The idea for the Institute for Smart Business Management evolved from the experience of its founder and current Executive Director, Mr. Robert A. Normand, who worked closely as a management advisor and consultant for over 100 small and medium companies ranging in sales from $500,000 to $50,000,000 annually. Having started and operated a number of his own businesses over the years, Mr. Normand is a
lso intimately familiar with the challenges and problems facing the typical entrepreneur. After many years and numerous consultations, Mr. Normand noticed a familiar pattern emerging: Many small business entrepreneurs were making the same mistakes he had made in his early businesses. You might call this... the High Cost of Low Understanding. The Small Business Failure Rate in the United States is between fifty (50) and eighty (80) per cent, depending on who is doing the estimating and what criteria are used. This is a vast waste of the country's resources not to speak of the anguish caused to the people owning and working in these businesses. And it doesn't have to be that way! One thing is certain, it's not about technical expertise. Most small business owners do what they do technically very well. It's about the business of running a business. It's about basic management skills that are weak or absent. It's about not employing sound administrative skills, management techniques and operating systems. Many technically competent business owners are not business school grads and don't have the time to pursue formal training, let alone get an MBA. And if they do expend the effort for advanced education, are the skills they learn those that are truly needed in a small business environment? Having pursued an MBA himself, Mr. Normand knows the answer to that question is emphatically "no". A second problem, one that Mr. Normand was constantly fighting to overcome in all his engagements, is that many small business owners cannot afford expensive, on-site management consulting services. Costs are often $200-450 per man-hour plus travel expenses. A business with annual revenue of $1,000,000, making $30,000 in net profit, can easily run up a $30,000 bill in two weeks using on-site services. This cost pressure often results in consultants “dumping” information onto the client too quickly. The combination of high cash burn rate and too fast information flow often results in clients terminating these services before they have been fully trained or before they realize the full benefits of the work done.
.. there has to be… A Better Way! And that is why the Institute for Smart Business Management was born and its mission defined as follows: "To provide guidance, expertise and direction to small business owners; to help them improve their managerial skills and abilities; to increase the profit performance of their businesses; to do this at an affordable cost and in a time frame managed by the client." The concept emerged that, in this age of advanced communication, the management learning process can be transferred to the client in a different and better manner than it has been traditionally, namely by using the internet. To accomplish this, the business management process was broken down into four general areas or disciplines:
Planning (General Management)
Personnel (Organizational Development)
Profit & Expense Controls
Sales & Marketing
Each discipline is further divided into a number of “QuickStart Operating Procedures®”. These Management Guides focus on specific topics related to any one of the four disciplines. Furthermore, where additional analytical techniques or systems (spreadsheets, templates) are required for routine support, supplementary Word® or Excel® support systems were created. The process resulted in the development of over 65 basic management guides with 15 support systems that address a variety of critical topics in all four disciplines. And these guides and systems are priced so low that they are actually affordable to everyone. We call them “QuickStart” because they give tools and information to address the core, the essence, the meat of a problem. The concepts are concise, the techniques specific. You don’t have to rifle through a text book or take a 3 credit course to get the gist of what is meant by, for example, "managerial accounting format" and why it is important! Our QuickStart Operating Procedures® are from 8 to 37 pages in length. Most are 10-15 pages of medium sized print for easy reading. They are written in plain, simple English with an absolute minimum of technical or academic terms. We call them Solutions because they address specific problems of running a business.. Check out the entire group of People, Planning, Profit and Sales Solutions by reviewing that discipline section which addresses a specific problem, concern or area of interest to you. Or maybe there is a specific topic where you would just like to polish or improve your skills. You can invest in the small cost of just one guide if that's what you need or you can collect them at your pace and budget. Our goal is to make successful management skills and techniques easily understandable, easily learned and easily implemented. To this end, our commitment is to provide you with the very best in small business management concepts, skills, techniques and systems available anywhere! Join us today as partners! http://www.isbminc.com
