My Interview with Tim Berry

Is up on my brand-new YouTube channel!

You can also see my earlier interview with John Suh, of LegalZoom, and soon I'll be adding footage from a talk I gave to a small business workshop.

Thanks to the marvelous Paula Johnson, my web guru, for sprucing up my online presence.

She's the best.

Powerful Women

My friend and business source Glenn Llopis writes about the Four Skills That Give Women a Sustainable Advantage Over Men.

Glenn is a visionary. I hope that he's right, and that more women will recognize their skills and use them to advantage in business and life.

Just for some examples and inspiration, check out this gallery of powerful women.

Women Entrepreneurs

Women business owners are positive about their long-term business growth, says a new survey from PNC Financial Services Group, but nearly half of them favor intuition over analysis.

And twice as many cite "passion" - rather than financial success - as their reason for staying in business.

Passion is essential for small business success: The work is too hard and the hours are too long for anyone who is lackadaisical about entrepreneurship.

But while passion is a good element, I don't like to see 45 percent of women CEOs point to their passion for the company, while only 22 percent cite financial success as a primary motivator.

I learned one thing about entrepreneurship early on: Companies primarily exist to make money. (Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that men aren't so ambivalent about this point?)

Yes, you can have a double bottom-line. And I'm all for doing well by doing good.

But the key is this: Your company has to get to the point where it can do good. And that means it has to be healthy - able to pay its bills and its employees, turn a profit, and earn a solid ROI for you as owner. Once it gets to that point, the sky's the limit as to where your passion can take you.

Running a business as a hobby - for the passion, not the profit - will never allow you to get to that point. Women are smart enough to know that. I wonder if there's a reluctance to admit it? Here's the deal: There's no shame in being concerned about the bottom line.

Some more results from the survey:

. An overwhelming number of women, 8 out of 10, have said that economic volatility will not deter them from their professional ventures.

· Social Business: Only half (51 percent) of respondents use interactive online channels to promote their businesses. Of those who are using social networks, 40 percent use Facebook, 27 percent use LinkedIn and 13 percent use Twitter.

· Head v. Gut: When making business decisions, women are split between analysis and intuition. Fifty-five percent say they opt to analyze the situation, with 45 percent going with their intuition.

· Advice at home: When looking for professional advice, women owners consult their spouses most often (49 percent). Professional advisors (40 percent) and peers (30 percent) are also seen as valuable sources of information.

· Who you know: Nearly seven out of 10 (68 percent) are affiliated with at least one industry group or business organization. Chambers of commerce and national industry groups are the most popular.

Ask What You Can Do

The new Sunday Review section of the New York Times (which I like very much) adds an interesting feature: Readers respond to a provocative letter to the editor.

This past weekend, the "Sunday Dialogue" was sparked by an executive recruiter. He offered several ideas for ending the financial crisis:

... creating jobs by investing in infrastructure, and for reducing the deficit by increasing the age for Medicare beneficiaries, using means-testing for Social Security recipients, reforming the tax code to close loopholes and make it fairer, ending subsidies for giant corporations, bringing all of our troops home from Afghanistan by Christmas and eliminating the Bush tax cuts for the super-rich.

Oft-discussed solutions, none of which seems very do-able considering the gridlock in Washington. What intrigued me, though, was this response from Rebecca Zicarelli of Maine:

With all the daunting problems we face, the questions being asked are: What can President Obama do? What can the Fed do? What can Congress do? We’re so focused on government, we forget the private sector, as Mr. Lowenstein did in his letter.

The private sector seems to be waiting for some far-off day when government gets out of the way. It’s time for the private sector to stop sitting on the piles of cash we hear about and use it to create new demand, to create growth. Stop overworking your existing employees. Hire new employees.

I keep hearing that “government’s the problem.” Well, if you run a company and you’ve got the ability to hire but you’re not hiring, you’re the problem.

We need to talk about what you can do for your country.

I've been waiting for someone to start talking about the responsibility of the private sector and the encouragement of consumer confidence. I wish the idea had been raised by someone in a leadership role, no offense to Rebecca (who writes a darned good letter).

I'm frankly surprised it hasn't been.

During 11 years of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt gave 30 evening radio speeches dubbed the Fireside Chats (you can listen to the first one at the link and hear him tell people that banks are safer than stashing money under their mattresses.)

The chats were short, plain-spoken and aimed directly at regular folks. They earned FDR a great deal of trust and affection with the public, at a time of great panic and fear, and influenced positive public response (such as halting a run on the banks).

It seems to me we need similar calls to calm and to patriotism right now. The constant drumbeat of doom and gloom (delivered almost gleefully in some corners of the media) has been extraordinarily - and measurably - destructive to our economy.

"Confidence and courage are the essentials of success," Roosevelt says. I think we need a similar message today. And I think Rebecca's echo of JFK is right on: Someone needs to talk about what we all can do for our country.

Top 10 List

What are the Top 10 challenges for a small business in its first five years?

Answers from a variety of experts in my Smart Answers column.

Plan A, B, C

How clueless is clueless? Even a small amount of research on entrepreneurship should yield two conclusions: It's risky and extremely time-consuming.

Yet the professionals-turned-small business owners profiled in this weekend's New York Times Style section seem surprised at how hard it is to succeed in business.

Honestly? I understand, especially in retail, that it would be more hectic than even a well-prepared individual had anticipated. But the subjects of the piece apparently wanted to downshift, take it easy, smell the roses and lead "healthier" lifestyles.

Becoming independently wealthy is probably a good way to achieve those goals. Starting up a business? Not so much.

The weird thing is that I and many, many other small business journalists, experts, advisors and CEOs have been warning about the pitfalls of entrepreneurship for years. Do it if you must, we say, but make sure you go in with a very realistic understanding of what it will take. And if you're not ready for the risk, keep your day job.

I don't know whether that word isn't getting out there, or whether it is but people don't believe it, or whether people bulldoze headfirst into business ownership without reading the instruction manual. Probably a combination of all three.

The good news: By the end of the piece, we learn that most of the business owners are happy they made the switch. I just think the transition might have been easier if they'd read the fine print.

Get Real, Granny

The New York Times reports that Baby Boomers are rejecting the terms "grandmother" and "grandfather":

“My wife and I were somewhat serious about being called Irene and John,” Mr. Dawson said. “We like our names and that it’s real. Grandpa, Grandma, Granny, Nanna, Gramps, etc., give off a vision of being old."

Now, I don't expect to be a grandmother any time soon, so maybe I shouldn't talk. But this trend annoys me no end. The allergy to aging smacks, to me, of the worst stereotypes about Boomers: vanity, exceptionalism and self-absorption.

Who me? Get older and become a grandpa? Never!

I can't quite detect the harm in cultural honorifics that convey respect, tradition and great affection. And can you imagine a toddler rushing up to hug ... Irene and John?

Those who think they're never going to get old should read "Never Say Die: The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age," by one of my favorite authors, Susan Jacoby.

When I turned 50 last year, several people offered condolences. I didn't need them. I have several friends who never made it to 50, and a few who never made it to 40 - or even 30.

I was grateful to hit the half-century mark because, when you think about it, what's the alternative?

My parents met and married late in life and by the time I had children, my father was gone and my mother was declining. My husband and I watched enviously as we saw young-ish grandparents spending time with their grandchildren. Not only did our children not get those wonderful relationships, we didn't get the parenting breaks we desperately needed.

Few words, besides Mama and Dada, are more comforting and homey than Nana or Gramma, Gramps or Papa. Other people can stick with Irene or John. I'm looking forward to the day a toddler runs up to hug me and hollers "Grammy!"