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Running a small business To be encouraged EU (The European Union) encourages small businesses! In Sweden there is at present the so-called "Solo-project" for one-man businesses who want to develop their business and themselves. In the year 2003 alone, there was 4 million Euro (slightly more in US $) in EU-funds set aside for this purpose just in the Stockholm area. The Swedish government encourages small businesses, at least in theory, as do other West European countries. This is mainly because the employment situation has been pretty difficult for the last ten years in most of these countries, and the governments try this way to reduce unemployment rates. In USA there are several organisations for small businesses. Jim Blasingame is a guy who in 1997 started the organisation "The Small Business Advocate", which e-mails newsletters and conduct radio talk shows (which can be listened in to on the Internet). One can, if one wants to be philosofical, note that small businesses and one-man businesses are, historically, the most "normal". The creation of a workers´ proletariat coincided with the industrial revolution. Suddenly, big-scale production became possible, and for this, workers were needed on a vast scale by those who owned the means of this production. Before this happened, people were mostly farmers or artisans. Today, when offices are computerized and robots are doing much of the serial production of goods, and what jobs are left are relocated to third-world countries with low wages, this proletariat is gradually being dismantled in the western world, and we are, as individuals, once again forced to look att ourselves and our individual talents and desires in order to make a living. So, society does not owe us a living. We have to come up with something to do, which will provide us with a decent income. Is this good or bad? Well, those of us who have a positive outlook on life, tend to see possibilities instead of threatening unemployment. We can devote our time to what we really enjoy doing, and do this so well that others are willing to pay for our goods or services. There are hundreds of articles by Jim Blasingame and the Brain Trust members on the Small Business Advocate. An alternative lifestile Businesses can be divided into four groups, according to size: Corporations Medium-sized companies (with about 20-100 employees) Small businesses (fewer than 20 employees) One-man businesses (no other employees) In Scandinavia, the group of "medium-sized companies" is so small as to be insignificant. The pattern is roughly the same in other western countries. It seems like most growing small businesses are family-based, and do not want to grow beyond the needs and capabilities of that family or group of people. They arrive at a size which they find comfortable, financially and work-wise, and they stay there, at least until the next generation takes over. Those who run one-man businesses have in a way arrived at the same conclusion; they stop their firm from growing when they realize that they have to start hiring people. Not always, of course. It depends on which group they belong to. Roughly, we have three groups of one-man businesses that are not likely to hire people: Those who are controlled by the nature of their work; artists, journalists, computer science teachers, authors, etc. function best as free-lancers. They can´t very well hire other people. Those who prefer to enroll relatives, aquaintances or consultants during times of temporarily heavy workloads or projects, often on an informal basis, rather than taking the trouble of hiring someone. Those who are "forced" to run a one-man business by reason of unavailability of suitable employment opportunities. To be your own boss is a lifestile, which is considerably different from being employed. It is a freer life; you choose what you want to work with, when you want to work and how you want to work. On the other hand, your means of support are not guaranteed, and many also combine their businesses with part-time employments.

It has been said in quite a few books on how to live, that you should produce the products or services that make you feel fulfilled. "Do what you like, the money will follow!" On the other hand, it is also often pointed out that it will do you no good, money-wise, if you market products or services that people do not want to pay for, or cannot afford. What is one to believe? Well, this has partly to do with the so-called "Q Score", which is a marketing metric used in some fields. I will quote Jim Blasingame here, as he explains this so well. "Perhaps you've noticed a trend at the television networks over the past few years: Every person hired to sit or stand in front of a camera, whether they're doing news, weather, sports, or an interview, looks like the cast of that soap opera, The Young and The Restless. All the women are beautiful and all the men are pretty. Consumers of network fare are left to believe that non-beautiful people must not apply for these positions. And what about the on-camera faces that don't fit this profile? Well, you'll notice that those individuals are probably close to, or over 40, which means they were hired before much was known about a certain marketing measurement. Marketing Evaluations Inc. is the proprietor of a marketing metric that is now used extensively to hire on-air talent. It's called the Q Score, and as Daniel Henninger wrote in his Wall Street Journal column, "It's brutally uncomplicated." Henninger explains that prospective anchormen and anchorwomen are put in front of a test audience, who are asked to give one of two answers: I like, or I don't like. Responses are graded based on the numeric Q Score. The cut line is 19, and anyone receiving a Q Score below that number is sent home with nothing more than their parking stub validated. Over 19 means you've "got Q." Never mind credentials. Henninger says if an applicant "can read large type and has Q, he gets the job."

When it comes to understanding human behavior, television networks are no dummies. Since, as Henninger says, the news, weather, and sports are now commodities, in the visual universe of television, all that's required to get an audience is if the face and voice delivering the commodity has Q. When the news, etc. wasn't a commodity, we were informed by real journalists, like Walter "The most trusted man in America" Cronkite. In the 21st century, we get Blonde Bonnie and Dimpled Dan. So, why wouldn't we think that a brand is what you get with a glitzy, world-class television promotion? Since most of us would be guilty of giving an "I like" score to a pretty face, and especially since most of us don't get to see our stuff dancing across the little screen, it follows that we would be foreclosed from thinking that a dowdy small business could actually own a real brand. It's true that in the past hundred years, modern humans have been manipulated to place a greater import on the way things and people look. But here's the truth about the branding myth, and it's good news for small business: Branding is much more than merely having Q. Most experts will tell you that branding happens when a product or service delivers a desirable feeling. Pleasure, happiness, security, dependability, and healthy, are a few examples of how we might feel about a brand. When a brand consistently delivers on one or more of these feelings, that's what makes it pop into our mind's eye when we need it - and that's when true brand value is established." One can see from once´s own life experience that Q Score isn´t all that matters. Every persons own eperience and attitude matters more. If a national ad campaign were to push for a certain commodity, I might try it, once. But if I didn´t like it, for whatever reason or accidental circumstance, I would not try it again. The result would be that I know about the brand, but it has no positive value to me. The ad campaign might have Q, but the brand doesn't. So, branding is a very personal thing, which is good news for small business. Because getting close enough to customers to know what they really desire is what small businesses do better than big business.

As Blasingame sums up: "Big business is good at Q. But small business is better positioned to build brand value." And how could small entrepreneurs get "close" to the customers? Simply by producing what the customers really desire. Some entrepreneurs produce commodities and services that market research indicate that people want. But market research is a difficult field. Essentially, you get the answers you ask for. And people in general do not know themselves well enough to know what they really want. Take the matter of falling in love, for instance. In your minds eye, you have a picture of how the person should look like, which you would want to live with. But when you later on actually do fall in love with someone, that person rarely corresponds to your mental image. Returning to our question, then; should you market what people "want" or should you follow your hearth and market what you like to devote your time to? In my mind, the answer is: "Do what you like to do. If you can only find a market outlet for what you produce, the money will surely follow. Because, if you are a reasonably average person, a lot of other people will share your taste. They will like what you produce for the same reasons that you like what you produce. Hollywood movies are one of many good examples of the thruth of the thesis above, that people cannot tell market researchers what they like, because they really do not know. Big movie productions, geared to peoples´tast, have flopped, while small productions, where the producers just followed their instincts, have been successfull. George Lucas told in an interview will Bill Moyers how he did not see the audience of his "Star War"-movies as consisting of kids, but that he did movies that he, himself, would like to watch. The best works of art, such as books and movies, are the ones where the producers did what they liked to do, not being pressed by a desire for fame or to make money. And this philosophy can be applied to practically all fields of endeavour. Do what you like to do. Your interest will be visible in the quality of your product. Your customers will note this quality, and buy it.

E.F. Schumacher (1911-1977), was a German-born British economist and businessman who advocated replacing large organizations with small working units and communal ownership of "alternative" technologies. In his 1973 book "Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered," Schumacher said that modern economists are "used to measuring the 'standard of living' by the amount of annual consumption, assuming all the time that a man who consumes more is 'better off' than a man who consumes less. A Buddhist economist would consider this approach excessively irrational: since consumption is merely a means to human well-being, the aim should be to obtain the maximum of well-being with the minimum of consumption. The less toil there is, the more time and strength is left for artistic creativity. Modern economics, on the other hand, considers consumption to be the sole end and purpose of all economic activity." Prophetically, he further noted: “A civilization built on renewable resources, such as the products of forestry and agriculture, is by this fact alone superior to one built on non-renewable resources, such as oil, coal, metal, etc. This is because the former can last, while the latter cannot last.

The former cooperates with nature, while the latter robs nature. The former bears the sign of life, while the latter bears the sign of death.” Later, in his most famous essay, he advocated a Buddhist form of economics based on “Right Livelihood” as part of the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path.

Fundamental to such an economics would be simplicity and nonviolence, the importance of community, and the necessity and dignity of work. Schumacher was convinced that a sustainable form of economics must be found that would be appropriate as a path for the developing world, “a middle way between materialist heedlessness and traditionalist immobility.” He spent the rest of his life seeking and advocating that path. Schumacher was equally foresighted in his analysis of the industrial world. In 1958, before the founding of OPEC and to the disbelief of his colleagues, he warned that Western Europe would attain “a position of maximum dependence on the oil of the Middle East. The political implications of such a situation are too obvious to require discussion.” Even greater than his concern about the conflicts that would ensue was his fear of the possibility of a nuclear exchange. He became adamantly opposed to the use of nuclear energy. The accumulation of large amounts of toxic substances, he claimed, “is a transgression against life itself, a transgression infinitely more serious than any crime ever perpetrated.” Echoing the Gandhian philosophy of nonviolence he also wrote: “A way of life that ever more rapidly depletes the power of the Earth to sustain it and piles up ever more insoluble problems for each succeeding generation can only be called violent."