You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April, 2009.
One of my businesses is a mutual fund. We try & beat the stock market every day, what we sell is trust. The horse & buggy makers thought they were in the carriage market and not the transportation market. They got beaten by cars. Likewise, rail roads forgot they were in the transportation business and got beaten by trucks. Now they call themselves logistics firms and know they compete & cooperate with trucks & FedEx.
This story comes from The Knack by Norm Brodsky.
There once was guy named Fred who owned a fish company that supplied a number of restaurants.
“You want to know why I’m successful?” asked Fred.
“Because you sell to a lot of restaurants?”
“No,” said Fred, “because I know what business I’m in.”
“You’re in the fish business.”
“Not exactly,” said Fred, “I’m really in the banking business. I make loans to restaurants in the form of fish. You see, a restaurant is a seasonal business. Like any good banker, I know when my customers are short of cash, and I know when they’re busy. I carry them during the slow periods and collect after they’ve had a big week. They pay me not only for the fish but for the credit I extend to them. I build the cost of the credit into my price.”
You may not know what business you really are in at first. Fed Ex Kinkos, a copy chain, started out selling copies, pens, paper, posters and many other items at first before they figured out they not just sold copies but piece of mind to harried people needing to make copies.
“I think that one of the reasons Silicon Valley creates so many entrepreneurs is, you work next to someone who has started a company and you say to yourself. “That guy has been successful and he’s a dumb shit.”
-Nolan Bushnell, Founder Atari, Chuck E. Cheese and many many others
I have many competitors in the online small business accounting world. The big gorilla is still in packaged software, Quickbooks, Peachtree & MYOB. Luckily many people don’t like paying high prices or dealing with updates, operating systems, backup or networking so the online space and cloud computing is growing. Two competitors to numia.biz I can recommend here are:
Clarity Accounting LessAccounting
They both charge about $10 or more a month (vs. our FREE one) but I like their look, ease of use, intuitive feel and features which numia.biz has yet to incorporate (but will sooner or later). So go ahead, explore us all and pick the one that’s best for you. Just remember to use one that allows you to export your data in case you want to switch to another. Try not to get locked into proprietary formats.
Lastly, check out Compete.com. This site allows you to see how many unique visitors your web site is getting vs. your competition!
More visitors = more customers.
Site March 2009 Average Daily Visitors
- numia.biz 286
- Clarity Accounting 6,731
- LessAccounting 17,001
- NetSuite* 1,200,846
As you can see, numia.biz has some catching up to do. Anyone know SEO?
* NetSuite provides online accounting for larger firms.
You should read books. Many books from different fields to get a broad scope of what others are seeing, doing & thinking. Then apply their lessons to your business. Some of the smartest people read all the time. It is an exercise in continuous learning. I once heard a story about William G. McGowan, one of the people who helped lead MCI and the breakup of the old AT&T. When he flew, he would carry a stack of books with him to read. So, even toughs of us who have made it continue to read.
Two great books which I just finished and highly recommend are:
“Copy This” by Paul Orfalea, the person who founded & grew Kinko’s and
“Leading For Growth” by Ray Davis, the CEO & President of Umpqua Bank.
I am sure I will be sharing many of their stories here, in the meantime… read!
