During our annual Happy Hour Socials, we have a "What's the BIG idea?" contest. Here are the winning entries from the last three years: 2012 - DELIVERANCE FROM RECEIPTS - by Agape Construction This is a mini-game to reward employees for reducing the number of trips they were making to Home Depot/Lowe's. This saves time for both the employees in the field and for accounting processing all those receipts, thus saving them a significant amount of money.

Way back in 1970, Milton Friedman wrote that any business’s responsibility to society was simply to increase its profits and not break the rules. He’s absolutely right. That’s all business should do. What happens with those profits, when that money is put into the hands of those who have earned it, is where the notion of multiple bottom lines truly comes in. Unfortunately, not everyone thinks the way Mr. Friedman and I do.

Be a Sleuth. Find the Waste. Reducing expenses. That has become a business mantra during this prolonged economic malaise. Most small businesses have tightened their belts, scouring every line on the income statement. Switching suppliers or brands. Buying less. Toeing the mark on salaries. Delaying hiring. Reducing headcount. Buying used instead of new. Less travel. Doing more with less.

Who wouldn’t want to make the journey to fantastic Springfield, Missouri? After all, it’s the birthplace of Cashew Chicken, Brad Pitt and Open-Book Management (hopefully you’re most concerned with the latter). So, if you’ve been putting off the trip, there has to be a good reason why. But, because we know there is no good reason to avoid doing something that could transform your company, we’ve tackled the top five below:

I think that it’s all too common these days to pick up a newspaper or a business magazine and read all about visionary and charismatic leaders in the mold of someone like Jack Welch. It’s like the individual guy or gal at the top gets all the credit for a company’s success. We’ve gotten into the habit of making CEOs into rock stars.

First off, let me thank all of you out there who attended the recent 20th anniversary of The Gathering of Games in St. Louis. It truly was our best celebration yet. Getting the chance to learn from our keynote speakers, Kim Jordan of New Belgium Brewing and Brian Scudamore of 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, as well as our breakout session leaders, panel members and newly crowned All-Stars, truly made for an inspiring couple of days.

What do “values” have to do with business? Everything! This isn’t about “touchy-feely.” I see core values as a hard-nosed business practice, just like reducing costs. It’s simply a way to ensure that everyone on the team knows what is important. As owner, you can – and should – shape your company’s culture. You can let it happen or you can make it happen.

One of my favorite traditions of our annual Gathering of Games celebration is that we recognize a handful of companies each year as Great Game “All-Stars” – an honor we commemorate by writing up a brief case study about the company. In the 20 years we have been doing this, we have covered an amazing variety of companies across just about every industry out there, from manufacturing to retail and food service to banking.

Running a business can be a lonely job. That’s why entrepreneurs are drawn to groups like the Young President’s Organization, Vistage, EO and the Birthing of Giants programs.

One of the questions I get asked the most by other business owners is, “How do you know how much your company is worth?” The simple truth is your company, not unlike your house, is worth only as much as someone else is willing to pay for it. But there are many benefits in getting an appraisal of your company’s value – and that’s something we have been doing at SRC since we got our start. We understood early on that we needed a way to cash out our shareholders without crashing the whole company in the process. That’s why we made annual appraisals a part of the shareholder’s agreement we signed 30 years ago (it’s also a requirement for an ESOP – which we started 28 years ago).