SBDC
If you were to ask enough people to find out why new business failures are so high, you would probably end up with 100 reasons for the failures. To borrow an analogy from Benjamin Franklin concerning his experience developing the lightbulb: “I didn’t fail the test, I just found 100 ways to do it wrong.”― Benjamin…
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Have you ever experienced the feeling that you really love owning and running a business, regardless of what it does? I hope so, and this is one of the important aspects of business ownership that I wish remains top of mind with you in your daily work. If it has faded over time, stop and…
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It can start with a stray thought or idea. Sometimes through observation it is realized that there must be a better way, or a faster way to accomplish an objective, or some other improvement becomes obvious. New technologies or materials may become available and through investigation, these may be used to come up with new…
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Businesses are facing increasing pressures to maintain operational margins. Previous articles have looked into various ways to maintain margins through recording and measuring financial performance. These have all been related to cash flow, market acquisition, accounting and analyzing financial statements to determine specific areas where entrepreneurs can improve operations in order to regain healthy margins.…
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In line with recent articles regarding various aspects of surviving inflationary and recessionary times, I’d like to discuss how a business can figure out how to react in these situations. Gaining intelligence and insights through reading articles or watching videos and acting on the advice, or initiating changes to your business operations based on ‘gut…
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By Marshall Doak, Director of the Southern Oregon University Small Business Development Center It has been said that the ramp-up in inflation costs is quick, but the subsequent reduction in costs are slow to be realized once the inflation monster has been contained. The effects of this on a business owner is that all too…
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In business vocabulary, the term ‘margin’ is a fairly important word to know, as it is connected with several concepts that speak to profitability. Understanding your margins and maintaining them in inflationary times is key to remaining in business. Understanding what ‘at the margin’ means is useful for informing your actions, while getting a handle…
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What does it mean to Scale a business? If scaling a business is important, why isn’t this taught? This article starts out with two good questions that are asked thousands of times each day by business owners looking for answers to fundamental business issues regarding sustainability and growth. Absent answers, it is likely that current…
Read MoreI probably should not use baseball or stock market analogies when describing current economic conditions for businesses, however they seem to fit right now. Once again, we are at the cusp of fundamental changes in the economic landscape with most pundits believing there is more opportunity to the downside than the upside. We are about…
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By Marshall Doak, Director, Southern Oregon University SBDC With the thought that emerging out of the COVID Pandemic business shutdowns we have a different economic environment and feel than when we went in, I have been reading an interesting book that offers alternate advice on how to move forward with a fresh outlook to problem-solving.1 …
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It has been a number of years since I’ve read Steven Covey’s book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, but the title of Chapter Two I recall to mind oftentimes to help me think through what might be needed in a particular situation. Starting with a picture of what the end result looks like…
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Now that the COVID Pandemic lockdowns and re-openings are in the past, we can start assessing the after-effects of the policies that were instituted as a reaction to the crisis. Whether or not all economists are in agreement regarding the causes, it appears there is agreement on the fact that we have entered an inflationary…
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