Month: March 2015

NH SBDC is celebrating its 30th anniversary by highlighting just some of the many small business  clients we’ve had over the years. 

While the state was battling epic snowstorms, Magdalena Randall was busy setting up a retail bakery site in downtown Lancaster. Her Polish Princess Bakery had outgrown her family home after three years of providing artisan breads and other baked goods to the region.  Magdalena got her start 6 years ago when she brought her first 18 loaves to the Lancaster Farmer’s Market and they quickly sold out. She added the Berlin Farmer’s Market after that success.

She soon expanded her skills and her offerings to include breads with Italian, French, German and Polish origins. She bakes several kinds of rolls and more than 10 types of bread including wheat, various ryes and baguettes.

Here in early March, she awaits the installation of a European bread oven in the new retail space, so she’s without her main product. However, she’s been selling her breakfast pastries, cookies, quiche and soups, and a little bit of bread.

Magdalena, who is originally from Poland, first heard about the New Hampshire Small Business Development Center’s North Country business advisor Stewart Gates back in 2006 or 2007, after reading an article about his services.  “I wasn’t ready to open the business yet, but I thought it was amazing that a resource like this was available,” she said.

Magdalena ramped up planning by first taking an entrepreneurial course through the now-defunct Micro-Credit organization, and the instructor of that course recommended Stewart to her just at the moment she had begun thinking of expanding her baking to outside her home.

“I met with him once a week over the summer…working out the numbers and trying to figure out the economics,” she said. She and Stewart worked through a checklist of all the things she needed to consider.

When the downtown Lancaster property became available, she knew it was time to move on it.  While she says it was “convenient” to be doing all her baking in her home, “it was also time to grow and to stop living between the bags of flour in the kitchen!”

She ultimately got both a bank loan and a loan from the town of Lancaster.  Once The Polish Princess is fully operational, with her ovens installed and what she hopes will be a steady stream of customers, she’ll meet with Stewart again and go over the financial data together. She knows she’ll need ongoing advice in this phase on her development.

“Just because someone like me has an idea about a business doesn’t mean we know the business side of things!” she said. 

Owning your own business isn’t easy. It takes time, effort, and a great deal of personal investment. But sometimes you can make it even harder on yourself than it needs to be. Here are a few habits to break if you and your business are to stay healthy:

Trying to do too much.

Life is full of opportunities, but trying to take advantage of all of them merely divides your effort and blunts the results. Pick the one or two things you can do best and focus on them.

Working too hard.

The old saying goes, “Work smarter, not harder.” Take advantage of new technologies to simplify tasks. Delegate responsibilities to those around you, and be sure to give them the credit for a job well done.

Ignoring the competition.

It’s easy to pretend you’re the only business going after a certain market, but it’s rarely true. Don’t obsess about the competition, but be aware of them, even if you’re at the top of the heap. Every successful startup began at the bottom.

Entrepreneur and venture investor Adam Callinan offers tips for 10 things entrepreneurs need to stop doing, many of which apply to small business owners, in this article: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/243324

Highly successful people come from all different backgrounds, but they share some common habits, according to author Paul C. Brunson. Brunson has spent time working with celebrity Oprah Winfrey and billionaire Enver Yucel and noticed that the two shared some common working habits, habits that those of us with less than a billion dollars can also practice.

1. Keep growing.

Take the time to invest in your own self development. Don’t ever stop learning new skills and exploring new areas.

2. Stay curious.

Successful people notice things that other people may think are obvious or totally obtuse. Sometimes those things lead to new ideas, new developments, or new ways of doing things.

3. Take responsibility.

If something goes wrong, don’t try to cover it up. Own it, and make it right.

4. Take risks.

It has been said that people who take risks live longer, happier lives. “If you’re not taking risks, you’re not making moves,” says Brunson.

5. Build a team.

Highly successful people don’t try to do everything themselves. Surround yourself with good people and work with them to build your dream.

Read Brunson’s complete article with many more tips from highly successful people here:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-carrick-brunson/20-habits-for-success_b_4739731.html