PMA-and what is it anyway?

I spent last week in Las Vegas at the PMA show. I really like Las Vegas- and no I don't gamble, I just love all the great people watching and that darn near everything is always open. You can sit or stand ANYWHERE in that town, and be entertained for hours just watching what everyone ELSE is doing. I am always awed at the money people are willing to gamble, and how seriously slot machine players take what they are doing. On the other hand, I guess you should take it seriously if you are going to sit at a machine for hours pumping it full of your hard earned money. But do they ever consider that the machines used to be called One Armed Bandits for a REASON? Anyway...

PMA is the Photo Marketing Association- it is HUGE. And under it's umbrella are numerous industry associations encompassing the gamut of photo related industries- from school photographers, framers, art promoters, sports photographers and it includes PSRO; the Professional Scrapbook Retailers Organization. I have been fortunate enough to be asked to speak at PMA for the last several years, and it is delightful. The members take education to grow their business seriously, and that makes doing seminars an absolute joy. It's also quite interesting to have such a variety of business owners in a room. And that just adds credence to one of my soapboxes- business is business is business.

So many people want to believe that THEIR business is unique and no one else knows how to make it work. Everyone's business is unique, but, and it's a really BIG but- the business part of business is the same whether you own a restaurant, a hair salon, a veterinary practice, or a scrapbook store. Every business needs a written vision statement, what their goals are in the big picture, what their commitments to their community are, how they intend to treat employees, build relationships with vendors. yes, all of that really is in a great vision statement. Every business needs a business plan. Even if they have been in business for a long time, if they never had one, the business will improve as a result of the formulation of a strong business plan. Each business needs an annual plan, a marketing program, and so on.

Business owners are entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurs may well "fly by the seat of their pants"a lot of the time, it is ferquently a part of the general make-up of entrepreneurs to take big risks. But the most successful entrepreneurs are those who have a strong foundation to build on, and are committed to continual improvement. Improvement may come as a result of learning something new. It may be because of a flash of inspiration, or they saw something another business was doing and felt it would be a great thing to implement in their own.Very often improvement is focused on in a times of panic or desperation. And when that happens the improvement may be done piecemeal, not be well planned and thought out, and as a result may not be successful.

At the end of my seminars it is my custom to ask people to write down what their commitment to change is, give a date, and what they expect the change to do for them. I often hear from people that this is the first time they've ever written all of that down. Even if you've never done it before, today is a great day to start. Write down one thing that you want to do differently, by when you will implement the change, and what you expect that change to create or result in. And then I'd love to have you write about if here.

Til next time- happy scrapping!