{"id":371,"date":"2020-05-16T04:08:11","date_gmt":"2020-05-16T04:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.camcobra.com\/home\/?p=371"},"modified":"2025-06-01T03:19:07","modified_gmt":"2025-06-01T03:19:07","slug":"entrepreneurial-series-part-1-no-problem-just-solutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/camcobra.com\/home\/2020\/05\/entrepreneurial-series-part-1-no-problem-just-solutions\/","title":{"rendered":"Entrepreneurial Series, Part 1: No Problem! (Just solutions?)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Originally published September 27, 2011<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Do you have what it takes to own and operate your own business? Is this the right idea for you? Let\u2019s explore these and other questions in the coming weeks as we break down the top skills (and others that readers suggest as we go along) that make for what the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue calls \u201cthe right stuff\u201d in its Entrepreneurial Guide (Center for Entrepreneurial Assistance, 1).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This week we look at problem-solving, \u201cexploring innovative ways to respond to opportunities\u201d (CEA, 1). While there are many skills and traits that make for dynamic leadership and successful business operation, most of what owners and operators do involves solving problems, either the ones they create for themselves or the ones the business encounters over time. So what is a problem, and how do savvy business self-starters go about solving them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In Business, 10th Edition, Pride, Hughes, and Kapoor define a problem as \u201cthe discrepancy between an actual condition and a desired condition \u2013 the difference between what is occurring and what one wishes would occur.\u201d They further clue students and readers that a problem can be positive, in which case it may be viewed as an opportunity. Here\u2019s how they describe the problem-solving process in their textbook:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Identify the problem or opportunity<\/li><li>Generate alternatives<\/li><li>Select an alternative<\/li><li>Implement and evaluate the solution<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s the textbook version. It holds true, and becomes so automatic with enough practice, that problem-solvers rarely think of what they do in terms of \u201csteps\u201d or a \u201cprocess.\u201d Still, problem-solving is a process and this guide can help newbies make their way in business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s break down a real-world example. Some years ago, a client asked me about automating some financial operations for his young business. I suggested QuickBooks (QB) because I\u2019ve used it on the job, in my own business, and with other clients. If ever the client would convert his cumbersome and error-prone paper system to QuickBooks, at least he\u2019d be able to reach out to me for support and assistance if he needed it.<br>It took a few years of keeping after him and his wife, who handles office management for him, and this year the two called me in to convert their books to QB. Right away, there were problems. Well, there were a lot of questions, anyway. The questions each posed either a problem or opportunity for him and his wife in handling the company\u2019s financial matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cCan we put all of our previous year\u2019s stuff into QB so we can compare earnings from year to year?\u201d \u201cHow can I see how much each job I do actually costs me?\u201d \u201cCan I see profit\/loss per job?\u201d \u201cHow do I do quarterly reports for my accountant?\u201d \u201cHow?\u201d \u201cWhy?\u201d \u201cWhen?\u201d The questions amassed the more we talked about making this critical conversion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then I posed my own questions. \u201cHow much financial history do you want to make electronic?\u201d \u201cHow much detail do you record in your income and expense accounts?\u201d \u201cDo you want to use classes (categories) for income and expenses?\u201d \u201cWhat kinds of reports will you want to run, either for your own records or for presentation to your accountant?\u201d \u201cHow does your accountant work with you and your financial information?\u201d Again, questions we asked each other posed problems or opportunities for his business growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This client and his wife are excellent problem solvers, as it turns out. They navigated my questions, found information I requested, and provided answers as thoroughly as anyone could expect. As a result, we turned a great number of would-be problems into creative solutions and otherwise-missed opportunities. The most challenging problem we encountered was inputting years\u2019 worth of historical information in order to be able to make year-to-year comparisons, which the couple actually enjoyed being able to do. (In doing so, we even encountered a slight calculation error in the paper system that could have cost them a lot of hassles come quarterly tax filings.) Let\u2019s break that latter problem down without getting too technical about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Identify the problem or opportunity<\/strong><br>The client wants to start recording day-to-day transactions beginning the 2011 tax year. They also want to be able to be able to compare net earnings from year to year, but they don\u2019t want to enter every receipt, invoice, bill, bank reconciliations, and other daily transactions for prior years. How can we input enough historical data without going into overbearing (read: daily) detail?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Generate alternatives<\/strong><br>What are our choices when it comes to doing this? We could very well enter historical data (financial figures from previous years) into QB from paper records by month, quarter, or year. How can we make these entries? As actual invoices and receipts? No, we can simply create what are called journal entries, or general journal entries, for each period we decide to capture. Who will make them? Should the client figure it out on their own and hope not to create a mess? (After all, this is their first foray into electronic bookkeeping and their first real experience with QuickBooks.) Their consultant can make the entries, and the client can check everything out with their accountant when they meet with her again a few weeks after setting up QB.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Select an alternative<\/strong><br>The client will continue posting daily transactions for the current tax year, but will post no new entries for prior years. The consultant will continue working on and posting general journal entries for the historical data, posting one year-end journal entry for each prior year and pulling records from the client as needed. The accountant will review everything once the main entries have been posted and verified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Implement and evaluate a solution<\/strong><br>We did exactly what we decided would be the best solution for this problem. We even reviewed and verified the numbers just after completing the entries, which is when we found errors in the paper system. We revised and revamped the strategy on the spot and made other corrections to clarify certain types of expenses from prior years. We checked our entries against their paper records again. We verified that the information matched what they had on paper and had used for tax purposes. We took a quick overview of some reports and printed some that they could share easily with their accountant. We made sure they could report the same kinds of information more easily and more accurately than in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The thing about this client is that they were well equipped to handle this transition. Every problem that came up had an almost instant solution. They continue to prove themselves to be very adept at resolving issues almost as quickly as they come up. As the young contractor\u2019s wife sheepishly tells me often, \u201cI was going to call you, but I wanted to try to figure it out and answer some of my questions on my own first.\u201d This is not a shameful trait; rather she and her husband are to be commended for the skill with which they approach each problem in the business, whether he in the field or she in the office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s just the skinny of it. There is a lot that goes into problem-solving that we haven\u2019t touched this week, and if readers wish, we can explore more this topic in the coming weeks, perhaps through comments or another article. In the meantime, evaluate your own problem-solving skills. On the ever-clich\u00e9 scale of 1 to 10, 10 being most skillful, how do you rate yourself in this entrepreneurial area? If you\u2019re not too bashful or shy, share your answers in comments and talk about ways in which you hope to improve in this area if needed. If you\u2019re already a problem-solving expert, do you mind sharing what works for you? (May save me having to write a follow-up article to touch on it in more depth. Ha!) Hope this was helpful!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Originally published September 27, 2011 Do you have what it takes to own and operate your own business? Is this the right idea for you? Let\u2019s explore these and other questions in the coming weeks as we break down the top skills (and others that readers suggest as we go along) that make for what&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":108,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reclaimed","category-small-biz-tips"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcobra.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcobra.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcobra.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcobra.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcobra.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/camcobra.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":372,"href":"https:\/\/camcobra.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions\/372"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcobra.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcobra.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcobra.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcobra.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}