I used to think that vision statements were just something that corporate executives do to make themselves feel as if they’re contributing. I still feel that’s true, but for a small company having the entrepreneur express his vision to his employees and customers should provide some benefit, even if intangible.

What is a vision statement, exactly, you ask? Well, first of all, it’s not a mission statement. The mission statement is much more firmly in the public relations area than a vision statement. A vision statement is an outline of how the entrepreneur wishes his company to operate.

A vision statement can express specific goals, such as how you’d like to structure your management team, and how you want to outline your marketing plan. It can also express less tangible items, such as how you envision your company’s culture.

How does this help? Well, here’s the part where I’ve been converted. It’s about communications. Once an entrepreneur starts employing others to work for his company, the struggle with keeping the original idea of the venture begins. Generally, people that want to work for you will not share your ideas and goals for the company from day one. The only way to get them to follow your ideas and goals is to communicate it to them.

I’ve been helping a small company with their accounting and finance. They use Netsuite for CRM and accounting. While working with their bookkeeper to reconcile and close for the month of August we noticed that numerous entries that we had reconciled months ago are now showing up as un-reconciled! To imagine that a system that is costing thousands of dollars a year can’t accomplish the most basic tasks in accounting, keeping things reconciled, is mind-boggling.

Are you a manager or a leader? Although you may hear these two terms thrown out interchangeably, they are in fact two very different animals complete with different personalities and world views. By learning whether you are more of a leader or more of a manager, you will gain the insight and self-confidence that comes with knowing more about yourself. The result is greater impact and effectiveness when dealing with others and running your business.

We are going to take a look at the different personality styles of managers versus leaders, the attitudes each have toward goals, their basic conceptions of what work entails, their relationships with others, and their sense of self (or self-identity) and how it develops. Last of all, we will examine leadership development and discover what criteria is necessary for leaders to reach their full potential. First of all, let’s take a look at the difference in personality styles between a manager and a leader.

Managers – emphasize rationality and control; are problem-solvers (focusing on goals, resources, organization structures, or people); often ask question, “What problems have to be solved, and what are the best ways to achieve results so that people will continue to contribute to this organization?”; are persistent, tough-minded, hard working, intelligent, analytical, tolerant and have goodwill toward others.

Leaders – are perceived as brilliant, but sometimes lonely; achieve control of themselves before they try to control others; can visualize a purpose and generate value in work; are imaginative, passionate, non-conforming risk-takers.

Managers and leaders have very different attitudes toward goals.

Managers – adopt impersonal, almost passive, attitudes toward goals; decide upon goals based on necessity instead of desire and are therefore deeply tied to their organization’s culture; tend to be reactive since they focus on current information.

Leaders – tend to be active since they envision and promote their ideas instead of reacting to current situations; shape ideas instead of responding to them; have a personal orientation toward goals; provide a vision that alters the way people think about what is desirable, possible, and necessary.

Now let’s look at managers’ and leaders’ conceptions of work.

Managers – view work as an enabling process; establish strategies and makes decisions by combining people and ideas; continually coordinate and balance opposing views; are good at reaching compromises and mediating conflicts between opposing values and perspectives; act to limit choice; tolerate practical, mundane work because of strong survival instinct which makes them risk-averse.

Leaders – develop new approaches to long-standing problems and open issues to new options; first, use their vision to excite people and only then develop choices which give those images substance; focus people on shared ideals and raise their expectations; work from high-risk positions because of strong dislike of mundane work.

Managers and leaders have very different relations with others.

Managers – prefer working with others; report that solitary activity makes them anxious; are collaborative; maintain a low level of emotional involvement in relationships; attempt to reconcile differences, seek compromises, and establish a balance of power; relate to people according to the role they play in a sequence of events or in a decision-making process; focus on how things get done; maintain controlled, rational, and equitable structures ; may be viewed by others as inscrutable, detached, and manipulative.

Leaders – maintain inner perceptiveness that they can use in their relationships with others; relate to people in intuitive, empathetic way; focus on what events and decisions mean to participants; attract strong feelings of identity and difference or of love and hate; create systems where human relations may be turbulent, intense, and at times even disorganized.

The Self-Identity of managers versus leaders is strongly influenced by their past.

Managers – report that their adjustments to life have been straightforward and that their lives have been more or less peaceful since birth; have a sense of self as a guide to conduct and attitude which is derived from a feeling of being at home and in harmony with their environment; see themselves as conservators and regulators of an existing order of affairs with which they personally identify and from which they gain rewards; report that their role harmonizes with their ideals of responsibility and duty; perpetuate and strengthen existing institutions; display a life development process which focuses on socialization…this socialization process prepares them to guide institutions and to maintain the existing balance of social relations.

Leaders – reportedly have not had an easy time of it; lives are marked by a continual struggle to find some sense of order; do not take things for granted and are not satisfied with the status quo; report that their “sense of self” is derived from a feeling of profound separateness; may work in organizations, but they never belong to them; report that their sense of self is independent of work roles, memberships, or other social indicators of social identity; seek opportunities for change (i.e. technological, political, or ideological); support change; find their purpose is to profoundly alter human, economic, and political relationships; display a life development process which focuses on personal mastery…this process impels them to struggle for psychological and social change.

Development of Leadership

As you can see, managers and leaders are very different animals. It is important to remember that there are definite strengths and weaknesses of both types of individuals. Managers are very good at maintaining the status quo and adding stability and order to our culture. However, they may not be as good at instigating change and envisioning the future. On the other hand, leaders are very good at stirring people’s emotions, raising their expectations, and taking them in new directions (both good and bad). However, like artists and other gifted people, leaders often suffer from neuroses and have a tendency toward self-absorption and preoccupation.

If you are planning on owning your own business, you must develop management skills, whether they come naturally or not. However, what do you do if you believe you are, in fact, a leader – a diamond in the rough? What can you do to develop as a leader? Throughout history, it has been shown again and again that leaders have needed strong one-to-one relationships with teachers whose strengths lie in cultivating talent in order to reach their full potential. If you think you are a leader at heart, find a teacher that you admire – someone who you can connect with and who can help you develop your natural talents and interests. Whether you reach “glory” status or not, you will grow in ways you never even imagined. And isn’t that what life is about anyway?

From the SBA

Here’s a handy link to the IRS, get the 1099 forms.

http://www.irs.gov/businesses/page/0,,id=23108,00.html

I’ve posted several job postings for “virtual employees” and am now swamped going through the resumes I’ve received. What’s a virtual employee you ask? It’s someone who works regularly (as opposed to a contractor), but remotely located and working over the internet. I wanted to explore this concept for a few reasons.

First, it opens up the options for whom I can hire. If I were hiring someone locally, the person would have to already live here or be willing to move here. Second, it reduces expenses. For the price of renting office space alone I can hire several people. Plus, salaries in the Boston area are among the highest in the world. Good programmers are still wanting $6000 a month and more here. Third, it doesn’t tie me down to the Boston area. Should I decide to move (which I’m in the process of doing), it would be difficult to uproot an office of employees, and it would be pointless to start hiring now when I might just move in a few months anyway.

So, the hard part is who to hire. I have three job postings. I’ve gone through resumes for one posting so far. About 500 resumes. I’ve eliminated 90% off the top, just because the resumes don’t mention the desired skill sets. I’ve traded emails with a few of the appliants, but it’s difficult for me to evaluate beyond this. I’m considering hiring a company to do online screening test for me, but have no experience with that either. I think I’ll give SCORE a shout and see if anyone there can advise me.

Bootstrapping alludes to a German legend about a boy who was able to fly by pulling himself up by his bootstraps. In computers, this term refers to any process where a simple system activates a more complicated system. It is the problem of starting a certain system without the system already functioning. It seems just as impossible as “pulling oneself up by the bootstraps” which Baron M

I don’t know how I ended up with four business bank accounts, several merchant processors, too many different systems are taking up too much of my time. I’ll be hiring a consultant to help me consolidate my business systems and make it more manageable. Well, I do know how I ended up with so many different accounts. There was a purpose to each one when I opened them. The problem is that I wasn’t looking at the big picture while making all these things happen. Not only do I have multiple bank accounts, but they’re all at different banks. Too many accounts to reconcile either equals too much time spent reconciling or you don’t do it at all.

I’m using Quickbooks for my accounting system, and am determined to stay with it. There are some things I’d like to see it have (such as opening up the online billing features, for example), but there are no other products that please me as much. Peachtree is a very close second. Now I’m looking at ways to make running my business easier by automating things using Quickbooks. I’ve been manually sending invoices by email, for example. I know I can automate it in Quickbooks, it’s just a matter of setting it up.

Drop by the forum and discuss this issue with me.

I get this question again and again, in an unending variety of formats. How do I decide what business to start? Where do I get ideas? How do I find products to sell? Start with the education. No, I don’t mean paying thousands to some quack for a seminar, you can educate yourself pretty well for a buck fifty in late fees at the library. Don’t worry about getting suggestions for what book to read, read all of them. Just go to the library, go to the stacks where the books about real estate are, and where the books about business are, and start reading. I’d recommend reading some accounting books too, knowing how to prepare and read a financial statement is a very valuable skill. Boring reading to be sure, but you need to understand money. Eventually, you’ll be able to evaluate the books you’re reading and know which ones make sense to you and which ones don’t. By then, you should be able to develop a business plan that will work for YOU. I believe that this method is better than trying to have someone else direct you, because you can’t live their lives. Having a mentor is great too, but you need to become educated enough to stand on your own two feet. Even with a mentor, you will need to be confident enough to be able to evaluate the mentor’s advice.

One of the points that so many people get confused about is whether they’re running a business, or if they’re self-employed. I’m not talking about the IRS code here, but the actual realities of running a business. One of the points that so many people get confused about is whether they’re running a business, or if they’re self-employed. I’m not talking about the IRS code here, but the actual realities of running a business.

The first question you should ask if you want to know if what you have is a business is whether you could take a year off and come back and you’re business is still functioning. This is an important goal to set, if you’re not already there. Your business should be able to keep itself running without you being present.

Another measure is how much you could get if you were to sell your business. If nobody would be interested in buying, then what does that tell you? Talk to a business broker about it. You don’t have to sell, but you might find it interesting what you’d learn in talking to one.

Another mark of a successful business is when you’re able to hire people to work for you and maintain an acceptible profit-margin. When you get to the point where you value your time more than you can pay someone else to do the job for you, you know you’re on the right track. I’ve never heard of a successful business that didn’t have employees.

Do you run a business?

PS: MLM can never be a business, unless you’re the one who founded it.

Talk about it here

I was just reading how the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief and Reconciliation Act of 2003 increased the bonus depreciation rate from 30% to 50%, of hte adjusted basis of qualified property. Jobs and Growth Tax Relief and Reconciliation Act of 2003

I was just reading how the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief and Reconciliation Act of 2003 increased the bonus depreciation rate from 30% to 50%, of hte adjusted basis of qualified property. I thought people here might benefit from knowing a bit about it.

The bonus depreciation is determined without any pro-ration based on the date the property was placed in service. This means that if you put in service on 12/31, or whenever your tax year ends, you’re eligibel for hte full 50% bonus depreciation.