The 7 Principles of Business Integrity

If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don't

have integrity, nothing else matters. -- Alan K. Simpson

If I were to ask you what attribute is the most influential

in regard to the success of a business, would you know

immediately which one is the most important? Based on my

many years as a business owner and entrepreneur, I have

discovered that at the very top of the list is the

distinguishing quality of integrity. Without integrity at

the helm of a company, a business is usually short-lived. In

fact, when business integrity is present throughout the

deepest layers of a company and not just at its surface, it

becomes the heart and soul of the company's culture and can

mean the difference between a company that succeeds and a

company that falters.

The Internet's Immeasurable Impact on the Marketplace!

The importance of integrity has always existed among the

business community, but in recent times has been shown as

falling short. It is the Internet's immeasurable impact on

the global marketplace that is now making the expression of

integrity, reliability and credibility extremely important.

Furthermore, the consequence of global competition means

that customers will simply not consider a company that shows

any less than the highest level of integrity. Since there is

a wealth of competitive companies easily available and

accessible via the Internet, there is in fact no need to

accept anything less than the best.

Where Does Integrity Start?

In an effort to build upon a foundation of integrity, the

first requirement would be to establish excellent rapport

with clients. Based on many years of study, the best and

most practiced method for achieving rapport is by way of

Relationship Marketing. Just as it sounds, Relationship

Marketing is founded on the single and most critical

characteristic, known as "Integrity." However, achieving

true integrity with clients often leaves many an

entrepreneur bewildered, grasping for techniques and

strategies that guarantee their futures. But integrity is

not something that can be grasped and then simply used.

Integrity in its essence must be so ingrained within the

nature of an individual, its company and the team members,

that it remains steadfast no matter what. Without question,

others sense it and find it very attractive.

The True Nature of Integrity!

Now you are probably asking yourself, what is the true

nature of integrity? There are in fact some very basic

principles that surround the qualities of business

integrity. At its core, integrity begins with a company

leader who understands the qualities of integrity which then

filters down throughout the company into every department

and every member's approach and attitude.

In recent research performed by the Institute of Business

Ethics- an organization which is among the world's leaders

in promoting corporate ethical best practices, it was found

that companies displaying a "clear commitment to ethical

conduct" almost invariably outperform companies that do not

display ethical conduct. The Director of the Institute of

Business Ethics, Philippa Foster Black, stated: "Not only is

ethical behavior in the business world the right and

principled thing to do, but it has been proven that ethical

behavior pays off in financial returns." These findings

deserve to be considered as an important tool for companies

striving for long-term prospects and growth.

The following 7 Principles of Business Integrity are the

basics of integrity and a good starting off place to

consider. By integrating each of these principles within a

company environment, the result will be nothing short of a

major rebirth of the enterprise.

Principle #1: Recognize that customers/clients want to do business

with a company they can trust; when trust is at the core

of a company, it is easy to recognize. Trust defined is

assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or

truth of a business.

Principle #2: For continuous improvement of a company, the leader

of an organization must be willing to open up to ideas

for betterment. Ask for opinions and feedback from

both customers and team members and your company

will continue to grow.

Principle #3: Regardless of the circumstances, do everything in your

power to gain the trust of past customer's and clients,

particularly if something has gone awry. Do what you

can to reclaim any lost business by honoring all

commitments and obligations.

Principle #4: Re-evaluate all print materials including small business advertising, brochures and other business documents

making sure they are clear, precise and professional;

most important make sure they do not misrepresent or

misinterpret.

Principle #5: Remain involved in community-related issues and

activities thereby demonstrating that your business is a

responsible community contributor. In other words, stay

involved.

Principle #6: Take a hands-on approach in regard to accounting and

record keeping, not only as a means of gaining a better

feel for the progress of your company, but as a resource

for any "questionable " activities; gaining control of

accounting and record keeping allows you to end any

dubious activities promptly.

Principle #7: Treat others with the utmost of respect. Regardless of

differences, positions, titles, ages, or other types of

distinctions, always treat others with professional

respect and courtesy.

While it is most certainly an integral and positive step for

a small business to recognize the significance of integrity

as a tool for achieving its desired outcomes, that is only

the beginning. What must truly be recognized for true

success is that while certain precise universal principles

lead to business integrity, it is in the overall mindset of

the company and the unfailing implementation of these key

elements that an enterprise is truly defined. A small

business that instills a deep-seated theme of integrity

within its strategies and policies will not only be evident

among customers, associates and partners, but its overall

influence cannot help but to result in a profitable,

successful company. By recognizing the value of integrity,

and following each of the aforementioned 7 principles for

achieving integrity, your success cannot be far off.

Robert Moment is a best-selling author, business coach, strategist and the founder of The Moment Group, a consulting firm dedicated to helping small businesses win federal contracts. He just released his new book, It Only Takes a Moment to Score, and recently unveiled Sell Integrity, a small business tool that helps you successfully sell your business idea. Learn more at: http://www.sellintegrity.com

or email: Robert@sellintegrity.com

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

3 Killer Business Planning Principles - Background, Detail, and Conservatism

Business planning is one of the most critical steps to online or offline business success. It is so much easier to work from a well researched and well conceived blueprint, when running a business, than it is to work without direction. When you work from the air, without any guidance or sense of direction, you get blown with the wind. You get lost in a sea of problems. You become overwhelmed, overworked, stressed, and rudderless. You are in the doldrums. Please, do not put yourself into such a mess!

When you have a good business plan you can follow it to achieve your life's dreams. You can modify it as you work from it so that your plan remains relevant at all times. A business plan is the route map to your wildest financial aspirations. All the more reason why you should pay diligent attention to its preparation.

Business planning is a fundamental part of starting and running a successful online or offline business. A business plan is a strategic document that manifests the principle of thinking before acting. As a strategic document it details the long term plan to be followed, covering a period of 3-5 years. A business plan is also a tactical document in that it is best constructed at a detailed level that makes the forecasts reasonably accurate over the first year.

A business plan manifests the time-honored principle of thinking before acting. As a wiseman would ask... "How can you act when you don't even know where to begin, not to talk of where you are going to?" A business plan forces you to do the necessary groundwork or research that tells you the right point to begin, and what direction or path you should be following to run your business successfully. This activity is a risk management activity... it fills your initial ignorance with concrete, actionable intelligence.

A business plan should be flexible to allow for continuing refinements as the business is executed. A business plan should also be updated every year, to keep it relevant and a powerful driving force for your business.

This article discusses three killer business planning principles that were introduced in the earlier article... "12 Deadly Principles of Business Planning. You Must Know These." The three principles are... the background principle, the detail principle, and the conservatism principle. The emphasis here is on elaborating on these principles so as to fix them clearly in the reader's mind. Basically, the principles are applied to the planning of an unnamed business in order to provide the reader with a concrete example of how the principles may be applied. See also the article... "3 Explosive Principles of Business Planning... Your Business Will Fail If You Violate Them."

The Background Principle

The background principle states that "A business plan must be the work of someone with a relevant background (the founder, for a start-up business), and the plan must reflect its author's background." 'Relevant background' means that the author's background must be relevant to the business area covered by the plan. There must also be consistency between the plan and its author's background.

For a start-up business the plan must be the work of the founder, assuming that the founder will be running the business. This is because the experience and lessons learned in constructing the plan are critical to the successful execution of the business, based on the plan. It is almost impossible for a founder to successfully execute a business that has been planned by someone else. This is because the founder would lack insight into the plan... unless the founder is already an established expert in the business area. The quality of the business plan also testifies to the management capability of the business, and hence to the ability of management (or the founder) to run the business successfully.

The unnamed online business's management team has an interdisciplinary background involving management, technology, problem solving, research, writing, and human psychology that is ideal for writing its business plan and for running its business. Many problems have been solved on the path to completing its plan, and to solve the problems the management team has needed research skills. It has drawn from its understanding of human behavior and it has needed to express its ideas in legible ways.

The Detail Principle

The detail principle states that "A business plan must be sufficiently detailed to inspire confident action when executing the business; yet it must remain flexible."

A business plan must be concrete if it is to have any use. When it is concrete it is easily implemented, and the way to make it concrete is to make it sufficiently detailed without losing its flexibility. Of course, a business plan must be visionary (this gives it direction), but the vision must be translated into concrete, actionable, detailed steps if the vision is to be easily implemented and attained.

A detailed plan for a start-up business imparts confidence that the founder knows what he or she is doing. It is also evidence that the founder has done his homework. A detailed plan builds investor confidence and proves management's capability.

A detailed plan also illustrates strategic thinking, which is about anticipating problems well before they occur and preparing solutions for them, while leaving room for day-to-day tactical maneuvers that create efficiencies from, say, tracking and testing.

The unnamed online business's plan does a good job of problem anticipation, and provides well-researched strategies and tactics for dealing with the problems. The result is lowered risk and boosted confidence. The strategic solutions will be revised on a yearly basis as part of the yearly business planning process. This will account for changes in the business environment, such as in market data.

The Conservatism Principle

The conservatism principle states that "A business plan must be conservative." This means that it must not exaggerate sales or deliberately underestimate costs. To the contrary it must deliberately underestimate sales (just in case things don't go well) and it must deliberately overestimate cost without going over the top (just in case costs increase). It must also plan for omitted costs due to oversight.

Another way of stating this is that a business plan must be reasonably pessimistic in both costs and sales; i.e. costs must be reasonably over-estimated and sales must be reasonably underestimated. It is important to capture only the worst case scenario so that the tendency for business failure is minimized. It also means that a business should normally outperform its plans.

The unnamed online business's plan reasonably over-estimates costs by first researching an item's cost using Google and then augmenting it by a reasonable percentage to reflect possible increases. Where costs could not be researched an educated guess was made that weighed on the side of reasonable pessimism.

The plan reasonably underestimates sales by exploiting the link between sales and the potential market. The measures taken were as follows:

1. The potential market was based on only search engine traffic; it omitted other major traffic sources such as direct traffic, referral traffic, Web 2 traffic, publicity traffic, purchased traffic, viral traffic, etc.

2. Only a limited set of relevant keywords were used to estimate the potential market. The more relevant keywords that are used, the greater the traffic volume and potential market.

3. The potential market was derived from US figures only and was then doubled to account for the rest of the world. Considering that The Internet Coaching Library's "Internet World Stats: Usage and Population Statistics" indicates, according to December 2007 figures, that only 18% of Internet usage is attributable to North America (US and Canada combined) it is clear just how conservative the unnamed online business's estimate of its potential market is. First, it ignored Canada; and then it represented only at most 36% of the Internet population (i.e. twice the North America percentage).

4. A growth rate of 49% a year is assumed for the business, when reliable sources indicate that the average Internet growth rate is 100% a year. These sources include K G Coffman and A M Odlyzko's "The Size and Growth Rate of the Internet", First Monday, 1998; K. G. Coffman and A. M. Odlyzko's "Internet Growth: Is There A "Moore's Law" For Data Traffic?", Handbook of Massive Data Sets, 2001; and A. M. Odlyzko's "Internet Growth: Myth and Reality, Use and Abuse, 2001."

5. It is assumed that visitors make a purchase every 10 visits when reliable sources (including John Barbour's "The Email Profit Formula: How to Turn Your Email List into a Virtual Profit Machine", 2005) indicate that visitors take 5-8 visits to a purchase.

6. It is assumed that, when a visitor buys, she buys only one item when it is indeed possible that she may buy more items.

7. A conversion rate is used to reduce sales further as a reality check on the planning. This concedes that not all potential customers (or sales) will be actual customers (or sales). Some of the potential customers who make repeat visits to a site will do so only for research purposes and will not buy. Others still will be freebie hunters who never buy.

8. Sales estimates are based on only 10% of the current site, this 10% being the original site planned. New productivity tools made it possible to expand the site to 10 times what was originally planned.

Final Remarks

This article has described in some detail three master principles of business planning. The principles are... the background principle, the detail principle, and the conservatism principle. The emphasis has been on elaborating on the principles using a concrete business planning example, the idea being to fix the principles in the mind of the reader. If you are planning to start a business you'll be foolish to ignore these principles. And if your business is failing then these principles are more than likely contributing to its failure.

Dr Agbormbai runs these sites containing related business information:

1. Business Opportunities:

http://www.bright-future-for-you.com/business-opportunities/

2. Free, Highly-Rated Home/Online/Internet-Marketing Business Course worth Thousands of Dollars (First 200 persons admitted free, after which you pay full rate. Free places still available. Don't wait!):

http://www.bright-future-for-you.com/subscription-form.html

Feel free to extend your knowledge and insights into home/online/internet-marketing businesses.

BRIGHT FUTURE FOR YOU... YOU BET IT!

Yes, you have a bright future ahead of you! No matter how helpless your circumstances are, a bright future awaits you. No matter how troubled you are, happiness stands on your path. No matter how fearful you are, courage awaits you. No matter how demoralised you are, confidence awaits you. No matter how much you cry, laughter is coming your way. No matter how angry you are, peace is coming to your soul.

Dr Agbormbai's sites provide various opportunities to help you brighten your future. Perhaps the best way you can do so is to solve your financial problems to guarantee yourself and your family financial freedom.

As such the first opportunity provided is the business opportunity of starting and running a successful online, Internet, or home-based business. You'll find all the links on the right of the sites' pages. Other opportunities are elaborated as time unfolds.

There are many benefits to owning a successful Internet, home-based, or online business, and the web sites consider the top 8 of these.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

3 Explosive Principles of Business Planning - Your Business Will Fail If You Violate Them

Business planning is a fundamental part of starting and running a successful online or offline business. A business plan is a strategic document that manifests the principle of thinking before acting. As a strategic document it details the long term plan to be followed, covering a period of 3-5 years. A business plan is also a tactical document in that it is best constructed at a detailed level that makes the forecasts reasonably accurate over the first year.

A business plan manifests the time-honoured principle of thinking before acting. As a wiseman would ask... "How can you act when you don't even know where to begin, not to talk of where you are going to?" A business plan forces you to do the necessary groundwork or research that tells you the right point to begin, and what direction or path you should be following to run your business successfully. This activity is a risk management activity... it fills your initial ignorance with concrete, actionable intelligence.

A business plan should be flexible to allow for continuing refinements as the business is executed. A business plan should also be updated every year, to keep it relevant and a powerful driving force for your business.

This article discusses three deadly business planning principles that were introduced in the earlier article... "12 Deadly Principles of Business Planning. You Must Know These." The three principles are... the requirements principle, the objectives principle, and the motivation principle. The emphasis here is on elaborating on these principles so as to fix them clearly in the reader's mind. Basically, the principles are applied to the planning of an unnamed online business in order to provide you with a concrete example of how the principles may be applied. The name of the sample business has been omitted for privacy reasons.

The Requirements Principle

The requirements principle states that... "A business plan must comply with the requirements of funding bodies." All funding bodies have stringent requirements to be followed and these requirements are useful in themselves because they make a plan complete and rigorous when it complies with them. Therefore, even if you are not planning to seek funding it is strongly advised that you construct your business plan such that it complies with the requirements of one or more funding bodies.

These requirements often include:

Technological Innovation

Your business must be technologically innovative. For instance, the unnamed online business's web site is a technologically innovative process for marketing digital information products. While the idea of a web site is not innovative, the idea of a maximally converting web site that maximises visitor satisfaction through heightened customer service is indeed innovative. Note that the innovation is in the process not in the product - the site currently sells only affiliate products. The combination of top visitor relationship-building (i.e. branding) techniques in unique ways to achieve maximal conversions is innovative. These branding techniques include: quality content provision, seamless copy/content integration, cleanliness and friendliness of design, easy navigation, list building and informative follow-ups, use of communities or social media, and use of live site-assistants.

Presence of Technical Risk

Your business must have technical risk. This is an extension of the technological innovation requirement. An innovative project is always steeped in technical risk. For instance, a substantial project such as the unnamed online business's web site development is full of technical risk. However, the feasibility of the project was ascertained by constructing, testing, and refining several development prototypes of the site. This exploratory activity reduced the project risk to acceptable levels.

Presence of Commercial Potential

Your business must have commercial potential... or why call it a business? For instance, the unnamed online business's plan demonstrates that the business's web site project has huge commercial potential because it addresses a market that has millions of willing potential customers and it sells products that are among the most wanted in the market.

Job Creation and Retention

Your business must create or retain jobs. It is not enough to employ yourself, you must create or retain jobs for others. If you have the skills to employ the right people to your business then that is the best thing you will ever have done for your business. For instance, the unnamed online business's web site is an online business with a great deal of job creation opportunities. However, with its outsourcing philosophy, most of its jobs will be created through the outsourced companies. It is not only important to create new jobs, it is also important to retain existing ones.

Funding Needs

Your business must demonstrate its funding requirements. Funding bodies must know why you need the money and for what. For instance, the unnamed online business's business plan demonstrates the funding requirements of the business, highlighting the role of external funding as a small percentage of total funding needs. The major portion of the funding is provided in-house through the CEO's equity.

Balanced Funding Sources

Your business must have balanced funding sources. This means that it must be funded from various sources. This makes it easier to find funding. For instance, for the sample unnamed online business, total funding needs are provided through in-house and external funding. In-house funding is provided largely through the CEO's work equity, while external funding is provided via one or more of grant, investment (friends/family, angels, or venture capital), or loans.

The Objective Principle

The objective principle states that "A business plan must have clearly defined objectives and it must accomplish those objectives." The objectives principle asks the question... What is the busines plan trying to achieve? A business plan is prepared to meet some set of goals, and it must accomplish those goals. The objectives of a business plan are the same as the objectives of the business it describes. For instance, the aim of the unnamed online business's business plan is to plan and design an autopilot cash-generating system that maximises profits by minimising costs and maximising sales. At the end of the plan there will be a blueprint for reconstructing the unnamed online business's web site and for running the business to achieve its strategic aims.

Designing an autopilot system means substantially automating the system, and that means employing a web site as well as outsourcing traffic generation and other supporting activities. The use of a web site and of outsourcing minimises costs while maximising effectiveness. Sales are maximised through effective customer service and branding, and through maximising growth via the strategic pursuits of scalability, leverage, focus, and outsourcing.

Scalability means being able to expand easily or without much work. Leverage means being able to achieve more for less work; e.g. achieving high profits for only a modest work input. Focus means concentrating attention on one key thing at a time and doing it extremely well before moving to the next key thing. And outsourcing means delegating work to external specialist businesses who have far greater experience, efficiency, and effectiveness in the work area.

The Motivation Principle

The motivation principle states that "A business plan must have clear motivations which highlight its significance." The motivations of a business plan are the reasons for constructing the plan. As such they highlight the significance of the plan.

For instance, the motivations of the unnamed online business's business plan are as follows:

1. To act as a guide to action, a blueprint for business execution.

2. To act as a web design and optimisation plan, a blueprint for reconstructing and optimising its web site.

3. To be a framework for comparing actual performance against planned performance.

4. To be a reference point for yearly strategic planning of the business.

5. To act as a funding document, a focal point for generating business financing.

6. To act as a clarity-inspiring document. The world of online business is full of hype, with the blind leading the blind; and scam artists are legion. To succeed, it is necessary to cut through the noise in order to strike at the heart of the secret knowledge and doctrines that drive the privileged 2%-5% of businesses that make it online. The unnamed online business's plan embodies research, web site development, and market tests, the combination of which engenders clarity of thought and confidence in the future.

Final Remarks

This article has described in some detail three master principles of business planning. The principles are... the requirements principle, the objectives principle, and the motivation principle. The emphasis has been on elaborating on the principles using a concrete business planning example, the idea being to fix the principles in the mind of the reader. If you are planning to start a business you'll be foolish to ignore these principles. And if your business is failing then these principles are more than likely contributing to its failure.

Dr Agbormbai runs these sites containing related business information:

1. Business Opportunities:

http://www.bright-future-for-you.com/business-opportunities/

2. Free, Highly-Rated Home/Online/Internet-Marketing Business Course worth Thousands of Dollars (First 200 persons admitted free, after which you pay full rate. Free places still available. Don't wait!):

http://www.bright-future-for-you.com/subscription-form.html

Feel free to extend your knowledge and insights into home/online/internet-marketing businesses.

BRIGHT FUTURE FOR YOU... YOU BET IT!

Yes, you have a bright future ahead of you! No matter how helpless your circumstances are, a bright future awaits you. No matter how troubled you are, happiness stands on your path. No matter how fearful you are, courage awaits you. No matter how demoralised you are, confidence awaits you. No matter how much you cry, laughter is coming your way. No matter how angry you are, peace is coming to your soul.

Dr Agbormbai's sites provide various opportunities to help you brighten your future. Perhaps the best way you can do so is to solve your financial problems to guarantee yourself and your family financial freedom.

As such the first opportunity provided is the business opportunity of starting and running a successful online, Internet, or home-based business. You'll find all the links on the right of the sites' pages. Other opportunities are elaborated as time unfolds.

There are many benefits to owning a successful Internet, home-based, or online business, and the web sites consider the top 8 of these.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs, Get Tips From the Core Principles Business Incubators Use to Help Newbies

Baby boomer entrepreneurs can get tips from the core principles business incubators use to help newbie entrepreneurs. The fast growing new group of boomer entrepreneurs is made up of people seeking to retire from their current employment. They look for a semi-retired life as business owners as compared to traditional retirement. Boomers have an extra time pressure that makes learning from trial and error a poor choice for getting their businesses off the ground. Following a proven model can greatly expedite the development of your business and improve your odds of success. Business incubators regularly help new businesses launch. Taking a look at the core principles by which they assist newbie entrepreneurs has the potential to give you a head start.

Not just Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs, but almost everyone has thought about being in business for themselves. Yet only a few people ever go beyond the point of dreaming and actually start their business. Of those few, 95 percent will ultimately see their business close and not realize their dream of success. Unlike younger entrepreneurs, baby boomers do not have the time to learn by trial and error to overcome the risks of startup. Is there a way to reduce that risk?

Clearly, the answer is YES. Risk can be mitigated. It depends upon knowing what the 5% who are successful do  differently from the way the other 95% approach the task of forming a  business. The process used by business incubators may give us the clue to that difference.

What Are Business Incubators?

Business incubators are organizations that offer specific training programs for entrepreneurs to nurture fledgling businesses. Incubators generally involve starting a business in a location, somewhat like an industrial park, that is specifically structured to share resources and develop skills for people seeking to become entrepreneurs.

The National Business Incubation Association (NBIA) says that business incubation programs provide entrepreneurs with a guiding hand to help them turn their ideas into viable businesses. Since the first incubator opened in Batavia, N.Y., 50 years ago, incubation programs around the world have been providing client companies with business support services and resources tailored to young firms to help increase their chances of success.

The US Government Says Business Incubators Improve Odds of Success For New Companies

The U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration (EDA) validates that incubation works. Their research says that business incubators provide communities with significantly greater results at less cost than do any other type of public works project.

Researchers found that business incubators are the most effective means of creating jobs; more effective than roads and bridges, industrial parks, commercial buildings, and sewer and water projects. In fact, incubators provide up to 20 times more jobs than community infrastructure projects (e.g., water and sewer projects) at a Federal Government cost of $144 to $216 per job compared with $2,920 to $6,872 for the latter.

In another EDA-funded study in the mid1990s, it was found that 87 percent of all firms that had graduated from NBIA member incubation programs remained in business; and about 84 percent remained in the incubator's community.

It is estimated that in 2005 alone, North American incubators assisted more than 27,000 start up companies that provided full-time employment for more than 100,000 workers and generated annual revenues of more than $17 billion. Many thousands more jobs were created by companies that had already graduated from these business incubation programs and now operate self-sufficiently in their communities.

If a strategic focus on innovation and entrepreneurship makes the difference in businesses started in business incubators, a similar focus must certainly work for baby boomer entrepreneurs facing the same problem of starting a business and avoiding the pattern of failure that most businesses experience.

What Are The Core Practices of Business Incubators that Make A Difference For New Entrepreneurs?

The National Business Incubation Association has consistently shown that incubation programs that adhere to the principles and best practices of successful business incubation generally outperform those that do not. They cite two industry principles that effectively characterize business incubation programs around the world, regardless of their focus or mission.

1. The incubator aspires to have a positive impact on its community's economic health by maximizing the success of emerging companies.

2. The incubator itself is a dynamic model of a sustainable, efficient business operation.

The essence is that incubators provide a structure for entrepreneurs to learn to avoid the problems that typically cause failure. Entrepreneurs learn a behavior modification process to use deliberate business development techniques, business operation by design rather than by accident. Incubators normally admit entrepreneurs into a structured learning experience that expands their skills as they move toward a required level of skill and graduation from the incubator once the skills are developed.

What Can New Entrepreneurs, Especially Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs, Learn From Incubators?

Incubators are about expectations and systems. Incubators strive to be good models of a company that uses systems effectively for their own operations. They use systems to design the training experience of companies that enter their programs. Additionally, they teach their member companies to design and operate effective systems. It stands to reason that businesses created on such a systems model have a better chance of survival.

Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs can learn from the success of business incubators and the businesses they help start. If business incubators have systems that include key elements, your business should have key elements too:

- Commit to the core principles

- Obtain consensus on mission

- Structure for financial sustainability

- Build an effective board of directors

- Prioritize management time

- Develop an effective facility

- Integrate activities into the fabric of the community

- Develop stakeholder support

- Maintain a management information system

How Can Your Business Benefit From What We Know About The Success of Incubation?

1. Find out if there is an incubation service near you. Though most of these are resident programs, a number of variations are often directed by local economic development groups that do not require your business to be resident in an incubation facility. The  the National Business Incubation Association cooperates with many local programs and may be able to help you find out if there is an incubator near you.

2. If you can't find an incubator, you may want to try a do it yourself approach. Get the best book written on applying the systems concept to business development. Many incubators use this as a a book in their training of new entrepreneurs,This is Michael Gerber's The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Businesses Don't Work and What To Do About It. Each year, the owners of the fastest growing privately held companies in America credit this book as being the most important business book they have ever read. Again, many of the formal business incubation programs are based upon the concepts discussed in this book.

3. Look for Internet based information that can help you develop your own business incubation systems at low to no costs. Especially look for ideas that align with your specific needs in your stage of life as a  Boomer. Remember, you are looking to design a plan that allows you to avoid the most common errors that take place when new businesses are formed. Boomers who really want to make a mark do not have the luxury of running their businesses by the seat of their pants.

In summary, the most important point of incubation is to build a business by design. The first step is defining expectations. The second step is building systems to make those expectations happen.

Shallie Bey is a business coach who works with Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs and other small business owners. If you would like to see more of his free resources on entrepreneurship, go to http://www.squidoo.com/Baby-Boomer-Entrepreneurs You can also find his writings on the Smarter Small Business Blog at http://businessrebirth.blogspot.com

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.