Ten rules or guides for small business that I have learned in business and teach in my business courses.

1. Management
Rules
McCormack's
Management Rules

2. #1 Revenues Must
Exceed Expenses
Revenue - Expenses = Profit
Revenues must exceed
expenses. Every business,
every individual, and even
government, must balance their
books. Every entity must earn
more than it spends. Business
has to take in more revenue
and sends out in expenses. It
is the primary responsibility of
every manager, in every
business, to increase
shareholder value, as profits,
so long as it does so fairly
and by the rules.

3. #2 No Plan Survives
Contact with Reality
So Have a Contingency Plan
So you need to have a
contingency plan, the ability
to adjust, and to adapt, as
the situation impacts your
plan. You can't plan what your
competition got to do, exactly
what you're customers are
going to do, what's going to
happen in the market, in the
general environment. Plan your
work is best can, but have
contingency plans in place
and bid ready to adjust fire.

4. #3 Business Success
Creates Competition
Competition Will Follow You
If you're successful in
business, competition will
follow. If you find a
successful niche for your
business, someone will come
along a look at your success
sand think that they can do a
better job, they can do it
faster, cheaper, better. Success
invites competition, be ready
for it.

5. #4 When You are
Through Improving
You Are Through
When you stop improving, you
start dying. We stopped trying
to make your business and
your self better, start to fall
behind, giving competition a
chance to beat you.
Continuous improvement is a
way of life or business and
for individuals. You have to
improve to continue to
succeed.

6. #5Change Is Inevitable
Everyone Resists Change
2 Basic Truths in Life
There are two basic truths life:
change is inevitable and
everyone resists change. Know
that the market, your business,
your consumers, are always in
a state of change, whether
slow or fast. And when you
bring about change, everyone
hates it, because everybody's
comfortable with the status
quo. Know the change is
inevitable, and people resist
your new ideas, but you need
to move forward and keep on
changing.

7. #6
When You Are
Through Changing
You Are Through
Remember this: when you are
done changing… You are
through. This is related to #
4 and # 5. Change is
inevitable, and businesses need
to work through the change
and adapt.

8. #7 Hire Like Your Life
Depends Upon It
It Does
Higher like your life depends
on it. It does. Don’t settle for
the quick hire, don’t settle
for cheap hire, don’t grab the
trendy hire, and above all
don’t hire yourself-a yes man.
In organization can only
function as well as its team
does, managers need to hire
the best team they can. Don’t
be afraid to hire somebody
better than you and makes
you better, not look worse.
And if you do make that bad
hire don’t hesitate to make a
good fire.

9. #8 You Never Have
Enough Resources
Make the best of them
You never have enough money,
time or resources. Make the
best use of what you have.
Managers are coffee trying to
balance effectiveness and
efficiency in their jobs, and
this is using your valuable
resources to reach your
business objectives. You're
never going to have enough,
so use them wisely, and quit
complaining that you don't
have enough. Nobody does.

10. #9
When You Assume,
You Make An Ass
Out of You & Me
Unless You have Good Data
You have good data to make your
assumptions with. Most business
models start with assumptions on
how much the cost of goods will
cost, how much product to be
sold for, how much will be sold,
what total expenses will be. A
good business model makes good
assumptions on all of these
numbers. Make good assumptions
putting good data, and if you run
the business right, you may
achieve role number one.

11. #10 Don't make DFD's
Data Free
Decisions
When there are multiple options to
choose from, left to their own, the
wrong choice will be made. Don't
make DFD-data free decisions.
Gather facts and information about
the situation, conducts analysis of
what's going on, developed a set
of choices, weigh the pros and
cons of each choice and finally
make the right choice for the
current situation. Don't go with
your gut, check your facts first,
then make a decision.