Sunday January 29, 2012
Speaking to the media from a 42-year-old cabinet making shop in Gloucester, Ontario, the Honourable Tony Clement, President of the Treasury Board and Minister for Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario (FedNor) announced that the federal government is immediately implementing a "One-for-One" Rule to control administrative burden on business, requiring regulators to remove at least one regulation each time they create a new one that imposes administrative burden on business.
This is one of the recommendations of the Red Tape Reduction Commission, set up by the Prime Minister last year to improve the federal regulatory process and reduce red tape.
"Red tape is costly for all Canadians. It impedes economic productivity and innovation and gets in the way of voluntary compliance by undermining the trust between government and those they regulate," said the Minister in his speech.
Yep, he certainly has that part right. Time will tell how effective the "One-For-One" Rule is but I find it encouraging the the federal government is at least taking some concrete action to combat the problem rather than just setting up yet another panel or study.
More on Cutting Red Tape for Canadian Small Businesses
A Summary Quote
"According to a 2010 study by the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses, red tape from all levels of government costs the business sector in Canada about $30.5 billion or 1.9 per cent of Canada's Gross Domestic Product each year."
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Saturday January 28, 2012
This Customer Service Guide is designed to take a systematic approach to good customer service. The articles here will teach you what good customer service is and give you tools to assess and improve customer service in your small business.
Share Your Expertise on Customer Service
The Good:
The Bad:
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Friday January 27, 2012
The best predictor of success is starting a company in the right industry at the right time. Furthermore, being able to do this is a skill, not just luck, according to Paul Gompers, Anna Kovner, Josh Lerner and David Scharfstein in their Harvard Business School working paper, Performance Persistence in Entrepreneurship.
"The second factor is the component of success that is determined by the entrepreneur's management of the venture - outperformance relative to other startups founded at the same time and in the same industry."
Success, in the context of this study, is defined as starting a company that goes public.
"(A)ll else equal, a venture-capital-backed entrepreneur who succeeds in a venture... has a 30% chance of succeeding in his next venture. By contrast, first-time entrepreneurs have only an 18% chance of succeeding and entrepreneurs who previously failed have a 20% chance of succeeding."
Note that entrepreneurs who had their previous ventures fail have a better chance of getting a new company off the ground than first-timers!
One of the points this study raises that fascinates me is that the appearance of success is good enough. Or, as the authors put it, "The perception of performance persistence - the belief that successful entrepreneurs are more skilled than unsuccessful ones - can induce real
performance persistence." Success does breed success.
Alyson Shontell provides more fascinating tidbits revealed in this study in
Why Some Startups Succeed And Others Fail (Business Insider).
More on Being an Entrepreneur
Add Your Opinion
What Do You Think Are the Most Important Characteristics of an Entrepreneur?
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Thursday January 26, 2012
If I asked you what resources you absolutely had to have to start a successful business, what would you say? A good business idea? Enough money to develop it?
True enough; those two things are important. But there are other factors that are just as important that will determine your new business's ultimate success or failure. Learn what they are in 5 Resources You Need to Succeed When Starting a Business.
Ready to start your own business, then? These articles will lead you through the process:
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