Questions and Answers of Entrepreneurial Small Business

Understand why pricing is an important but difficult task for small business.
Understand price elasticities, pricing psychology, and other price influencers and their impact on pricing.
Understand different pricing strategies.
Recognize the different types of direct marketing and their pros and cons.
Learn how to do nondirect distribution.
Differentiate the types of international strategies.
Identify the factors to consider in selecting your business location.
Recognize the key issues in leasing.
Know what to look for in evaluating a potential site layout.
Understand the pros and cons of buying, building, or leasing.
Understand the importance of a marketing plan.
Recognize the major methods for conducting market research.
Use sales forecasting methods.
Find or create a product’s differential advantage.
Identify the critical components of a marketing plan.
Describe the basic concepts of accounting.
Specify the requirements for a small business accounting system.
Explain the content and format of common financial statements.
Use accounting information as a tool for managing your business effectively.
Develop a complete set of budgets for your business.
Use accounting information to make better business decisions.
Explain the importance of managing your business’s money.
Explain the concepts of money, cash, and cash equivalents.
Explain the basics of managing cash flow.
Reconcile bank and company book balances.
Develop strategies for preventing and coping with cash flow problems.
Implement strategies for coping with cash shortages.
Describe the three types of capital financing and their costs and trade-offs.
Explain the characteristics of a business that determine its ability to raise capital.
Determine the best type of financing for your business.
Describe the differing needs for financial management at each stage of business life.
Describe techniques to manage short-term assets.
Calculate the value of the assets in your business.
Describe techniques for managing fixed assets.
Calculate ratios used to analyze capital investment decisions.
Describe the advantages of renting or leasing capital equipment.
Describe techniques to manage and improve the operations of your business.
Explain the meaning and nature of business risk.
Describe the specific types of risks associated with different aspects of business operations.
Describe techniques to manage risks to stay within your level of risk tolerance.
Explain how insurance can be used to manage business risk.
Describe techniques for sharing risk with other businesses and organizations.
Explore the decision to hire full-time or part-time help.
Understand how to recruit good employees on your budget.
Know how to match the right person to the job.
Learn about employee training methods and resources.
Gain insight in meeting employees’ needs and expectations.
Learn how to develop a fair compensation and benefit plan.
Understand the complexities of managing family within your business.
Know how to recognize the stages of the small business life cycle.
Understand the four types of firm-level growth strategies.
Understand the options for harvesting or closing the small business.
Know the firm-level critical success factors for small business.
Understand what success means with the quadruple bottom line.
Take 10 businesses that operate in your community and categorize them in the appropriate type of overall growth strategy. Why do you put them there?
Create a Google Adword account at www.google.com/adwords (it’s free) and load the keywords tool. Use the keyword daycare to see the kinds of related search terms come up, and the level of
Read your local newspaper for information about a small business that you think stems from a publicity effort (e.g., new location or management, product line shift or expansion, special events or
Entrepreneur Magazine is a leading resource for small business. Download their media kit at www.entreprenerus.com/mediakit. For this exercise, use the kit for digital media. What approach would
Imagine that a small independent bookstore in your neighborhood is holding a special reading and book signing by a well-known author. Describe what your goal(s) might be in arranging this
Product markets can be segmented in a number of ways. See if you can’t fill in three of the four columns for each of the following products or services.
You’ve heard about Paul Scheiter and his firm, HedgehogLeatherworks.com. One of his customers, Ian Atkinson, is a big fan and also a leatherworker, and provided his analysis of the pricing behind
Choose a business that you might someday like to start. Try one of the direct marketing address providers’ Websites listed in the chapter and locate a list that you feel would be appropriate to
Select a major high customer contact business category – restaurant, retail, dry cleaning, beauty salon, etc., etc. – and visit two or more different providers. What do you see in their store
Visit two stores – one where you belong to the target market and one where you do not. Make a list of all the atmospherics you detect and explain how they appeal to the target market.
Go to either QuickbooksTM or Sage 50 AccountingTM web site. Download and install a demonstration copy of their accounting program. Using either the budget schedules you developed in exercise 4, or
Do a Google search on the terms "accounting system" and "small business." Follow the Google returns to the websites of the companies (other than the ones named in the text) that you can find that
The text calls the practice of gaming the payment process "underhanded." What is your opinion of this common practice? Does it have any ethical implications?
Form a group from your classmates who completed exercise 1, above. Collect your findings into a chart. Compare and contrast bank offerings. Present your findings to your class with a recommendation
Form a group from your classmates who completed exercise 4, above. Collect your findings into a chart. Compare and contrast bank offerings. Present your findings to your class with a recommendation
Create the cash budget. Do you remember where to find the beginning balance?
Now try the Proforma Balance sheet. Assume no changes in notes payable, mortgage or assets. Assume inventory is zero and there are no customer deposits.
Which of the asset valuation methods, book value, disposal value, replacement value, and fair market value is the best for determining the value of your business' assets? Explain choice, detailing
Shawn was thrilled to be finally opening his own medical practice. Before he opened for business, he asked a lot of area doctors for things that they had found to be problematic when they first
Vicky Volare fell in love with motor scooters on vacation and now wants to bring the idea to Vail, Colorado. In doing so, she will be assuming a number of risks she’ll need to manageWhat financial
As mentioned, one of the most common problems in a family business is the hiring of relatives who do not have talent to fulfill the necessary job responsibilities. What can you do if you are
At ReCellular, Inc., a cellular phone remanufacturing company in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the small business owner put together a list of interview questions that immediately improved the hiring process.
The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, of $14,500 a year (although there are places where it is higher, see http://www.raisetheminimumwage. com/ pages/minimum-wage-state for those). As an
Go to Salary.com and look for a position in retail sales in Lincoln, NE. Look for “retail Sales Staff – Full Time” and look at the job description as well as salary and benefits. What is the
Using your job description from above, craft 5 questions you would ask prospective candidates for this position.
Lenny (from question 1) has decided that he’ll hire a part time high school student to help out in the book store. Think of three things on which this employee might need to be trained and
Lenny is considering a lot of different psychological contract items that he could use in addition to the competitive salary he is offering. Can you tell if the following are autonomy and growth,
Angie is now writing her senior thesis in entrepreneurship and asks Lenny to describe how he set up her pay system all those years ago when she was first hired. This is what Lenny told her: I knew
SkyBOX has grown with employees in three waves. Each wave came with it’s own set of issues. The programmers in the first two waves had left, so Tim offered equity to the third set. Unfortunately,
Collect promotional materials for a small business in your area. These can include coupons, loyalty programs, special tie-ins, special events, advertisements or any other promotional materials. Using
Think about your product or service. How can you extend your offerings to better keep and grow your customers?
Select a service you know. Brainstorm a list of potential incremental changes – whether technologically feasible or not – that might extend the product life cycle for them over the next several
With a group of friends, brainstorm a list of ideas for a service you could provide for your college professors. Design an idea checklist to evaluate this list.
Without doing a whole lot of research, draft a potential pitch deck for Minnie. (That is, make some reasonable guestimates for items not listed in previous questions.)
Randomly assign different franchise opportunities to students or groups of students. You can use www.franchise.org for a list of possibilities. Select some well-known ones and some more obscure
Arline thinks she’s ready to take her part time eBay selling into a full time job, but she’s just a bit unsure. She has heard that you are taking a small business class and comes to you for
The following entrepreneurs have set up home-based businesses. Which ones followed good home-based business rules?a.Janet sometimes had a dozen or more clients parked in her driveway or on the street
Do a Google search for "pop-up business guides." See if you can find a guide for your city or state. If not, what kind of help do you find?
Go to the Web sites of Facebook and LinkedIn.From what you can learn from the Web sites , how do these two differ? Consider the market to which they are aiming, their relative sizes, and the kinds of
Evaluate a franchise using the tables for the three forms of legitimacy. Go to the franchise’s local operation to look around and check out the franchiser’s Website. What forms of legitimacy are
Pick an existing business or use the one you own or are thinking about developing. For that business, identify at least two key players in at least two areas of its task environment (e.g., media and
Would you like more information on LLCs? Go to http://nolo.com, click on “legal articles” at the top of the home page and then on “business formation LLCs and Corporations” to learn more.
You may be able to represent yourself on small matters by going to small claims court. These courts of limited jurisdiction have different names in different states. Go to
In most states you can contact the state bar, the state supreme court or a state commission to check on whether a particular attorney has been disciplined for professional conduct violations. To find
Find your state’s Secretary of State’s home page on the Internet. Find information on forming LLCs. Can the form(s) be submitted online? If not, can the form(s) be downloaded or filled in using
Identify a business you want to own. Use the resources of your library and the Internet to identify what insurance you are legally required to carry. Contact an insurance broker to determine how, and

Showing 600 - 700 of 941