Jim Blasingame

Business futurist, award-winning author, speaker and columnist

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Managing The Three Clocks Of Small Business

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“Time Is On My Side,” is the title of one of the classic rock ’n’ roll songs performed by Mick Jagger and the legendary English band, The Rolling Stones.  

This bold statement works in a song, but for small businesses – not so much. The reason is because of the complicated dynamic between our most limited resource, time, and three of our most important business factors, expenses, sales, and cash.

In the marketplace, there are actually three different clocks at work that every business uses: one for operating expenses, one for sales, and one for cash. Let’s take a look at how these three clocks impact your small business.

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Did you make a sale, or did you make a loan you can’t afford?

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Congratulations on making that nice sale. You’ve worked hard to get customers to come and buy your stuff. Success feels good, doesn’t it?

Well, sorry about the cold water treatment, but what if I said you can succeed yourself right out of business? Retailers selling to consumers get paid at the point-of-sale. But if you have business customers, they expect an open account relationship where they pay you in 30 days – sometimes. And there’s the rub.

Let’s do some easy, but critical math: When you extend credit to customers, you have to fund virtually the entire amount of the sale until the day you get paid. Everything but net profit, which if you’re lucky is small single digits.

Here’s another way to think of it: The moment you deliver to a customer on credit, you haven’t so much made a sale, as a loan. And any banker will tell you that two out of three things that can happen with a loan are bad: Besides being paid later than agreed, sometimes it isn’t paid at all. For an under-capitalized small business – which is redundant – such possibilities are perilous.

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11 Reasons To Never Be Too Cool For THE School

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There has never been a time in the history of the marketplace when tried and true best practices – oft mislabeled “Old School” – are being so indiscriminately brushed aside by digital leverage best practices we’ll call “New School.”

While sorting out what part of properly labeled Old School to shed (like running a business without a mobile strategy) and which New School practices to adopt (like a digital transformation strategy), we must remember that there’s a third category of best practices that often get lost in the generational translation.

Those best practices are what I call “THE School” – aka the fundamentals.

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Avoid Scurvy And The Kraken With Professional Vitamins

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For centuries, prolonged service at sea resulted in ancient mariners contracting a malady called scurvy. Those so afflicted bruised easily, had joint pain, gum disease, tooth loss – you get the picture.

By the 18th-century, researchers discovered that eating citrus fruit, like lemons and limes, would prevent scurvy. Of course, you already know the active ingredient in this “remedy” is vitamin C, found in the ascorbic acid delivered by eating those fruits. But I betcha didn’t know ascorbic is Latin for “no scurvy.”

An unfortunate reality that small business mariners experience on their marketplace voyage is a condition I’ve named professional scurvy. This malady doesn’t cause your teeth to fall out, but it does produce symptoms like high levels of negative energy, low levels of performance, and an easily bruised ego resulting in an unfortunately high rate of professional shipwrecks.

The good news is, similar to the clinical kind, professional scurvy can be cured with a supplement I call Professional Vitamin C. You shouldn’t be surprised to learn that I’ve identified four of these. And you should be pleased to learn that, like limes and lemons, these marketplace nutrients are low-hanging fruit. Here are the four Professional Vitamin Cs, followed by a bonus nutrient.

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Beware The Law Of Small Business Numbers

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Over the hill and through the woods, a rabbit was barely staying ahead of a fox that was keen on having the rabbit join him for dinner.

Running for his life, the hare made haste across a small stream and hopped over a turtle. Tucking neatly and safely inside his shell so as not to become collateral damage in the rabbit’s emergency, the turtle inquired about his anxious neighbor’s prospects. “Hey, Mr. Rabbit. You gonna make it?” To which his hurrying, furry friend replied over his shoulder, “I GOTTA make it.”

If you ask small business owners which cast member of this little vignette they’re most likely to identify with, they will invariably relate to the cottontail. And that response would have been the same even …

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If Your Business Was A Tree, How Big Should It Be?

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The redwood is arguably America’s greatest and most famous tree.

Two of the three species of this prehistoric survivor – the slightly taller coastal redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) and the thicker sequoia redwood (Sequoiadendron giganteum) – are so well known they’re often referred to as “The Big Tree.” And for good reason: both can top out at over 300 feet. 

But what about that third one? You know – the diminutive Metasequoia glyptostroboides.  This baby, aka “dawn” redwood, aka “amberglow,” is small enough that you can buy one, plant it in your yard, and watch it shoot up to 10% of the scale of its giant cousins. 

So, how does an amberglow know it isn’t a sequoia – to stop growing at 30 feet? As with every living thing in nature, including humans, it’s in the genes. When that first drop of water wakes up the amberglow seed kernel and break out of the husk, its genetic code is already at work to make you confident that you can plant them about 20 feet apart.

What if entrepreneurs could shop for a genetically pre-sized business? On that rainy, predawn June morning in 1896 Detroit, when a young Edison Illuminating Company engineer steered his “quadricycle” onto Bagley Street for the shakedown drive, Henry had no idea how big Ford Motor Company would become. Because a small business – Enterprisus incrementum indeterminus – doesn’t have a genetic code. And that’s good news and bad. 

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