Small Business Owners Should Practice "Tough Love"

FISHERS, IN, Mar 11 (MARKET WIRE) --
Whether its recession time or boom time, small business owners should
look at the way they operate in order to maximize their revenues. Many
small businesses are run a little loosely, because many owners believe
they lack the overhead and the staff to require a lot of strict policies
and procedures.

That's a mistake, according to Jim Muehlhausen, CPA and author of "The 51
Fatal Business Errors and How To Avoid Them," from Emerald Publishing
(www.51errors.com).

"Every business owner is enrolled in the world's most expensive business
school: The School of Hard Knocks," Muehlhausen said. "Instead of
acquiring business knowledge the slow and expensive way, business owners
need to capitalize on the hard-fought lessons of others. That's why
benevolent dictators are the best small business leaders, because ruling
by committee against that landscape rarely works."

In order to swim with the big fish without getting eaten, Muehlhausen
suggests that small business owners get a little tougher and smarter to
survive the nasty water.

"There are several practices that are considered standard operating
procedure that actually work against small business owners," Muehlhausen
said. "First, many insist on learning hard lessons themselves rather than
learn from the mistakes of their competitors. To compound the problem,
they also tend to hire employees away from their competitors without
realizing that chances are that the employee may be leaving because they
had been fired, or they are about to be fired."

Muehlhausen also stresses that CEOs need to be benevolent dictators to be
more effective.

"Managing employees is a lot like parenting," he said. "Employees may not
like what you do, but you'll have to do it anyway. Many CEOs are afraid to
be authoritarian, but they should do it anyway. They should remember two
things -- first, being authoritarian does not mean you can't be nice, and
second, it's the CEO's name on the big door. No one else will be blamed
for the failure of staff. An autocrat is not automatically a jerk, and
businesses aren't a democracy."

About Jim Muehlhausen

Jim Muehlhausen CPA, JD has had articles featured in numerous publications
including Businessweek.com, Entrepreneur, Inc., Indianapolis Business
Journal, The Small Business Report, Undercar Digest, Digitrends and NAICC
Legal Journal.

Contact:
Rachel Friedman
727-443-7115, Ext 206
rachel@newsandexperts.com

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