Small Business Solver

New Year's Resolutions for Small Businesses

2012-01-05T08:35:00.000-05:00

New Year's is a time of reflection. What went well? What didn't? So New Year's resolutions aren't only for individuals, they are a great idea for small businesses too.

For individuals, a typical resolution would be to lose weight, eat healthier, save more money, spend more time with people you care about.

For a small business, your New Year's resolutions could look something like the ones below:

Better Customer Service: Get your customer impressed with your product or service by going over the top with your delivery. Maybe this includes guarantees, some extra services, loyalty program, or better employee training.

Higher Employee Retention: Employee turnover can sap a business' time and money, especially for a small business. With less to offer in terms of large pension plans and benefits, a small business often has to fight harder to keep its best employees. A retention plan, performance incentives, employee events, collecting employee feedback, and staying in touch with everyone are some basic ways to get started.

More Customers: Marketing awareness, sales and referrals will be the key to getting more customers in the door. If this is your plan, make sure you have a solid way to deliver consistent service to these incremental numbers.

More Customer Retention: Keeping 100% of your customers is almost impossible, as even the best financial planners lose 10% of their clients each year and have to plan for this with incremental sales. However, to focus on retention you need a solid communication plan with your existing customers, you need to get feedback to improve things to what they are looking for, and you need to never rest on your laurels.

More Margin: Focus on the customers with the highest margins today, and go after new business that is similar to these types of customers. For instance, if you find that you get the best margin business as an IT company from accountants, target more accounting firms. As a minimum, start saying 'no' to customers who don't meet your margin requirements. Remember, one way to increase margin is to reduce costs, don't overlook this option!

Do More With What We Have: Growing the business doesn't mean that you only have to get more customers. You could just get more business from the customers that you already have. As a salon, you could be giving a customer regular haircuts, but this year you focus on getting them to use your for dyes, styling, and facials.

Work Life Balance: One of the most common reasons for a business closing its doors is that the owners have become burnt out. Make sure that you have strict guidelines to your own working hours and do things outside of work to make sure that this doesn't happen to you.

The final thought....
...New Year's resolutions are famous for not being followed and many people have the same resolution year over year. This is one similarity a small business doesn't want to have!

Marketing No Brainer First Steps

2011-12-18T11:25:00.000-05:00

Marketing doesn't always have to be expensive. In fact, here are 5 simple ways to improve your brand image without spending a dime.

1. Smile.
Smiles come across on the phone, in emails, and face to face. They make people like you more and remember you and your business positively. Remember that a smile is a powerful marketing tool.

2. 30-Second Pitch.
Having a solid 30-Second Pitch / Elevator Pitch helps customers understand the value you bring to them or to others that they may refer to you. Make sure that it is easy to understand, because people will only buy from you if they understand your message.

3. Handshake.
A handshake says a lot about you, even if you don't want it to. So make sure that you have a handshake that leaves a positive impression. It should be firm, yet not too tight. You should shake the other person's hand, not their fingers. If holding a drink, hold it with your left hand so that your right is always free for handshaking. Plus your hand won't be cold or wet.

4. Business Name.
Make sure that your business name says who you are or what you do. This makes it easier to remember. If you can make it have personality, that is a bonus.

5. Use People's Names & Make Eye Contact.
Make others feel important by treating them like they are important. Make an effort to remember their names and look at the person that you are speaking with. These two tips can go a long way.

Marketing Solver at www.SmallBusinessSolver.com walks through another 295 marketing tools that will help your small business with even more tips & tricks of how to execute them correctly.

Three E Pillars

2011-10-27T16:51:00.000-04:00

There are many key pieces of a successful business, but the newest insight I was given fro a successful entrepreneur I would like to share. It is as follows;

"For all 'improvers' to keep in mind, the three E pillars of a successful team and business are…

1. Educate – pass on your learning and learn from others. Pass on your learning and experiences to your team members, subordinates, bosses, family and friends alike. Be humble in your learning and learn from others. Life is too short to learn everything ourselves firsthand; learn from others and teach others likewise.

2. Empower – empower your team with the tools and guidance to do exponentially better than you ever can.

3. Entrust – entrust in your team to do better than they know how.

Hope these three pillars serve you as well as it have served me in developing successful ventures.

Lean Start Ups

2011-09-13T15:11:00.000-04:00

One of the biggest challenges in starting a small business is figuring out where you should be spending money and where you could be saving.

There are a few basic ways that you can save, but you have to figure out if you can afford to;

1. Sweat Equity. This is doing the real leg work and hard work all by yourself. This often could have a huge learning curve, but you don't have to spend the money to have someone else do it. If a task is something that you know will benefit your business in developing that skill set, is repetitive so would have to be outsourced often, and has little risk involved for a beginner, this could be a good option.

For example, if you are a start up with 10-12 transactions a month and you are comfortable with numbers, you may keep bookkeeping inside your business. Whereas tax preparation happens less frequently and has a higher risk factor if there are mistakes, so those are still better handled outside.

2. Bartering. This needs to have a business needing your product or service at the same time as you need theirs. Finding the perfect business to barter with at the perfect time is the problem. But if you can find them, this is a good solution.

3. Variable Costs. If there are instances where your company can reduce high fixed costs, your business becomes less exposed to risk.

For example, buying IT in a SaaS model or leveraging the Cloud may be a more viable solution for a small business than buying software and the network required to support their technology. This is good as the upfront costs aren't there, but if you hire 5 people you simply have to buy 5 more SaaS user IDs to have them get started.

4. Lean Development. This is when the company builds infrastructure that is aligned to the business development plan.

For example, a local tour company is really interested in buying buses for day trips, they would only create the new day tours and buy the bus once their basic local walking tours had begun to make some sales.

There are many creative ways for small business to reduce their costs.

Focusing Strategies for Entrepreneurs

2011-08-18T08:43:00.000-04:00

Entrepreneurs believe that they can do whatever it is they're doing better than anyone else.

They also differ from other people - not in their abilites, but in their mind set. Thye have internatlized 2 fundamental commitments, by making 2 decisions;

1. To depend on their own abilities for their financial security because they realize that the only security is the security they create themselves.

2. To expect opportunity only by first creating value for others becausee they understand that this is the only unlimited source of economic opportunity.

Acknowledgement: This insight was shared with us by Jim Hughes, the CFO of Eco-Shift Power Corp.

The 4 Things You Should ALWAYS Do

2011-08-08T18:18:00.001-04:00

Sales are the key of any entrepreneurial enterprise. To be a good sales person, there are 4 things that you should always do as written by David Cowper, the author of "Mega-Selling Secrets of a Master Salesman". Here they are;

1. ALWAYS be on time.
Showing up late ruins your relationship with a customer. This demonstrates a lack of respect for their time.

2. ALWAYS do what you said you would do.
This adds to you and your business' credibility. You want to make sure that your word respected, and by always doing what you say you will, this reputation will build.

3. ALWAYS finish what you start.
Your drive and determination are what will pull you through. You are not a quitter, and people will be amazed by what you can accomplish.

4. ALWAYS say 'please' and 'thank you'.
These simple words go an awful long way. Being polite is not always remembered, but being impolite always is.

By following these 4 'Always', sales and business will be easier.

Start Ups Should Start Selling Yesterday

2011-07-21T06:14:00.003-04:00

Being a start up requires a lot of set up. But setting up your business should never be what is preventing you from starting to sell.

Why?
- Getting awareness about your product takes a long time. Research on how many customer touchpoints it takes to get awareness varies from 5 to 32. Either way, starting early will get you ahead here.
- Getting customers to finally purchase your product also can take time. They may know about it and be interested, but it could take them months to be ready to buy. Most business to business sales take 6 months before someone buys, and this can be much longer based on the pricetag and the complexity of the sale.

So how do you sell early?
Figure out the 5 things that you'd have to complete before you feel like you can start selling. You'll be surprised that 80% of the time it is only 5 things, and 80% of the time you can finish these 5 things in a lot less time than you might have thought. For instance, you may think that you need to have;
- business cards
- a website
- a proposal
- a contract
- shipping all organized
- packaging
- inventory

But when reviewing this To Do List, all of these may not be necessary to sell.

- If you are selling over the internet, business cards may not be necessary.
- If you are selling to referrals or have a product, a website could come later.
- A proposal and a contract can be developed once you get that warm lead.
- Shipping is often taken care of by the customer, especially if they are bigger than you.
- Packaging and inventory don't stop you from selling. Having a prototype could get you some interested customers. Start getting the awareness as early as possible!

Sales are the make or break of many businesses. By starting early you are able to get cash in earlier, can continue to design what you are doing based on customer feedback, and you are starting to build awareness about your company which takes a long time to build.

Small Business Competitive Advantages

2011-06-06T07:29:00.002-04:00

Size matters, but sometimes being small is the advantage.

1. Flexibility
Being a small business means that your business strategy or focus on delivering various products can change easily. So if a customer asks for a specific request or if there is an emerging trend, small businesses are more posed to pounce.

2. Understanding Your Customer
As a small business your proximity and interaction to the customer is a close. Often the owner, founder, or manager works directly with some of the customers and gets a better understanding of what they need. Without piles of hierarchy in a business, all of the employees become better at customer service and when changes are made to the product/service, they truly benefit the customers.

3. Speed to Market
With flexibility and an understanding of your customer, small business is well equipped to get new offerings to the market....fast.

4. Low Overhead
With fewer employees and smaller scale facilities, there is less risk involved in the overhead and the opportunity to be cost competitive.

Besides these advantages, with changes in technology and various service offerings, many of the advantages of being big are disappearing. Such as;

- Procurement Quantity Discounts
With websites such as Alibaba allowing for easier international procurement and the efficiency of logistics increasing, the playing field is not as wide as it once was.

- Resources Available
Partnerships and leveraging sub-contractors can make a small business seem (and provider expertise) larger than it is. Leveraging resources outside of your company that adds customer value simply makes it easier to compete with the larger organizations that would have all of these resources internally.

- Marketing Budgets
Social media and online marketing is levelling the playing field with even micro companies or individuals receiving widespread awareness through these tools. No longer is a multi million dollar marketing budget required to get results.

Next time that you are worried about not being big enough, get creative and figure out how to take advantage of your smaller size.

Getting Money For Your Business

2011-05-23T08:18:00.000-04:00

Getting money for your business is something that every single entrepreneur wants, making it that much more of a competitive marketplace.

Here are a few of your options to get money in;

1. Banks
If you do not have collateral, this may not be an option. Banks are in this industry to make money, but they will protect themselves. If you are looking for $50,000 as a start-up and you do not have collateral or are willing to put your house up to secure this, it will be extremely difficult to get a loan or line of credit. With an existing business, you are in a better position and should start by asking a banker that you have built a relationship with.

2. Investors
If you are not willing to give away a portion of your business, this may not be an option. Investors will want a big piece of the action and most of them want control as they will want to make sure that their decision matters when it comes to the use of their money. Make sure that you bring in investors when you are willing to do this or when you have made your business' value high enough to support this investment while maintaining your majority share.

3. Government Grants & Loans
The government creates grants and loans to stimulate parts of the economy through businesses. Most of the government mandates are to support innovation and employment. Innovative grants and loans are in the technology, agriculture, diesel, education, medicine, and many other industries. However, many of these programs are tax rebates and loans rather than grants, and this trend is continuing as the government is seeking to incent established companies who would pursue this innovation regardless of having government financial support.
For employment, the mandate is to support unemployed or difficult to employ individuals. When applying for many of these programs, your company would have to ensure that you are helping the community and unemployed individuals who require this type of assistance.

4. Sales
Sales is self financing of a business and it is an excellent way for other options (governments, banks & investors) to be more interested in lending. Is there a way to get sales earlier? This is a good option to consider.

5. Family & Friends
This is your last resort, but also the most likely group to invest when you don't have sales and the rest of your options are gone.

Consider all of your options when seeking finance, but be realistic of what is needed with each option.

First Step In Writing a Business Plan

2011-05-17T08:02:00.002-04:00

The first step in writing a business plan is not the numbers or explaining the product. In fact, the first step does not include ANY writing.

Your first step of a business plan: Identify Why You Are Writing It

For example, if you are writing a business plan just to guide your own actions in the upcoming months, that business plan is going to have different content and look very different than something prepared for the bank.

Why is this step so important? By knowing the reason for your business plan and its audience, you are able to make your business plan more effective in whatever purpose you have selected.

Here are some examples of different business plan audiences, and the format of the business plan;

The Bank
Institutions know exactly what type of information they want in order to grant you a loan or a line of credit. So use their templates that are found on their websites, as you know that they'll be getting what they want. This increases the likelihood that you will be getting a loan. A standard business plan for a bank is over 20 pages in length.

Private Investors
Individuals are a little different than a bank. Sometimes a document isn't required as much as a presentation! There should be an emphasis on the numbers as they want you to 'show them the money'. But this plan would look very different than something you give to a bank.

The 3 Fs: Family, Friends, Fools
Family, friends, and fools are the most likely individuals to support a start-up. These individuals will be very interested in the 'how' you are going to do things and watching you get sales and traction. To convince the 3Fs to contribute time or money, you can imagine this will be a different approach.

Employees, Customers, Suppliers, and Other Stakeholders
There are times that you will show people your business plan just to ensure that they want to do business with you. These types would be less numbers and content heavy. Write about the values and what makes the company different, plus it would probably be under 10 pages.

Yourself
Business plans are often written just to help the owner of a company organize themselves and test their concept. This would be action oriented with sales forecasts and a budget. Sometimes these are only 1 page in length or up to 5 pages making them flexible to the ongoing changes within a business.

By starting with the 'why' in a business plan, you will end up with a better plan.

Are You Changing Every 2 Months?

2010-11-08T08:47:00.004-05:00

Scientists say that every single cell in our body changes every 7 years. This explains why our hair and taste buds can change over time.

Is a business the same way? How long does it take to replace every part of a business?

Coming up to my 2 year mark has made me reflect on how my own business has evolved. I've gone through many stages:
1. Pro bono stage where I figured out where my niche was
2. Focus on a niche market and operationalizing what I did best
3. Growing the customer base
4. Expanding the product and service offering
5. Merging with another company
6. Focusing on a smaller niche market
7. Growing the customer base in this more focused niche market
8. Expanding the product and service offering for them (again!)

In fact, when looking back I realized that I had a phenomenal paradigm shift almost every 2 months. Focusing and then being able to re-invent myself was key to my company's growth.

Why?
- Being focused adds credibility. If a small business doesn't focus, the customers don't understand what they do or believe that they are capable.
- Being able to change is equally important. Flexibility is a small business' competitive advantage.

How often should this be happening in your first 2 years? That will depend upon the business. But keep in mind, if you are not learning and changing....your competition is.

Strategic Marketing Made Easy

2010-06-16T07:41:00.006-04:00

What is marketing? How best to communicate to customers.

How do you do this?

1. Know your customer
2. Which helps you create a product or service that they will love
3. Which helps you have a lot of great benefits to talk about
4. And since you know your customer, you will already know where to communicate this great message

1. Know Your Customer
In order to do anything in business, you must start with your customer. You have to know who your customer is and what it is that they want. If you don't know this, you won't know how to design your product or service, what to talk about, and where to go to communicate it.

2. Create the Business Operations
Make sure that your product or service is so perfectly fitted to the customer that you could discuss 20 benefits with them if you had the time.

3. Messaging
Start with the parts of your product or service that the customer cares about the most. Whenever you are talking to someone, you should start with the information that is the most relevant to them. This is not like a movie or fireworks where people wait for the grand finale. In marketing, you start with the grand finale.

4. Where to Communicate
Finally, the most important thing is to make sure that you are actually speaking with them. The old adage, 'if a tree falls and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?', can be compared to 'if you talk about your company and no customer is around to hear it, will anybody buy?'. If you are going to networking events or participating in social media that your potential customers are NOT involved in, you are wasting your time and money. Make sure that you are in the right places with your messages.

This is strategic marketing and how to create a plan to generate word of mouth.

Get Your Business Plan To Do More

2010-04-20T20:56:00.003-04:00

A business plan has many purposes. It can guide you, entice others to work for you, increase supplier confidence, intrigue customers, and help with financing.

But for each of these purposes there are some techniques to make the busienss plan more effective in helping with this end result.

For YOU
- use only 1-page
- make sure it is a big page, bristle board size is usually the best
- if possible, make it erasable by using a whiteboard or chalkboard, this is even better to help with ongoing changes
- hang it up on an open wall in your office
- spreadsheets for sales projections and financials are still necessary and helpful (sorry!)

For EMPLOYEES or PARTNERS
- use only 1 to 5 pages
- highlight the employees' and partners' roles and how they will contribute to the business' overall success
- include what their reward will (likely) be

For SUPPLIERS
- use only 5 to 10 pages
- explain the reason why your idea is so great and the potential for success is so high
- include the growth potential including pessimistic, realistic, and optimistic projections
- explain the action plan that will get you from where you are to where you are planning on getting to within the next year
- outline any additional benefit that they will receive as they are working with you early in the game

For CUSTOMERS
- use 1 to 5 pages
- speak about the benefits and focus on the customer throughout
- explain the future plans that will further benefit the customer and why they should start with you now
- think marketing

For BANKS
- find out in advance the probability of a successful application
- use their templates which are posted on their websites or that they provide to you
- try to keep the content to under 20 pages and under 30 pages with your appendices
- speak with your small business advisor or the primary contact before writing the business plan and keep them involved throughout the process

Business plans are important, but if you design it for a purpose it will be more effective.

Before Writing a Business Plan, Figure Out Why You Are Writing It

2010-04-13T09:10:00.003-04:00

'Write a Business Plan' is a dreaded phrase by many entrepreneurs. It contains three words with awful implications:
1. 'write' means more work and time commitment. Things entrepreneurs really don't want more of.
2. 'business' for many entrepreneurs is something that is intimidating. They are great at what they do, but timid about business as many entrepreneurs have never taken a business course in their life.
3. 'plan' indicates that the entrepreneur should be able to understand what is coming down the line. How quickly these plans change!

There is no correct business plan for every situation, and the commonly sought after 50-page business plan is not always the right answer. You need a plan for many different reasons, below are just a few;

- Guide yourself. Having a plan will help you get where you want to go. But do you need a 50-page plan for this? Probably not, as you want to be able to change it as your idea evolves.
- Entice employees to work for you. As a new business you have to sell the concept, yourself, and the future for employees to work for you with profit sharing, without benefits, or at all. A 50-page business plan definitely doesn't work here.
- Have suppliers have confidence in working with you. A solid business plan can give you more negotiating leverage and help them understand your business so that they can help you. But a 50-page business plan wouldn't work here.
- Get customers intrigued. This makes them willing to help in testing and makes them want to be the first person to have your new innovation. But a 50-page business plan wouldn't work here.
- Finally financing. The banks, venture capitalists, angels, and government grants all require different business plans. A 50-page business plan doesn't even work here. In fact, each bank and government grants has its own template that they like entrepreneurs to follow.

That is why I suggest that you figure out why you are writing it prior to putting your pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard).

So what should you be doing in each case listed above? The next blog will explain.

Getting Sales Is About Keeping The Funnel Full

2010-04-04T22:11:00.002-04:00

How often do you hear about a new company and immediately decided to go out and buy their product or service? Not often or more likely never.

Keeping the sales funnel full means that you have to have customers in all stages of the sales process in order to have regular sales. You need customers who;

Just found out who you are
These customer will not buy from you today or tomorrow. But they might and it is possible that they will in the future. This the initial awareness, and customers will only do business with people they know. Maybe they'll even refer you!

Hear about your for the second time
Maybe they see your advertisement or their neighbour told them that your company was great. This increases interest and the chance that the potential customer will buy as they are thinking about you for a second or third time.

Want to learn more
They have heard enough about you that they are intrigued and wonder if you can actually do what you say you can. The customer is ready for more information regarding how their particular needs can be met. Here is where you have to make sure that there is little risk for them to buy.

Purchase
Only after all of these warm up steps are they finally ready to buy something from you.

Some sales processes take minutes, some hours, and others months. I've heard of sales processes taking years, but with persistence and getting in front of the customer, you are able to move them through the sales funnel.

If you only focus on one part of the funnel at a time, then you would have a lot of sales once in a while, but things would not be steady. This is tough on your cash flow (and your nerves!).

If you only focus on one part of the funnel at all, you may never close a sale as you have to keep customers moving towards the close.

But the biggest mistake is just not having enough in the funnel! The math is simple.
100 potential customers hear about you
10 potential customers want to learn more
1 potential customer buys

You have to go after at least 100 customers, to get to that 1 sale. So remember that to get your sales off the ground, it is going to take a lot of work!

Don't Be Fooled, You Are Networking

2010-01-30T08:15:00.002-05:00

Everyone knows that networking is great to meet people.

But the reverse is also true, any place where you meet new people is a good networking place. The most common examples of this is school, volunteer work, sports or clubs, and line-ups.

Schools
People go to school for a course or an entire program because they are interested in a topic. This means that everyone in your class has something in common and you automatically have a connection. It is no surprise that a large component of an individual's business contacts come from school. In fact, the higher the education, the tighter the business connections normally are. I once heard a guest speaker say something I now try to live by: 'live like you'll die tomorrow, but learn like you'll live forever'.

Volunteering
Volunteer work has the advantage of making you feel wonderful about the work you're doing at the same time as meeting great people who feel the same way. It is a very positive environment to meet someone in. This is a huge opportunity and I've heard of many business deals starting due to someone's involvement in volunteer work.

Sports & Clubs
Playing sports and joining clubs shows your fun side . Meeting someone in this setting (especially during a social event after the game or club meeting) is all about building the relationship. If later you learn that you have complementary business offerings, all the better.

Line-ups
Canadians are great at this - lining up! We may as well take this wasted time and take advantage of it. There is no harm done in starting a conversation with you neighbour. What's the worst thing that could happen? You don't get new business. What's the best? You get your biggest client. Based on this logic, it only makes sense to use this time more wisely at coffee shops, airports, and wherever else you find yourself waiting.

So next time you do one of these untraditional networking activities, bring your business card!

Dreading the Holidays?

2009-12-22T08:18:00.000-05:00

Holidays are a little different for small businesses.

We aren't relieved that it is a break, we are fretting that we don't have as much income for a few days or a few weeks! Retail stores who are taking advantage of the buying season are not as strapped (not until January at least), while business to business companies often find things put on pause.

So what are some things that we can do during this time?

If you are experiencing a slowdown;

1. Plan for the new year. With the day-to-day rush of business, you probably don't have that much time to be strategic or reflect upon your business. Are you still going in the direction that you had originally set out? Are you still happy with what you business is doing?

2. Follow-up with customers and reinforce your relationships. Send out those emails, catch up on those emails that have been clogging your inbox, and call the people who are typically busy and unreachable. Just don't be too pushy. Although you will be able to reach some people that are typically busy, not all of the decision makers are going to be in the office. So it is still difficult to get things moving forward. So just aim to build the relationship, so that when they are busy again they will make time for you.

3. Rest. You don't get too many opportunities like this. You will be more prepared in the new year, if you take the time to refresh yourself now.

There is nothing that you can do about the slowdown during the holidays, so you may as well take advantage of it.

Should You Network With Other Small Businesses?

2009-11-26T08:38:00.000-05:00

Time is money. As entrepreneurs, we know that.

Time is a huge factor when deciding which networking events to go to. Although many of them sound like fun (especially during the holidays), you should only go to the ones that help your company meet its objectives.

So should you consider going to small business networking events, even if small businesses aren't your customer base? Chances are there are still a ton of big advantages for you to attend these small business events. Here are a few:

1. Two heads are better than one.

If you have a small business challenge, there is a good chance that someone else at the event is going through the same thing or has in the past. Small businesses go through 90% of the same challenges at some point. Why not learn from someone else's experience and leapfrog these difficult moments?

2. Small business is willing to help.

If someone approaches an entrepreneur with a business idea, there is a much bigger chance that they are going to be willing to help make the idea work than the average person. Entrepreneurs are always looking for good ideas, so they are more open to them. Also, entrepreneurs have all experienced rough times and are more likely to help others in that stage.

3. They may not be your customers, but they may talk to your customers.

Even though a small business owner may not be your direct customer, if they have the same target market as you, they could very easily be an extension of your sales team. Why not partner and double your salesforce? Affiliations are a great way to extend your marketing reach, grow your salesforce, offer a wider range of services, and help you go head-to-head with the big guys.

4. Support could be more than just business support.

Being an entrepreneur can be lonely at times. A lot of responsibility is on you. Having people who are going through the same thing (dealing with cash flow, customer, economy, and time management concerns), can give you the emotional support that you are looking for.

So next time you are debating on which networking event to attend, take a second look at mingling with other small businesses. The opportunities could be limitless as Microsoft, IBM, and Wal-Mart were all small at some point.

Does social media make sense for your business?

2009-11-16T08:12:00.000-05:00

Almost every single small business is talking about social media these days. It is one of those tools that small business can use to overcome many of the advantages that larger businesses have when it comes to marketing. Brains beat brawn.

The two concerns for small business is always time and money. Social media doesn't impact your money, so that biggest difficulty for small businesses and social media is the time it takes.

How do you overcome this? From the very beginning figure out if social media makes sense for your business.

Answer yes if you are using social media can be used to get more customers, more suppliers, more marketing opportunities in terms of interviews and webpage hits, or meet any other goal that your company has through doing social media, and this has worked for you in the past.

Answer no if your customers, suppliers, and traditional marketing connections don't have a facebook account. You can't achieve goals for your business if the contacts that will help you get there aren't using social media themselves.

Answer yes if you are trying to connect with peoplw who are also using it. This is great to reach people who are using social media for business themselves, people who have access to social media at work or home, or people who are online social media butterflys.

Answer no if you are trying to reach people uncomfortable with using technology, people without computers, and people too busy to use social media frequently.

The heart of this message is, don't spend the time necessary for social media if it doesn't add value to your business.

Small Business Resources

2009-10-10T11:55:00.000-04:00

Too little time...too much to get done. This is the life of an entrepreneur.

Not only does a small business owner clean the bathroom, but they are the CEO. They may not be naturally good at all of these roles and have a steep learning curve. For instance, someone who is cleaning residential facilities or making homemade peanut butter, may not know a lot about marketing and it will take them a while to figure out what works best for their company.

If you are already busy looking after your accounting, getting new clients, and actually doing the work that you said you would get done, when do you have time to be strategic? And even worse, when do you have the time to gather the necessary information in order to ensure that your strategies are going to make sense?

This blog's focus is going to be to provide a central place for small business owners to find out what is happening out there. Topics in the upcoming weeks will include:

1. Technology (The current question is how new iPhone applications can help business and how social media can best be used)

2. Taxation (The current question is how HST will affect small business?)

3. Government grants and program updates (The current question is how and is the OSEB program changing?)

4. Economy (The current question is whether the recovery is real or not? And what new business to get into based on the current economy?)

5. Trends (The current question is what is the next big thing? And how small businesses can take advantage of this?)

Also, the blogroll will be an added source of information.

The mission is to make this one place to keep track of what is going on out there. Saving you time to focus on what is important...your business.

Business Isn't Rocket Science - Unless You are Making Rockets

2009-09-07T16:23:00.000-04:00

Business can't be rocket science!

Who are some of the most successful entrepreneurs? Many of them dropped out of school or have been laid off from work in the past. Bill Gates never finished university, and children everywhere continue to quote example as evidence of why they shouldn't finish their homework. It is similar stories to this that have created the urban legion that "C" students own small business, "B" students work for the large corporations and government, and "A" students work for the "C" students.

If these successful entrepreneurs were so-called failures by society's standards at one point in time - wouldn't business have to be easy for them to be so good at it?

Business is easy. A business owner just has to do things that make sense in order to be successful.

So why doesn't everyone do this? The challenge is that business has achieved its own stereotype of being complicated. When an individual approaches a business problem, instead of pursuing the route that makes sense, they often think it should be more complicated. They follow what others have done for different businesses that have worked, as opposed to just sitting down and thinking about if it makes sense for them.

One example I've seen time and time again is a small business instantly using SEO (search engine optimization). Let's pretend that the company is a local barber who thinks that to promote their business they simply need to be ranked highly on Google's search engine. But if you are trying to target local clientele, your time and money is better spent putting up flyers at the local coffee shop or community centre. A barber shop trying to market their service through SEO has gotten wrapped up in what other companies where doing and talking about. SEO really didn't make sense for their business. This is just one example.

How do you ensure that you are doing things that make business sense?

First, do a quick numbers check for every business decision. If you aren't making money on something, you shouldn't do it. Let's use the SEO example from above. In order to be ranked highly in SEO, you need lots of partners and other websites to link to you. This takes a lot of time to develop the partnerships, and it also can take money in order to put advertising links on directory pages. In addition, most people don't find a barbershop online. Alternatively, the flyers are 10 cents a black and white copy, and are in the same location as the target market. When doing the numbers using both time and money, the flyers comes out as the better decision.

Second, re-consider your basic assumptions. Again with the SEO and the barbershop, the barber had assumed that all companies need a webpage, all webpages are designed to need SEO to be found on search engines, and that people search for a barber online. If we look at these three assumptions, we can see that they may not be logical. Most people find their barber since they are in the neighbourhood, the webpage could be used for people to book appointments or to have store hours, or maybe the barber doesn't even need a webpage.

By doing the numbers and testing basic assumptions, the barber would make better business decisions.

Remember, business is easy. And this really isn't rocket science - unless you are making rockets.