"Oh, sure! you might reply, "all that spare time."
Therein lies a trap: staying current and doing research are not activities reserved only for those managers who are not constantly busy. Most, if not all managers, are constantly busy. Small business managers are usually much too busy. The temptation is to consider staying current with the profession and doing research relating to your product, services and costs of doing business as something not necessary or not possible. Try telling the family farmer that it is not necessary to watch market prices and continually research market trends for his or her crops! Try telling that to the folks raising catfish or the business manager who plans to purchase a faster printing press for the county newspaper.
Being uninformed becomes a source of stress. It is nerve-wracking to be uninformed about matters pertaining to the future of the very business you are managing.
Every small business manager needs tostay current: what innovations are being introduced in your industry? What kind of advice is the leadership in your professional organization giving? You do belong to a professional organization, don't you? That's one easy way to stay current: attend the gatherings and read the newsletter. You pay dues so that the organization can keep you current.
Research? What research? Market research, regulatory research, and any possible changes that could impact your business. These would include changes in the tax code, safety and environmental regulations, reporting regulations (which seem to be forever changing) any new competition, customer satisfaction, changes in the interest rate and ideas that could lead you to make a better mousetrap or at least improve the mousetrap you already market.
The smaller the business, the easier it is to stay current and do research. The reason for this is that you can take shortcuts by being informal. For example: look around your world for the person who does exceptionally well what you do. This might be the local legend, the person everyone talks about as being the best. Interview this person as to what they might have learned over the years that you should know about.
Perhaps they have a website to tell you about, saving you hours of Internet searching. Perhaps they go about things in some different way that works for them and could work for you. The most sincere form of flattery is imitation. The second most sincere form of flattery is the interview: what is this person's opinion about a specified problem or trend or trade practice? What is their secret of success? Even better: if the person is retired, what do they have to share with you as they look back?
The number one reason why successful people do not share their secrets is because they are not asked! The number one reason they are not asked is because their peers do not observe them closely and study what they do.
Another shortcut to market research: ask one person every day what they know about your product or service. Then ask them for advice. Write it down. Make sure you ask a different person every day. At the end of each month read what you have written down.
At the end of every phone conversation with your customers ask them if they have any advice for your business. Jot it down and read those notes at the end of the month. It's not that you need to do everything or anything that you are advised to do. Rather, coming through those bits and pieces of replies will be a picture of what people think of your product and services, their impressions. That tells you what kind of image you have out there, if any. It will set you to thinking. It is information that does not cost anything and only requires a few minutes each day to gather. It gets you listening, observing, thinking and concentrating about what can be done to improve.
There are four sets of people from whom feedback is important. These are your peers, your customers, your employees and the public at large. Except for occasional complaints, you will get almost no feedback unless you ask, listen and thank these persons for their comments.
That is how to stay current and do research in the world of small business. Most surprisingly, when you do these simple things you will discover yourself listening to the news more intently, reading the newspaper and newsletters more thoughtfully and waking up with new ideas about how improve, protect or modify your business plans and practices.
And you won't be stressed out wondering what potentially harmful development are happening that you don't know about. In due time you will become the legend!
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