, Target, and grocery stores around the country.

Gene: That's very cool. Tim was on our panel. We had a really great discussion. We were talking about some stories. You brought up a little Shark Tank experience that you had. Can you tell us about that?

Tim:  Sure, yeah. We were on Shark Tank in November of 2013, and it was a great experience for us. We were able to really make sure that we were ... What we did is we put a lot of preparation into getting on there before we went in. What our goal was was to try and control the conversation with the sharks so that the conversation wouldn't go sideways and we would end up being shark bait, which we definitely didn't want to do. We spent a lot of time where we would actually watch old episodes, and we would write down all of the questions that the sharks would ask of the people. We had this whole database of questions, and we had our whole entire team watching episodes of Shark Tank, writing down. What we did is we distilled that into about 12 topics. Then from those 12 topics, what we were able to do is look at how we were going to be able to answer our questions.

We took what those 12 topics were, had discussion points about each of those, and that's how we were able to control the conversation. The outcome worked out really well for us. We actually had the sharks in a bidding war over us. We had multiple offers from all 4 sharks, and it really was a fantastic experience because you get to expose yourself to millions, and millions, and millions of people and have a little fun in the process, too.

Gene: I always thought when you're getting in a bidding war, I'm terrible at math even though I'm a CPA. I was thinking when they get into these bidding wars and they start talking about percentage of equity, and "We'll give you this upfront and that upfront," I was always wondering, do these guys get overwhelmed with these questions? Are they not thinking straight? Were you keeping up with the conversation?

Tim: Yeah. To be honest, that was the most exhausting part of the whole entire presentation because were in the studio for about 2 and 1/2 hours before the whole thing ended. The first, I would say, 2/3 of it were just fun.

Listen now to the Small Biz Ahead Podcast: Welcome to another episode of the Small Biz Ahead Podcast. Sign up for the weekly newsletter so you never miss an episode. Do you have a question you’d like Elizabeth and Gene to answer? Submit your question to the Small Biz Ahead Podcast. Links Discussed in This Episode: Tim’s Company,

It’s hard to find and then hire reliable employees–especially if you work in an industry like construction. On today’s podcast, Gene Marks and Elizabeth Larkin discuss how to attract and retain good laborers. They also give advice on whether it’s ever a good idea to hire a family member (spoiler alert: no, but there are […]

It's hard to find and then hire reliable employees--especially if you work in an industry like construction. On today's podcast, Gene Marks and Elizabeth Larkin discuss how to attract and retain good laborers. They also give advice on whether it's ever a good idea to hire a family member (spoiler alert: no, but there are exceptions!).

Listen now the the Small Biz Ahead Podcast

Welcome to another episode of the Small Biz Ahead Podcast. Sign up for the weekly newsletter so you never miss an episode. Do you have a question you'd like Elizabeth and Gene to answer? Submit your question to the Small Biz Ahead Podcast.

Links

Never on Time: How to Handle a Perpetually Late Employee

Always Out: What To Do When An Employee Keeps Calling In Sick

UpWork

QUESTION #1: Hiring Laborers

Elizabeth: Okay, question one. This is a toughie and it's from someone from Connecticut.

Gene: Someone from Connecticut.

Elizabeth: Which I'm very excited about. This is from Hugh in Connecticut.

Gene: Okay.

Elizabeth: "I run a contracting business and have become very successful on my own. I've been running this business for about six years now. I do home renovation such as finishing basements, redoing kitchens and building decks. But I've also moved into government contract jobs such as helping to build highways with a backhoe that I own. My problem is that I only have one employee. It's taken me several years to train him and now he's starting to work for other contractors. I can't expand my business if I'm not able to hire other people. In my line of work it's difficult for me to find competent workers and who are mature enough to stick with me for their entire career. It's also usually easier for me to just do the job myself. I'm sure that sounds very familiar to a lot of business owners. Instead of hiring a novice worker, it's easier for me to do the job on my own because I'm able to work eight times faster. Do I need to hire new employees to expand my business and if so, how?"

Elizabeth: There's a lot to unpack in this question. I feel like this is a real conundrum and a great question. We haven't really touched on this before.

Gene: Yes.

Elizabeth: From my perspective I'm wondering why it's hard to find good employees. Are you saying that they're bad because ... typical like they're not showing up on time, they're calling out sick, they're just not dong a good job?

Gene: First of all, I'd say something. When I travel around the country and I talk to business owners and people in the small business community and mid size market companies, I think the number one problem in many states is ...

Elizabeth: Hiring people.

Gene: Yes, it's finding people, skilled workers, it's an issues. It's a big issue. The issue that he's facing does not surprise me.

Elizabeth: It's huge. The other thing I'm wondering are they just bad workers or do they just not have the skills so he has to take so much time out of his time to train them? Then he trains them and then they leave.

It’s hard to find reliable employees–especially if you work in an industry like construction. On today’s podcast, Gene Marks and Elizabeth Larkin discuss how to attract and retain good laborers. They also give advice on whether it’s ever a good idea to hire a family member (spoiler alert: no, but there are exceptions!). Listen now