What’s New in Business

It’s that time of year when many of us start looking to our accomplishments and things we wanted to do this year, but haven’t succeeded in doing yet. We start setting goals for ourselves for the upcoming year.

If you are considering going into business for yourself or have a business you would like to take to the next level the Pikes Peak Library District offers a free class called Minding Your Business. This ninety-minute class will teach you how to find competitors, vendors and clients. It will help you determine how much it costs to run a business in your area and where to find funding sources to start or grow your business. It also covers advertising and marketing as well as periodicals and associations that can help you stay on top of your industry. Using the resources identified in this workshop you can write a business plan, develop and implement a new marketing strategy or create mailing lists for businesses or individuals that can help your business to grow in 2008.

The classes in January will be held on Saturday, January 5th and Tuesday, January 22nd at 8:30am at the Penrose Public Library at 20 N Cascade Avenue.

Another free class called Investment Tools at Your Library will help you become a more educated investor. You will learn how to track certain types of investments, find out about industries or companies new to you and find other investment methods you are not currently using. These classes will be held in January on Thursday, January 10th and 31st. They are also held at 8:30am at the Penrose Public Library.

The library also offers classes in Computers 101, Microsoft Word, Internet Basics and Excel as well as some others. To find when and where these classes are being offered go to http://ppld.org and choose Happenings @ Your Library on the right-hand side of the screen and then click on Computer Classes in the lower left-hand corner of the screen. This will give you a list of classes offered and a description of content covered. At the top of the Happenings screen on the left-hand side you can click on All Library Programs and be taken to a new events calendar, which lists all of the classes and programs offered at the library. Most of the classes require pre-registration and you can do this simply by calling 389-8968 or your local library branch to register.

The 80/20 Principle: The Secret of Achieving More with Less

by Richard Koch, Bolinda Audio, 2007

This book looks at the economic assumptions made that can affect the success of a business. One of the things the author points out is that 80% of errors are made by 20% of the potential causes. He also includes many other analogies that state that economics is not balanced and there has always been an unbalanced relationship to items whether it is 80/20 or 70/30 or 95/5. It is always heavily weighted in one direction. A minority of input or effort leads to a majority of the outcomes or rewards.

What this means in business is that you can look at that 20% and fix it and have a hugh effect on the bottom line. It also means that if you are looking at the other side, the 80% left over, no matter what you do there, you will have little effect on changing things. If 20% of the causes of the bad product are causing 80% of the defects, changing something within that 20% will be cost effective and have long term effects. However, if we choose to address a cause that is causing a very small percentage of the errors because it is easier or cheaper to address we will see very little effect on the outcome. Being aware of the percentages and utilizing them for the long haul will help determine the success or failure of our business.

Koch shows us how to apply this principle to succeed in business and in life. When we are aware of where we are applying our energy and what the resulting outcomes are we can learn to use more of our energy to our advantage and learn to ignore or delegate some of that 80% that needs to get done but has a minimal effect on the final outcome.