Small-business management packages are designed to give business owners a total view of their enterprises. No type of company needs that kind of information more than a manufacturing firm.
Manufacturers have to track costs more closely than other firms, including raw materials or component costs, machine costs and inventory costs.
Nita Singh founded her company, American Business Communication Inc., to help business customers sort through the confusion after regulators broke up Ma Bell ? the ?telecom bomb,? as Singh describes it. More than a decade later, it?s grown to 18 employees and annual revenue of $3.5 million, and Singh says confusion still reigns. She tells Upsize how to guard against ?bill creep,? how to money on your wireless plan, and why next time you might want to chuck your PBX.
Remember when your Rolodex was enough?
These days your customer list could fill several Rolodexes and you might have to ask your sales manager who was the last person to talk to a customer. But everyone can have access to basic customer information in addition to details about payments, invoicing, and purchasing trends when you a customer relationship management (CRM) system.
Chances are, you?ve already got a CRM system of some sort. But the choices and capabilities of these types of systems have greatly expanded in the past few years. These days, business owners have options such as off-the-shelf databases, custom-built software applications, and everything in between.
Matt Kramer recently made a five-stop visit to businesses in Wright County. He?s commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.
Among those visited were companies operating in four different industries in four different cities: the T.C. American facility in St. Michael Ultra Machine Co. in Monticello Product Technologies Inc. in Maple Lake and Von Ruden Manufacturing in Buffalo. He also stopped at the Minnesota WorkForce center in Monticello.
Aaron Weiche grew up in Buffalo, where his family owned the only radio station in town. The 30-year-old lifelong resident of Wright County remembers in the 1980s when Pamida came to town.
?It was a big deal then to have a place like that to go to,? says Weiche, sales and marketing manager for Delano-based Intrcomm Technology, a company that provides communications products and services to businesses.
Wright County still has the small-town feel that Weiche recalls, but it is growing faster than ever before, meaning there are more opportunities for small businesses to grow. People still know your name, but with new faces and new businesses entering the county, it takes a little longer to get to know your neighbor.
On a rare vacation Eli Khoury found himself relaxing in Mexico, reading a magazine tailored to restaurant owners. In the magazine were some comments that stood out to Khoury from Ray Kroc, the late founder of McDonald?s.
?He basically said that in order for a restaurant to succeed, it has to have a personality that fits the community it is located in,? said Khoury. ?In today?s restaurant world, everything is so cut and dry. So many owners believe if it worked in one location, it will work or has to be run the same in the next location. It doesn?t always work that way.?
Kelly Stucco Systems was growing at a tremendous rate, nearly doubling in size each year. But as most small-business owners know, the more you grow, the more you need to invest in the business.
There was little money left for the expensive machinery the plaster manufacturer needed to keep competing. So, the owners of the $1-million company looked into equipment leasing.
Take note if you?re a business owner who gets uneasy when approaching bankers: Some of those bankers are entrepreneurs, just like you. A wave of mergers in the banking business has brought new large players to town, such as M&I Bank and Associated Bank. The purchases have also spawned start-up banks, usually begun by executives of the purchased banks who don?t enjoy the big-bank atmosphere. Crown Bank and Venture Bank are two examples in the last few years.
Upsize talked to the latest of these entrepreneurs, Ken Brooks, president, and Leif Syverson, executive vice president, who started Signature Bank in Minnetonka last November, after Century Bank was purchased by M&I in late 2001. They tell how they raised twice the typical equity investment for their bank, and how they?ll try to hit a blistering growth rate, to $40 million in assets this year.
When Jake Sanders was growing up, he spent a lot of time helping out at his mother?s antique store at 50th Street and Xerxes Avenue in Minneapolis.
?I remember running around the store at age 7 schlepping boxes around,? Sanders says. ?I remember all of the nooks and crannies of that store.?
His mother, Linda Getchell, launched her business in 1981 after her 30-year-old husband was diagnosed with crippling rheumatoid arthritis and was told he would never work again. The young mother of two needed to make a living and wanted a business in which her family could be involved.
Now more than two decades later, 27-year-old Sanders is in the specialty retailing business for himself, leaving behind a career in the high-tech industry. The only way he can explain his career redirection is that retailing is in his blood.
Sometimes, as a small-business owner, you just have to take advantage of the right circumstances, good timing and that gut feeling that tells you that you''re doing the best thing. In these days of low real estate prices, that can apply to buying rather than leasing your office space.
“We were facing the end of a lease for our office space in Bloomington and we were in a situation where we were looking for something better,” says Brian Dvorak, CFO for Minneapolis-based Metro Distribution, a newspaper and magazine delivery company that shares the same management team (and headquarters) as Digital Axis, a printing firm.