Welcome To The Beehive

I don’t promise people anything more than basic common sense when it comes to this book. And some people think that’s pretty unspectacular. But common sense is oh so important when it comes to moving forward in your career.

With all that goes on in our lives it becomes very easy to lose touch with the fundamentals. The most basic fundamental is that we expect to be paid for our work. In the majority of careers, getting paid what you are owed is a fairly straight forward process. People who work for large, established companies rarely have to worry about their pay showing up on time and in the promised amount. Not so for independent contractors and people working for newly started businesses.

The case of some of the folks at Blognation is a telling one. A disgruntled employee of this fledgling Web 2.0 (Two-Point-Oh) company posted an angry missive on both the company and personal website where he assails the company founder for failing to pay monies due to his contractors. This is a sad, but preventable situation.

Lesson one of Welcome To The Beehive implores you to protect yourself first in all business situations. Remember that even though we like to have faith in individuals and organizations we also have to live by some hard and fast rules in order to keep moving ahead in business. One hard rule should be that if you expect to be paid then you should stop work as soon as you are not paid. I know that people tend to think that, “If I keep working then maybe I will get paid.” Here’s a news flash. If you keep working without pay then your employer has no incentive to pay you.

If you haven’t been fired you can bet that you are needed in order for the business you are working for to continue being successful. And if you are needed your absence creates a great incentive to pay you so that you will return straight away. If you leave a situation where you have not been paid and you never get your money then you probably weren’t going to get paid in the first place.

There’s an old saying that goes like this, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” So protect yourself and don’t follow the fool who foolishly fails to pay a person worthy of the pay they are owed.

I talk a good game here but there is a very important concept that I want to get across before we go any further. Nothing that I’ve communicated works unless there is a healthy balance between your personal and professional lives.

The term healthy may be defined differently from person to person. A sixty hour work week may be just fine for a single guy. But a father with two children at home might find relations with the family strained if he spends most of his time commuting and the office. Likewise for working mothers.

There are personal considerations as well. Do you have enough time to sleep? Can you make time to exercise? When was the last time you took a vacation? How do you feel on a daily basis?

If you answered “No, No, A long time and Stressed” then it’s possible that you are out of balance. You need to spend less time on the quest for business success and more time on you or your family. This is easier said then done I know.

One thing you fill find is that as you slip out of balance the negative effects of your situation will start to overcome the benefits of being a hard charger. Your attitude will change. Your health will change. A lot of things will change and not for the better.

So consider this as you embark on your quest to conquer the world of business. Gaining everything you want professionally is not worth it if you have to sacrifice health, family and personal happiness. Slow down and bring all those things along on the journey with you.

What do you think employees at a business expect in terms of compensation? What do you expect? If you were suddenly granted a 25% raise would your level of motivation increase? Probably for a while. But then I bet that you would settle back into your old dissatisfaction if you were in fact dissatisfied prior to your pay raise.

How would you feel if you were suddenly granted a percentage of ownership in the business in lieu of a raise? If you liked the business in general I bet that you would feel a whole lot better in the long run. People long to be entrepreneurs partly because they want to own what they are sweating for day in and day out. They want the greater financial benefits that come from having a stake. Why can’t you be an entrepreneur and employee at the same time?

Stock option plans were the rage in the late nineties but they were used in the wrong way. People’s short sighted mindset drove them to think that stock options equaled instant riches. And while stock options did mean that for some people, many more spent money they never had.

A piece of a company should be looked at as a long term investment. If presented properly that piece can help motivate employees in the long run. Don’t just take my advice. Listen to James Hong, founder of the hugely successful HotOrNot.com.

HotOrNot hit some bumps in the road after they became a huge online destination. The founders of the company went into maintenance mode and started to see their market share slipping. They realized that changes needed to be made. Remember that Lesson Nine of Welcome To The Beehive teaches us that change is the only constant in business.

One of the major changes HotOrNot made was to start up an employee stock option plan. InJames’ own words, “Giving the team a large cut of equity has aligned their interests with ours and we’ve seen it breathe an incredible amount of new energy into them… as it should.”

Right on. Your best employees deserve a piece of the pie. If you’re an employee but are losing motivation because you don’t have a stake in the company then you should ask how you can get a stake. You just might save your company from having to replace your knowledge when you decide to jump ship for a company that will grant you a stake.

Lots more good knowledge in James’ post. Go here to check it out.

While Hurricane Katrina and it’s after effects are fresh in people’s minds I thought it would be a good idea to share a lesson about business and disaster. I’m sure that thousands of businesses have had their operations ceased as a result of this killer storm. For many businesses that can mean major upheaval and, in some cases, insolvency. Your business can survive a major disaster if you follow some basic steps.

The story of Merrill Lynch from the September 11, 2001 attacks provides a clue on how to prepare for a disaster. The company successfully evacuated 9000 employees from the area around the World Trade Center in the minutes following the terrorist attacks. Within hours, Merrill Lynch’s New York operations were up and running again. How could they achieve such an amazing feat? There are two reasons. First, they had a plan. Second, they had leadership.

As a business owner or key person in a business you need to have both in order to survive not only the initial moments of a disaster but also to withstand the aftermath.

A plan to deal with disaster can take many forms. Certainly there must be a financial component. How will you deal with the loss of income and property from a disaster? Procuring good insurance is one way to mitigate the financial effects of a disaster. Unfortunately insurance doesn’t always cover 100% of your costs in a situation so a disaster or “rainy day” fund is a valuable asset. As much as you can you should save for that rainy day that you hope will never come. Unfortunately, sometimes those days do come along and your fund will help to ease the pain of the event.

There also needs to be a component that addresses people and physical assets. How will you evacuate people and physical assets if you have the opportunity? Do you have another location that you can work from if your primary location is compromised? Which personnel are critical to keeping your business running at a minimum level? These and more questions should be answered as part of your disaster plan.

So you must make sure that a plan exists. Once your plan exists you must re-evaluate the plan periodically to make sure that the plan still makes sense as your business changes. All personnel must know their part of the plan before a disaster occurs. For that reason, rehearsing and talking through the plan are keys to success. Taking the extra time to do this will make things much easier when it comes time to execute.

If the rainy day should come and you have to put the plan into action then you’ll need leadership. Great leaders know how to keep their composure and follow the plan, adlibbing as necessary. As a key person in a business, you always need to be aware of the level of leadership on your team. Take the time to nurture leadership traits amongst your staff and you’ll have another insurance policy to protect your business when you need it most.

All of this is fine and dandy, but there’s one more way that you can insure a soft landing from a disastrous event. Treat your employees well. Take care of them during times bad and good and they will take care of you when the business needs it most. You can always replace machines and furniture, but replacing a great employee is a very difficult task. Treat people as your most precious resource for overcoming disaster and you’ll be a step ahead of circumstance every day of the week.

There’s an old parable about two male sheep standing on hill looking down at a herd of female sheep. The male sheep are discussing the possibility of getting friendly with the females. One of the sheep states the desire to run down to get together with one of the sheep. The other sheep, who is older and wiser, rebuffs the younger sheeps thoughts on the advance. The older sheep prefers to walk down and have a chance with all of them.

The story is a silly one, but there is an important point made in the story. Taking your time to let a situation properly develop is a very important part of any winning business strategy. The urge to “jump right in” overcomes many a business rookie and even some veterans as well. “What about the old adage, strike while the iron is hot,” you may ask? To me that means that you should strike when the situation requires action. Deciding on the right time to jump in is an art in itself.

The paradigm of the late 90s was one of reckless abandon. Ideas were turned into businesses in weeks instead of the usual months or years. Investors were plunking down their life savings when businesses were in their very early and very fragile stages. Some people made out good, but a lot more people lost. The winners simply got lucky in many cases. The losers felt the sting from “running down the hill.” Remember the lesson of the late 90s or you’ll be doomed to repeat it in your business dealings today.

Whether you’re a CEO or recent college graduate you’ll find yourself in many situations where you’ll be evaluating situations. Your reaction to those situations can make the difference between success and failure. A CEO hears about a hot new technology and decides that his company must get in on the ground floor right now. The company invests millions in this early stage technology. Another competing standard to the same technology debuts shortly thereafter, greatly reducing the return on investment. A recent college grad with very little practical business experience hears about a new business opportunity in multi level marketing. She’s swayed by a slick pitch and fancy marketing materials. But she has to get involved now, in order to be successful, or so she’s told. And so it goes.

Now, I’m not trying to spread doom and gloom here. Sometimes longshots come through very nicely. The point here is the fact that no matter what decade you’re living in, certain common sense rules apply in making a decision to commit to a business opportunity. It’s a very rare situation where something must be done now. Unless of course that now is a time after which a particular situation has been thoroughly research and considered. This doesn’t have to take a lot of time either. In today’s world of uber information, things can be researched pretty quickly. You’d be surprised though at how many people fail to look before they leap. It happens at all levels of organizations and in all businesses.

What can you do? Be thorough and measure your swing. In Welcome To The Beehive I make these points very strongly. Risks are okay! But they need to be measured or you’ll drift from simple investment in an idea to complete speculation. Speculators win big sometimes, but they also lose big too. Anyone who tells you that you have to invest (financially or intellectually) right now or all is lost is probably selling you something. There’s nothing wrong with buying as long as you’ve taken the time to kick the tires and look under the hood.

We all want to get something out of each moment of our working lives. We may want a co-worker to finish a task in a certain amount of time. We may want the opportunity to speak on a certain topic, or represent ourselves with respect to an idea or initiative. In almost every situation we’re in there are some expectations to be met. Knowing that fact, it’s important to understand the keys to getting what you want out of each situation.

The first, and most important key to getting what you want involves communication. You must be able to communicate the desired outcomes of a situation or an event prior to that moment taking place. And depending on your position in the situation you will need to take different approaches to make sure that your communication is effective.

Before you communicate expectations to anyone else you must be able to communicate to yourself. That means you must take the time to have a “conversation” with yourself. This step covers the “what” of your expectations. Sit down for a few moments to gather your thoughts. Think about the relevant situation or event. Think about what you want to acheive as a result. Then take that information and record it in as much detail as you need to insure that you can get your message across to someone else. Make sure that your record is one that you can easily refer to down the road, like a saved document on your computer, as opposed to a scrap of paper.

Now that you’ve thought a little bit about your desired ourcomes, you need to make your communications plan. If you’re very familiar with your current situation then the communications plan may only take a moment. The plan address the “whom” and “how” of your expectations. To whom will you communicate your expectations? How will you communicate to them? Two very simple, but very important questions. The answers depend on your position in the situation. If you’re leading a team you might communicate differently than a person who is a subordinate on a larger effort.

Here’s a really important point. Don’t assume that because you’re a subordinate on a task that you don’t have expectations to communicate. You do! Always take the time to develop and communicate expectations up the chain of concern. By doing this you can help to avoid confusion and disappointment when you get feedback later.

Once you’ve worked out the “what”, “whom” and “how” you’ll need to execute and engage in the necessary communication to make the expectations understood. This may occur face-to-face or it may occur via phone or email. My best advice is to try to do this face-to-face as much as possible. You can’t underestimate the importance of seeing a person’s body language when you’re discussing expectations. Be prepared to negotiate and adjust your expectations as the person (or people) you’re dealing with may have different views of the situation. Also be prepared to make a compelling case on the areas that are most important to you.

The execution step may result in altered expectations. That’s fine as long as the new expectations are agreed upon and properly recorded.

Once the situation or event occurs then you’ll need to make sure that results are captured to support a review of whether the recorded expectations were met. It doesn’t matter how you capture these results, but know going into the situation that you’ll need to record some kind of metric to be able to know if your expectations were met or not.

Finally, you should convene after the event and come to agreement on the outcomes. Even if you’re working alone you should take the time to consider whether your expectations were met and then record those findings for future use. By doing so you are creating a powerful record that can be used in performance reviews and business analysis. More importantly, you also have a fair and accurate record of events.

By adopting this process as a whole, you can insure that you get your expected outcomes more of the time, while creating a road map to use in developing and fulfilling expectations in the future.

Every so often a product or service comes into the market and it really defies convention by having great success in the face of insurmountable odds. Consider the story of Grey Goose vodka.

In 1998 Sidney Frank introduced this new vodka into the market with the goal of unseating Absolut as the world’s best selling brand. And that wasn’t his only goal. He wanted to sell his vodka for nearly double the price of Absolut while still gaining all that market share.

Done and done.

Grey Goose was recently sold to Bacardi for $2 Billion as the world’s number one brand of vodka. Sidney Frank achieved his goals in spades but how did he do it? He did it by using a technique I call Hail Mary Marketing.

Hail Mary Marketing involves something that is a key ingredient to a successful business career. That something I speak of is belief. Belief in yourself and belief in your ideas. Sidney Frank’s idea was a simple one. He believed that there was a space in the vodka market for a premium vodka. He knew that he would have to pull together a great product in order to fill that space. More importantly, he knew that a great product won’t necessarily grab market share without a story.

This is the point where most entrepreneurs would stop. They would stop because they wouldn’t be able to believe that a new product would be able to take over the worldwide vodka market. Without that belief they wouldn’t be able to create a compelling story. Without that belief they wouldn’t be able to get the word out in a manner that inspired confidence in their product. It just couldn’t be done.

The essence of Hail Mary Marketing involves selling an idea that very few people (or maybe none) believe can be sold. Sidney Frank believed and in believing he crafted a great story. Imagine a vodka made from the finest French spring water. Packaged in large, frosted glass bottles with etching instead of labels. Imagine a vodka stopped with a cork instead of a screw cap, and shipped in wooden cases instead of cartons. Everything about Grey Goose screamed luxury, including the price.

We know the end of the Grey Goose story. But what about your story? What’s happening with your business ideas? Somewhere along the line you will have an idea. And when that time comes you’ll need to sell that idea. There’s a good chance that many people won’t believe in the idea. That’s where your version of Hail Mary Marketing comes in to play.

No matter how you plan to approach your marketing effort, Hail Mary Marketing involves four key steps that can help you be successful.

1. Visualize your idea in the greatest detail possible.
2. Create a “story” to make your idea more compelling.
3. Broadcast a message consistent with your story.
4. Ignore the doubters if you haven’t at least tried to make it happen.

Taking these steps won’t guarantee success in marketing your idea, but it will guarantee that you’re in the game while many others are on the sidelines. And in the world of business you can’t win unless you’re in the game.

Raise your hand if you want to be successful in business. Come on now, raise it high.

I bet you raised your hand. Who wouldn’t? Why do we go out the door everyday to ply our trades? We want to achieve our own definition of success in business and in life.

No matter what your definition of success there are certain realities that have to be faced. The one reality that so many business people fail to face involves the plan for their business. Let me furnish you with a recent practical example.

I pay a visit to a dynamic and growing company. This company is involved in an ever changing industry. This company is aggressively seeking new clients with a wide variety of complex needs. This company is growing in numbers of employees and revenue. This company has a portion of their operations in complete turmoil, jeopardizing the whole of their operations. My job is to help them pull it all together.

I plan to help them by starting with a basic tenet of business promulgated in the classic book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. That tenet is this: Begin with the end in mind. In other words, first think about your desired outcomes and then figure out how to achieve those goals.

Upon arrival at this company I meet with great resistance in the form of the head of the department in turmoil. I’m told things like, “We should figure out the day to day things first.” “We must address our present operational issues.” “We’ll pull it all together as soon as we get the daily processes working.” I ask when that “soon” will be. I don’t get an answer.

The company that I provide as an example has a problem that is all too typical for businesses. The strategic goals (the big picture) are cast aside in order to feed everyday processes (little pictures) that don’t really tie together.

There are many analogies to describe this situation in other terms. Imagine workers attempting to build a house without an architectural plan. Carpenters show up and they’re told to start framing walls. Plumbers are told to install pipe. Electricians are told to install wire. They all know their respective jobs, but they don’t know how they’re supposed to fit together. Do you think that house will ever get built? Do you think the owner’s vision of the house will be realized?

Many businesses take the same approach to their daily operations. Managers tell workers to perform tasks without relying on a plan to address the end that a company seeks. The result of this approach is turmoil. Workers plow away at tasks devoid of larger meaning. And managers sweat, hoping that enough gets done to please their bosses while promising to turn over a new leaf tomorrow.

Tomorrow is today folks. It’s never too late to step to the plate and assess the big picture. You see, eventually the house of cards collapses and everyone loses out. You want to be a success so you commit to starting with the end in mind. Let’s take the first step together.

Start the exercise by asking yourself a question. What is the single most important goal I am trying to achieve in the business I’m in? Pick just one to start with. We’re at 30,000 feet now.

Once you have that ultimate goal decided you’re ready for the next step. Break that single goal into a handful of more specific goals. The more specific goals should be directly tied to the specific needs of your customers, or whoever you need to serve in your business situation. In order to do this, you must truly understand the needs of your clients in order to develop the goals in steps one and two. This process can never be completed in a vacuum. If you attempt to draft your goals without your clients in mind, there’s a very good chance that you won’t meet their most critical needs. That means that you need to take some time to speak to your clients and find out what they really need prior to moving forward.

Up to this point, an example of this process might look something like this:

Ultimate Goal: To provide my customers with the most convenient and efficient service possible.

Specific Goals:

a. Deliver a high quality service or product.
b. Deliver products or services quickly.
c. Provide top notch support for the service or product.

By taking the first two steps you’ve set yourself up for success. You’ve begun to develop a solid plan that addresses the big picture. There’s still a lot more to do though. You’ll want to take each of those specific goals and then break it down into smaller parts. For each one of the specific goals you should create one or more tasks that will allow you to fulfill that goal. The tasks are the specific duties that people in your organization will be responsible for. For example:

Specific Goal: Deliver a high quality product or service.

Sub-Tasks: Assess client needs; Analyze current market for product or service; create design standards; Implement production controls; etc.

Understanding the detailed tasks involved that support your goals allows you to go to a much more granular level of detail. You’re moving into the little pictures now. That’s fine because you have the big picture to keep guiding you.

Each of these subtasks involves five questions. The subtask itself addresses the first question: What? The other four questions are: Why are we doing this task? Who is primarily responsible for this task? When will this task be performed? How will this task be performed?

Investigating the answers to these questions will reveal many things about your business, not the least of which will include the gaps that exist in your processes. The gaps are the points in your process where you are unable to satisfactorily fulfill a need. These are areas that must be addressed and because you’ve taken the time to start with the big picture you will be able to address them.

At the end of this process of discovery you should have two outputs that give your business a decided edge over your less meticulous peers. Output one is an analysis of your gaps along with a plan to address those gaps. Output two is a detailed document that describes all the goals, tasks and answers to the five important questions mentioned above. This document is your operating guide. It should be to the point and easy to read. You can (and should) use this document as a tool to train employees on how your business works.

All of a sudden who have resources that help to drive your business forward while allowing you to focus more on the future. You can think more about tommorrow and less about the worries of today. Your people now have the tools and the knowledge to get the job done in an orderly manner with much less supervision.

The development of a plan such as this always requires a significant commitment of time and effort. Many companies are not willing to take the time to make this kind of commitment to improving their business. Take this advice and you’ll watch your less ambitious competitors disappear in the rear view mirror.

Every new entrepreneur has many tasks that they must master in order to have a shot at successfully running their own business. They must be a visionary. They must be a salesperson. They must be a motivator. They must be a decision maker. They must be all these things and more.

When I first investigated what it would take to run my own business I found myself getting stuck on a step that is very important, but usually creates more of a barrier to getting a business started than it ever should. The step that I’m referring to is the one where you create a business plan.

A detailed plan should be the cornerstone of any important journey or project that we undertake. It’s no different for the creation of a business. A business must have a detailed plan that can set the purpose and direction for the venture. The concept is simple enough, but I find that many people have found themselves intimidated at the prospect of putting together a plan for their business. And who wouldn’t be? If you type in the phrase “business plan” in Google there are hundreds of links to sites that pitch books and software for creating the “perfect” plan.

The fact is that the process should be anything but intimidating, especially if you’ve really thought out the details of your business. So I want to take a few moments of your time to demystify the business plan and help you to feel confident about creating a good plan for your business.

First off, I want to confirm the purpose of the kind of business plan I’m talking about. This type of plan indicates the purpose and sets the direction for the business. This is a document that we can refer to frequently as the business gets underway. This is a living document that is subject to change and probably will be changed at some point. This type of business plan differs from a plan whose purpose is to attract investors or loans for a business. I call that a business propsal.

Many times, people will confuse a business plan with a business proposal. A business proposal is a tool to help an entrepreneur gain support (financial and otherwise) for a business. The style and format of business proposals will differ depending upon the intended recipient of the document. Preparing a business proposal tends to be more time consuming since you might need to create three different proposals to seem attractive to three different investors.

The business plan needs to come before the proposal, as the plan will eventually be a major part of your proposal. I like to break ideas down into parts to make them more palatable and we’ll do the same with the business plan.

Part I. The objective of the business - What product(s) or service(s) will you offer? Think of as many details about the product or service when describing it.

Part II. The beneficiary of the business - Who are your customers? Are you selling to businesses or to the general public? Describe, in detail, your customer base. What is it that they need? Why are they going to want what you’re selling? How will you reach your customers?

Part III. The delivery of the business - How will you produce and deliver your product or service to your customer base? Will you have a store? Will you sell via the internet? Will you do both? Think about how other people do it and determine their level of success with different methods.

Part IV. The finances of the business - How much money will you need to get started? How much money can you expect to make every month? What will your recurring expenses be? How much will you charge for your product or service? Getting the answers to these types of questions requires a lot of research on the business your heading into. Use the internet to get information from other businesses offering similar services.

If you have these four areas covered then you should be ready to answer the most important question of all: Is this business idea worth moving forward? If your answer is yes, then you should take the time to organize your information and put your plan into a format that makes sense and can be easily updated in the future as plans change.

And by the way, the plan will change!

Once you’ve documented your plan, then you are ready to execute your business. This step may also include contacting potential investors or partners, which necessitates the development of a proposal. Otherwise, you’ll be well on your way to the unlimited possibilities in the life of a business entrepreneur.

Remember this. Don’t let the act of creating the plan stop you from moving forward with your business ideas. Do some research, collect your thoughts and get your ideas on paper. Don’t worry about the format as much as the value of the content. By heeding this advice you’ll be able to distinguish the great ideas from the not so good ones and greatly enhance your chances for business success.

With the beginning of 2005 upon us my thoughts turn to compensation. And why not? Compensation is the reason that we work, isn’t it? Would you get out of bed and head to your job or business tomorrow morning if you knew there would be no financial reward associated with your efforts? Of course not. So compensation is important. It’s really important.

Given that compensation is so important, it’s never a bad time to take stock of your compensation needs along with your worth. That’s right, you need to consider what you are worth to your job or business. After all, we don’t work simply to meet our needs. We all want to exceed our needs so we can provide for the future and hopefully have a better life.

The first step in our evaluation involves assessing whether or not our basic needs are being met. Ask yourself a series of questions. Am I able to pay the rent or the mortgage? Can I afford a good car or other transportation to the places that I need to go? Am I able to put enough food on the table to meet the needs of myself and my family? Is there enough money available to pay for medical insurance? Am I saving money for the future? These questions address very basic needs that must be met in order to survive in today’s society. Sadly enough, not everyone is able to meet these needs. That’s one of the reasons why this evaluation process is so important to a working person.

Once you’ve assessed your ability to provide for you and yours it’s time to figure out in what direction you want to take your ability to provide. If you’re not meeting the basic needs then you’ll want to increase your level of compensation. Even if you are meeting the basic needs, you may want to meet other needs as well. If you’re doing really well, you might be completely satisfied with your compensation. If you’re in this situation then count yourself among the few and fortunate. In my case (and most other people’s as well) I can always justify attempts to increase my income.

The next step involves having an understanding of how you make money. I’m assuming that you’re onboard with the concept that increased compensation is a good thing in your life at this time. So how do you make money? Are you a business owner whose income is derived from the sales in your business? Are you a salaried employee who collects a paycheck from a corporation? Are you a freelancer who works from job to job with a host of different clients?

Take just a few moments to think about how you make your living. Then think about how you can boost your potential for earning. Is there anything new that you can learn? Is there anything more you can do that you are not doing? Are there new developments in your industry that you can capitalize on? Ask yourself questions. Seek out the keys to your earnings potential and those keys will start to find you.

Once you have a strong understanding of how that precious green stuff comes into your life, you’ll be in a very good position. There are still a couple of more things that you must do to make the assessment complete. The next important thing involves, surprise surprise, another question. And that question is this: Am I at least being compensated at a level that I am worth? Understanding this fact is critical to providing for all of your needs. Are you underpaid at your job? Is your businesses’ revenue too low to afford for a good salary for your self?

This step involves more than just the question and an answer. It involves an analysis of your business, your own abilities and the money that can be made as a result of these things. If you’re a business owner you might want to research some of your competitors. How many and what kinds of customers do they have? What do other people charge for their products or services? Are they getting their price? Where are the opportunities to boost business revenue?

If you’re a salaried employee, you might research salaries for your position, level of experience and skill level. You could find out if there are other compensation opportunities that you are missing out on, like bonuses and commissions.

The bottom line is that no matter what business you are in, you have to know the possibilities in order to know what level you want to shoot for.

The final, and most crucial step is coming to an understanding of what your worth really is. All the research and analysis in the world will not bring to a realistic expectation of what you are worth. Some people think they are worth as much as they are making at a given time. Others always think that they are worth more than what they are making. Two people with identical jobs (or businesses) and identical levels of experience can have very different views on this issue.

I’ve developed a simple benchmark for determining my worth relative to my compensation at any given time. I start, as always, with a question. Is the compensation that I receive from products or services that I provide the maximum amount available at that time? So if I’m selling a hammer for $10 and the business down the street is able to sell the same hammer for $12, then I don’t consider that I’m getting all my business is worth. At that point, it’s up to me to reset my expectations and sell that hammer for at least $12. If I’m getting paid $70,000 a year at my job and a peer who does a job comparable to mine earns $80,000 then I feel that I need to be compensated up to that level in order to be at least meeting what I consider to be my worth.

You might have other ideas on how to determine what you’re worth. That’s fine. As long as you have an opinion on your worth and you take action to improve your worth and your compensation, you will have the possibility of a brighter future.