For the past three years, we have had the gas stations on our route to the beach all scoped out. We knew which towns along the way had the cheapest gas and planned our trips accordingly. This summer, we were surprised to see that the town where we had previously stopped for the cheapest gas was now among the highest and the one that had been the highest was the cheapest. What happened? A new low-cost provider had come to the ‘expensive’ town, driving all the other stations to drop their prices. I am not sure what happened in the previously least expensive town…maybe they just failed to keep up.

What we saw with the gas prices reminded me of what
happens so often in business. Just when we think we have the market all figured out, it changes. This is true for big businesses and small businesses alike. It happened to me in my former company. One time it was a move by a competitor that made us change our plans but more often it was other unexpected events that altered the market landscape and, as a result, our business. We learned the hard way we had to constantly keep our eye on what was going on outside of our business. In one instance, we had generated a marketing strategy for our newly-developed software but put the plan on the shelf because we got too busy with paying customers. By the time we dusted the business plan off 18 months later, the market had changed markedly and we had to start over again with a new strategy. Thankfully we noticed the changes in the industry before we had spent too much money on our original plan otherwise we would have lost a lot more than time (and few hundred dollars). What we experienced is not uncommon. We entrepreneurs get so busy IN our business we don’t have time to work ON our business. And just when we think we have it all figured out, something changes!

In the case of buying gas on our vacation it only cost us a couple dollars more but in our business, how much larger can the risk be when you don’t pay attention to the changes around you and your business?

A recent article in my local newspaper reported a story about a woman who was going to jail for siphoning approximately $120,000 from her company’s coffers. I think the business owner is the one who should be doing time. Granted, embezzlement is not new and larger sums have been swindled away from larger and more established companies, but since this was a small business and the pilfered amount reportedly has the company on the brink of extinction, this is inexcusable. The business owner’s actions are criminal - he should have been more aware.

Perhaps this seems harsh, but I render this judgment as an entrepreneur who was completely uncomfortable with company finances when I started my first business 12 years ago. In fact, I took a “Finance and Accounting for Non-Financial Managers” class almost three years into my start-up. I see too many small business owners, unfortunately with many women entrepreneurs leading the pack, completely abdicating perhaps the most important aspect of their company to others or worse, having no one paying attention except at tax time. While I am not recommending you become an accountant to start a business, I am suggesting that the money in your company should never go completely untended by the owners. I offer the following minimal suggestions to business owners for managing their company’s money:

1. Learn what you can. Again, you don’t have to be the expert, but there are certain aspects of your company’s financial status that you should understand. Like why you need to watch your aging accounts receivable, how much your product or service costs to deliver, and what your burn rate is.
2. Conduct regular reviews of your financials. Additionally, you should monitor and be consistently aware of certain financial aspects of your company, such as what your fixed costs are per month (i.e. how much is your payroll?) and what your cash flow projections look like. You don’t need to know how much money you have in the bank at every given moment, but you should have an idea.
3. Do not give any one person too much financial power. In the above-mentioned instance, I have to ask who signed the checks? The person who cuts the checks should never be allowed to sign them. Make sure you employ appropriate checks and balances (no pun intended) to minimize the probability of losing control.
4. Watch employee credit cards. When I worked at IBM, we were given a company credit card but the bill came to us and we were individually responsible for paying it. This forced me to open a business checking account and carefully monitor what I was charging to make sure I filed for reimbursement from the company. Make sure that you have an audit of all charges and require appropriate documentation for employee reimbursement. If you decide to manage employee’s company credit cards for them, which can be risky, make sure the person in charge of that process doesn’t also have access to one of the credit cards.

Do not use a lack of knowledge as an excuse for not having your eye on your company’s financials. After all, it is your money, and your name is on the line if things go wrong.

Marci Alboher knows me. We’ve never met, but it is clear from her new book, One Person/Multiple Careers: A New Model for Work / Life Success (Warner Books) that she has my number.

Although not specifically a book about entrepreneurs, Marci’s book speaks directly to me as a ParentPreneur. She introduces a new term –slash – which makes me an author/consultant/speaker in slash-speak. Most entrepreneurs I know, especially women entrepreneurs, are slashes, too.

The slash idea, as Marci has so aptly observed, is about recognizing our own personal complexity and embracing the multiplicity of our passions. It is about designing our own life by not being afraid to follow our dreams, even when they take us down seemingly unrelated paths at the same time. How often does trying to raise a family and build a business seem like divergent paths? But yet we continue on and find ways to make it work.

In this engaging book Ms. Alboher, who herself is a slash as an author/journalist/speaker, shares stories of how other people – with a chapter dedicated to working parents - make their slash lives work and offers tips for aspiring business owners on the personal side of what is needed to survive as someone who carries multiple business cards. So if your answer to the question “What do you do?” depends on who is asking or you have various interests you hesitate pursuing because you don’t think they fit well together, you may be a slash, too. Marci’s book will entertain you with stories of others who are slashes and enlighten you with ways to successfully juggle your particular present/future/desired interests.

Last week after we returned home from our vacation, my daughter and I went to our local Border’s book store to see my book on the shelves. Imagine our surprise and my embarrassment when my book was no where to be found. When I inquired at the information desk, I was given someone else to follow up with. I hid my dismay from my daughter, but knew I had to do something about it. I really wanted her to see it on the shelf. Ok, I really wanted to see it, too.

As soon as I got home, I called and e-mailed the contact name I had been given and then waited patiently. In my e-mail I explained that not only was I a LOCAL author, but that I profiled several successful entrepreneurs from across the Baltimore/Washington D.C. area. Less than 24 hours after my request, I received a reply. Not only had the local contact responded, but because Wiley is my publisher, she had contacted the national account and event manager. They expressed an interest in not only getting my books into their stores (I found out it was in some area stores), but they wanted to work with my publisher to put together an area-wide book signing tour. So I went from not even having my book in my local store to planning an area-wide campaign. See what happens when you ask?! Don’t ever forget that YOU are your best advocate. If you don’t go for what you want and deserve, no one else will do it for you! What have you got to lose!?

On our return journey back from our recent incredible vacation in Italy, we had a not-so-pleasant first-hand experience with the myriad of problems plaguing Delta Airlines. While their intention and desire to improve may be strong, their execution is still WAY OFF.

Specifically, we missed our flight and they lost our luggage. Not necessarily unusual, but our experience seemed unusually frustrating. I found, however, that rather than view our experience through the eyes of the irritated traveler, I began analyzing the situation with the critical eye of a business owner and consultant. What took place both at the airport and throughout the 3 days that it took us to finally get our bags illustrated the problems that may well keep Delta from recovering from its recent bankruptcy.

1. Lack of Communication. When we got off our flight with less than 45 minutes before our connection, we were told we would have ‘no problem’ making our connection. We were right to be skeptical. It took us 20 minutes to get our bags, go through customs, and then recheck them only to be told we had to go out of security, across 2 terminals, and then back through security. Chances of making our flight? 0%.

   Likewise, we were told that when our bags had been found we would be called to schedule them for delivery. Bag #1, they called for delivery, lost the bag, called for delivery again (they would be there within 2 hours!) and then showed up at 2:30 a.m., approximately 17.5 hours after the first call. For bag #2, we never got a call to schedule delivery but they showed up and rang our doorbell at half past midnight.

2. Finger pointing with so-called partners. We made our reservations over the phone with a Delta representative. Because they have a ‘partnership’ with Alitalia, our return flight from Rome to JFK was booked with them, though through Delta. All of our paperwork had Delta’s logo on it and our flights even had dual numbers: one for Alitalia and one for Delta. When it came time to figure out who was going to pay for us to get from JFK to LaGuardia because we had missed the last flight from JFK to our destination, we were told by the Delta agent “you need to talk to Alitalia.”  Excuse me? We didn’t book with Alitalia – we booked with YOU. Didn’t make a difference. This so-called partnership was convenient when trying to collect money but dissolved when money needed to be shelled out.

3. No culture of customer service. Never mind the throngs of over-worked and non-caring employees – it WAS Friday night at JFK, after all. When we were trying to determine how to get to LaGuardia, we were no where NEAR an Alitalia desk. We were going to be lucky to catch our newly-rescheduled flight with the tight timeframe we had. We just wanted them to pay for us to get to the other airport they just booked us out of. No such luck. We would also be flying into a different airport than the one our car was parked at. Good luck getting anyone to pay for us to get from one airport to the other – we didn’t even try at that point.

   They did kindly suggest we go downstairs to collect our luggage but when we saw the 6 other people in line for the lone representative in the baggage office, we through it best to leave our bags in order to make our next flight.

Contrast our experience with a story I heard about a recent issue between Southwest Airlines and one of its partners. The partner had severely and purposely overbooked a flight from Las Vegas to Hawaii and when over 30 passengers were left stranded, refused to put them up in a hotel. Enter Southwest. Even though it was not their flight and they had nothing to do with the passengers being stranded, THEY PAID for them all to stay at not just a crappy motel, but a nice hotel, because many of the customers had booked through Southwest. I’ve also heard stories about passengers who have been stranded on a runway because of weather receiving an apology letter from Southwest for their inconvenience, even though it was an act of God.

I would like to think when the management of a company knows it is in trouble, which Delta has known for a long time, they realize changes are required to pull it out. After all, Einstein said “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result.” I am not naïve enough to think that radical change can happen over night, but for this company to survive, it better happen sooner rather than later.