Email And The Entrepreneur And Start Up Company

If you are a non-entrepreneur Gen Y like my son, you probably see email as antiquated at floppy disks.  For him, email has been replaced by social media, instant messaging and texting.

However…

If you are like me, and most other entrepreneurs, who run start up and emerging companies, you heavily depend on email.

So, what do you do in this spam and virus infected world to protect you and your company’s email?

Spam Reduction

For me, I don’t want to lose emails or their attachments – or inadvertently filter out client or prospective client emails. 

I still use an old Pop3 client called Eudora which isn’t even supported any more (one of these days, I’ll find the time to upgrade this.)  I also use a front-end spam filter called Mail Washer Pro which is excellent at filtering out the more than 2,000 spam emails I get every day.  Mail Washer does a great job – but sometimes, it treats an email from a prospective client as spam which means that I might not even get it.

For me, I use two solutions that might make sense for you and your company. too.

The first is that I am now using one of those annoying contact forms on this web site.  I know a lot of us hate filling these things out – but it solves the problem of new prospects getting caught in the spam filter.  Everything that comes from my web site contact form is marked as a “Friend” which means that I see it.  Once I start working with a new client, I mark their direct emails as Friends also – which means that problem solved – until they use yet another email address and catch me, and Mail Washer, off guard. 

But, for the most part, this is the best approach I’ve seen…and it avoids those spam trap opt in forms that are generally a complete turn off to friends and prospects alike.

 Automatic Email Backup Protection

Since I use a Pop3 email client fed by my hosting company, automatic email backup protection was easy.  There is a California start up company that offers this automatic email backup protection service for free: G o o g l e.

Many of you probably already have a Gmail account for home, personal or other reasons.  Many of you may use them as your primary work and start up company email address.  I personally don’t trust online storage of all my emails when you never know what might happen that inadvertently closes your account and you have lost everything.  Also, if you have employees, you want control of their company email account if they quit or if they are fired.  For those reasons, and others, I don’t choose to use Google or any other web resident email account as my main conduit to the world.

However, I do trust Google as a back up.

I use one of my Google Gmail accounts strictly as a back up for ALL 13 of my domain named email accounts. 

I simply go into my hosting account (I use Host Gator) and create a forwarded copy of ALL my received emails to send to this one backup collection account.  It took me less than five minutes to forward a copy of all email from all accounts to my new Google Gmail account.

Google gives you a massive amount of storage for all the emails and attachments that you get.  They even do a great job of separating out the spam.  This approach also gives me a way to view all my email accounts under one email roof when I’m using my mobile devices. Plus, I have a copy of all emails and all versions of documents sent to me.  If you wanted to back up all emails that you send, you could set up your mail client to automatically BCC all emails you send so that they also get backed up on your special Gmail account.

Check with your hosting account and see if they support duplicate forwarding of your company’s email.  If so, Google is waiting to solve your email backup problems for free.

Business Plans: The Second Biggest Mistake Entrepreneurs Make With Their Business Plan For Their Start Up Company

This one mistake is so critical that it jeopardizes the immediate survivability of your start up company – even before you get started.

What IS The Second Biggest Mistake?

Many cost-sensitive entrepreneurs depend on number crunchers, bean counters and newly minted MBAs for their projections – just to save a few dollars.

New start up CEOs doom their new company by pinching pennies in the wrong place. Instead, what they need are pivotal insights from experienced consultants who can provide the guidance the entrepreneur needs for producing a realistic, genuinely implementable business plan.

Your business plan is not some academic document – instead, it is your crucial road map to successful implementation of your vision for your new company.

The Driving Assumptions

The most important part of any business plan is the detailed financial projections that are the basis for the entire business model of every new start up company. There are four sets of underlying assumptions that drive all the projections:

1. Start up costs – what will you need to spend up front to get the company going?
2. Sales forecast – the single most important set of assumptions for your whole plan – how many of what, will you sell, for how much, at what costs, when?
3. Personnel – how many, of what kind of employees, will you need at what cost, when?
4. Operating costs – what will it really cost to be in business, generate sales, give necessary sales support and exemplary customer service and cover all back office expenses?

Every part of your financial projections is just arithmetic – based on those four sets of driving assumptions. Because it is just arithmetic, many entrepreneurs make the often fatal mistake of assuming it is trivial and can be done easily and cheaply.

But – if you guess wrong on any of these assumptions, then most of your projections are wrong – including two of your most important projections: your cash flow and your capital needs. If you guess wrong on your assumptions that impact these, then you will probably run out of money and your new company will fail.

Number Crunchers and Bean Counters

Number crunchers and bean counters are great at arithmetic. So are newly minted MBAs. And, they can be relatively cheap to hire. But this cheap hire may be the most expensive mistake you will make as a start up CEO.

These cheap hires almost never have any experience base or expertises that help entrepreneurs make meaningful assumptions. So, entrepreneurs who use this approach for their business plans end up with GIGO: garbage in, garbage out projections that are misleading at best – but more often, fatal in the end.

As the adage goes, the only thing worse than going the wrong direction – is going the wrong direction enthusiastically. By basing your business plan on the wrong assumptions, you end up going the wrong direction – probably enthusiastically – believing your bean counter-generated plan will be the path to wealth.

Entrepreneurs who have thought they were saving a few hundred dollars by hiring cheap number crunchers or inexperienced MBAs, end up losing everything they’ve invested in their new company – all because they were penny wise – and dollar foolish – or rather, thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars foolish.

Cash is always limited for start up companies – but this is one place you do not want to get trapped by false savings.

The Right Solution

What’s the best way for you to avoid the second biggest mistake for your new start up company?

Hire an experienced management consultant who specializes in start up companies – particularly a consultant who has started at least a dozen of their own companies. That way, you get insights based on real life experience that will help you end up with a genuinely implementable plan for the future – your future and the future of your new start up company.

Ceo Resource LLC has specialized in cost-effectively helping over 2,000 entrepreneurs and start up companies with their business planning for the past 16 years.

Please check out our services listed in the left column of this blog.

Firing the Indispensable Employee

As I get questions from readers from my Ask The Chief ImpleMentor Campaign, I will take some of the questions that I think might have a broad audience and post them here on the blog.

This one is filed under “Dragons – Personnel: How do you fire the indispensable person in your organization?”

Question:

We just moved and I have decided that even if you built an office across the street and moved in slowly, it is devastation to the routine. My staff all get their feathers ruffled despite the fact that their gain is significant in the work place. It just chaps me to no end to deal with WHINERS! Even though I am a woman CEO, I have to admit that I loathe women employees as a rule anyway – but whining women disturb me to my very core.

For the record, I employ 7 men to every woman – not by design but just the way it worked out. The women that I have (for the most part) think like men, behave like men and love men. However, I have one NAZI fem , the HR director, who is causing problems for the whole organization with her attitude and approach. Even though she is indispensable to my company, she is my biggest mistake. How do I rid myself of her since no one else knows what she knows in so many very critical areas?

Susan

Answer:

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