The Chain of Revenue

Over the last few weeks, I have been reviewing the services my company offers and where the greatest potential sources of revenue are. Determining my company's value chain and its place in it will allow me to better explore where I can capture a higher profit margin or even determine a new service/product offering, to enhance the service I provide for my clients (and capture more revenue).

The value chain can best be defined as the link of activities involved in creating, distributing, and maintaining an end product or service. These activities range from the acquisition of raw materials to providing after-market service. This business framework was made popular by Harvard professor Michael E. Porter in his book Competitive Advantage.

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What is the business equivalent of the Olympics?

Over the last week, I have really been into the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. I have never really watched the Winter Olympics before, but from the opening show to pair figure skating and so on, these games have really caught my attention. I have been impressed with how many of these athletes have competed and end up giving their personal best (according to the announcers). The camaraderie of the country teams and their pride to represent their country is outstanding. Outside of when I participated in sports in high school, I don't think I have heard the US National Anthem so much, not since I was in elementary school in Illinois.

I have watched these games wondering where the business equivalent is. I know the Grammys and Oscars are for entertainers, but what about people in business. Is our success only measured by the amount of profit we bring in? There are competitions such as SBA National Small Business of the Year and top lists here and there that measure so many different factors (from Working Mother's and Black Enterprise's many lists to Inc. 5000 to Fortune 500 and so on) - would these be the equivalent?

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October 2009: My Entrepreneurial Journey

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been looking at what to do to increase my income and still harness this drive I have around entrepreneurship. This blog has been very helpful with keeping me motivated to keep it moving (along with having these two babies). I know that I want to develop my business offline - pursuing more paying clients and output. To do that I have:

• attended a couple of business networking meetings as discussed in my blog post The 30 Sec Sell! and have been invited to more
• reached out to my network as suggested in the post Leveraging Your Rolodex... to seek business building opportunities
  
• submitted my first physical ad to run throughout the year in 2010

I am also building my presence online via the following methods:

• updating my website to attract new clients
• continuing to update this blog on a weekly basis, really to help me grow and share information with you as suggested in the post Seth Godin and Tom Peters on Blogging

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I'm Telling You, It Works

I read a really great article at Black Enterprise's website about business owners using their combined resources for a bigger bang. The article, Implementing a Strategic Partnership, provides real world examples of what can happen when business owners join together, especially during these times, to grow individually and support their communities.

The Perks of Subcontracting

Last year, I attended a seminar about diversity in contracting. While there, I spoke with an executive of a prime contractor of the U.S. EPA. He stressed for me to share with clients that the best way to start work with the federal government is through subcontracting. It is how they got started and within a few years, they became a prime. Going this route, you learn about the major players, make the right contacts, and show that you do good work.

Subcontracting usually occurs with government and construction contracts but could really be referred to with any project (think "outsourcing"). Subcontracting to Snag Stimulus Dollars, an article from The Wall Street Journal, provides an excellent summary for what this can really do for a business.

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How to Create a Business Partnership

When you decide partnering or creating a strategic alliance is a way that you would like to expand your business, you should consider the following steps:

1) Determine the purpose
    Think about the specific goals and objectives for your company and whether an alliance with another business would support these in the time frame you require. Consider the following questions:

• Do you want to add on another product line?
• Do you want to enter another market with your current product line?
• Do you want to increase your current capacity?

Understanding the "why" for creating an alliance can drive you to the next step...

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Partnering For Success

In a former role, I witnessed many successful partnerships, both for-profit and non-profit. You can find stories of entrepreneurs making it big because of partnering like David Steward of World Wide Technology based in St. Louis, MO or even Bill Gates of Microsoft stating "Our success has really been based on partnerships from the very beginning." The right partnership will provide great returns for each participating company and support quick ways to grow in capacity, experience, and revenue.

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