Entreprenewal, The Six Step Recovery Program for Small Business

By Bob Normand

Entreprenewal is a program designed to renew the entrepreneurial spirit in small business owners while providing the precise tools necessary to help them develop into efficient, professional and successful managers.
Most entrepreneurs are skilled at the products they make or the services they provide, often doing much better than larger companies. Nevertheless, failure rates for small businesses are at alarming and record numbers. The problem is not that small and medium sized businesses do not make a quality product or offer a great service, they usually do.
The problem is not lack of technical expertise but simply inexperience with successful management skills and practices. The good news is these skills and practices are readily available to entrepreneurs and can be easily learned and installed in their businesses without the entrepreneur having to have learned them in a formal education program at a business school or university..
Entreprenewal is an easy to follow Six Step Recovery Program for small and medium sized businesses. The steps combine the inspirational and motivational principles of successful personal recovery programs with practical operating procedures and tools in the four main disciplines of business management: Administration, Sales & Marketing, Personnel and Financial Controls.
In Entreprenewal the reader learns simple methods for ending self-imposed isolation that often besets small business owners. These methods include attracting outside advisors at no cost, re-focusing the business on people for maximum performance and by encouraging personal growth and skills enhancement by acting as a mentor, giving back knowledge acquired to other struggling small business owners.
Entreprenewal shows entrepreneurs how to reduce complicated personnel policies, profit and expenses controls and operating procedures found in large businesses and even in business schools to simpler forms more suitable for smaller businesses. The book also explains how to use outside sources to gather these tools at minimal cost.
To the entrepreneur struggling to keep his or her business alive, Entreprenewal is a guide for re-engineering their business into an efficient and profitable operation.
To the established business owner suffering from never-ending under-performance, Entreprenewal provides a needed mid-course correction and refinement designed to achieve top bracket performance.
To all business owners, Entreprenewal provides a unique perspective for success that results when humanistic, even spiritual concepts are combined with proven management principles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bob Normand
• Release date: Jun 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310026720

Bob Normand

Currently retired and living in Quepos, Costa Rica, Mr.Normand currently writes a monthly newsletter called the Golden Gringo Chronicles about being an ex-pat living in one of the most beautiful countriies in the world.Professional background: Mr. Normand has served as principal management consultant to more than 100 businesses ranging from $500,000 to $50,000,000 in annual sales and has owned and operated several small businesses of his own in diverse industries. Mr. Normand’s small business philosophy is premised on the belief that small business management skills can be developed by busy entrepreneurs using readily available information, tools and procedures not found in business schools or formal degree programs. His direct industrial experience as an executive includes chemicals, plastics, computer systems, office furniture, financial services, banking and small business management consulting.Academic: B.S. University of Massachusetts, M.S. Villanova University, MBA Program Ohio University. Past Adjunct Professor of Small Business Management, Northampton Community College. Author: Entreprenewal!,The Six Step Recovery Program for Small Business.

Book preview

Entreprenewal!

The Six Step Recovery Program for Small Business

Renew Your Entrepreneurial Spirit and

Become a Real manager!

By Bob Normand

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 Bob Normand. This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return toSmashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Contents

(Each Chapter and Section is Hyperlinked for Easy Access)

Foreword

Chapter 1 – The Small Business Problem Explained

Entrepreneur Versus Manager

How Growth Affects Business

Signs of a Business in Trouble

The Four Legged Business Stool

It’s Not About Intelligence

Chapter 2 – The Solutions Are Simple

Change as an Opportunity

Your Core Values are Showing

The Profit Motive in Perspective

Keeping Your Eye on the Ball

The Six Steps to Recovery

Chapter 3 - Accepting Responsibility for Change

Step One

Four Character Traits of Successful Managers

Mentoring – You Don’t Have to Go It Alone, So Don’t!

Networking – Board of Advisors versus Board of Directors

Setting Goals and Objectives

Appendix I, Setting Goals and Objectives

Chapter 4 – Making/Evaluating My Skills Inventory

Step Two

Getting Started

Re-Engineering Process (REP) Team

Conducting Your Management Survey

Evaluating Your Management Survey

Sharing Your Inventory with Others

Chapter 5 – Installing the Best Management Tools

Step Three – Re-Engineering With The Best Management Tools

The Specific Management Tools You’ll Need

Personnel Systems and Procedures

Profit Control Systems and Procedures

Sales & Marketing Systems and Procedures

Planning Systems and Procedures

Sources for Management Tools

Chapter 6 – Re-Focusing on People

Step Four – Be a People Oriented Business

People, Profit and Priorities

What We Owe ASSOCIATES and What We Should Expect From Them

What We Owe CUSTOMERS and What We Should Expect From Them

What We Owe FAMILY and What We Should Expect From Them

Other Considerations

Chapter 7 – Maintaining Emphasis and Direction

Step Five

The Management Process

The Three-Month Audit

Sharing the Three-Month Audit

Correcting and Adjusting

Chapter 8 – Giving it Back by Mentoring Others

Step Six

The Importance of Step Six

When and How to Find a Mentee

Rules for Engaging the Mentee

Sharing the Wealth

The Rewards of Step Six

Afterword

About the Author

Other Books by Bob Normand

Forward

The greatest economy in the history of the world, the American capitalist experiment, continues to produce a record number of new business start ups year after year. Unfortunately, it also produces a record number of failures, the vast majority of which are small businesses.

Of the 25 million plus tax-filing business entities in the United States, over 98% meet the U.S. Government’s criteria for a small business (Business entities employing less than 500 employees). This definition includes self-employed individuals ranging from real estate agents to nannies. It also includes close to one million direct-sales individuals involved with Amway, Mary Kay Cosmetics etc., as well as many part-time and hobby ventures.

Narrowing the field further, there are 5.6 million employer businesses in the U.S. and just over 5 million of these can be described as micro businesses, which is to say they have 20 or less employees. Small businesses account for just over 50% of total non-farm employment and micro businesses account for 2/3 of all small business employment. Small businesses have been the primary source of new jobs for at least the last 20 years far outperforming employment gains at large companies.

Business failure rates are hard to track. Business writers often quote a new business failure rate of 80% in the first year but the numerical and statistical basis for this extraordinary claim is a mystery. The most conservative estimates however, based on government records of tax returns, place the business failure rate at around 50% within the first five years of operation, which is still a shocking number.

Add to this failure figure the number of small businesses which are under-performing. By underperformance here, I mean producing profit rates so low as to make certificates of deposit and money market investments attractive alternatives to being in business. If forced to estimate a number based on my almost two decades of small business consulting and a sampling of over one hundred firms, I would guesstimate 60-75% of small businesses at any point in time are either losing money or grossly under-performing.

The rate of failure combined with the extent of under-performance in small businesses indicates a problem of pandemic proportion and suggests a tremendous waste of material and personal resources. Conversely, looking at the glass half full, the problem presents a great opportunity for improvement in national productivity and in the potential for financial success of both employees and owners.

In this book, I will identify the reasons for small business failure and under-performance. Afterwards, a program for re-engineering called Entreprenewal will be presented which addresses required change in both the management style of the entrepreneurial owner and also in the details of company structure. These changes occur as a result of following The Six Step Program. Full implementation of this program will raise your company performance from poor or mediocre to the top level of peer performance.

The Six Step Recovery Program for Small Business can be summarized as follows: (1) Acceptance (of responsibility), (2) Commitment (to change), (3) Action (to change), (4) Prioritizing (on people), (5) Maintenance (of direction), and (6) Reward (by giving back).

Required change starts with acceptance by the Entrepreneur of his/her primary responsibility for changing the business by evolving into a professional Manager. This must be accompanied by the Entrepreneur’s commitment to improve both themselves and the company by being open and willing to learn. Once Acceptance and Commitment are complete, the Action to change is relatively easy.

The good news is that management skills and principles are not innate, you are not born with them; they are acquired knowledge and readily available. Secondly, there is a common set of basic management systems, profit controls, policies, procedures, and management techniques that are already proven and can be installed easily in any small business operation in a short period of time and at a reasonable cost.

After Action is initiated, a system is given to assure that the management structure put in place is backed up by Maintenance. This means periodically evaluating the process and adjusting/improving continuously. The next Step assures long term success by Prioritizing or refocusing the business onto the needs and responsibilities of the key people in our business life.

There is a strong focus throughout the Six Step Program on re-engineering your business by putting people first. This means the interests of family, customers and employee associates are foremost in mind and are not seen as being counter-productive to the goals of the company. Policies, procedures, systems and techniques are always crafted to enhance the inter-relationships among these groups; never to advance one over the other, never to create a we versus they mentality. Outstanding performance will result when the interests of these groups are being acted upon congruently.

An emphasis on people also means assigning responsibility to the key groups of family, associates and customers for helping to assure healthy company profitability. Only by doing this will the company be enabled to offer good salary, benefit and incentive programs for employees; make progress in wealth accumulation for both owners and associates families and offer innovative products and services for customers. Each group has a responsibility to help make this happen.

The Six Step Recovery Program for Small Business requires Managers to enter the world of mentoring by both acquiring a Mentor and also by seeking out a Mentee. One of the most common and yet, psychologically unhealthy habits among small business owners is the practice of going it alone. This limits the development of