bizthreads.net: Business Information for Entrepreneurs by an Entrepreneur

No one starts a big business. It just doesn't happen. Businesses start small and grow. You can't flip the switch and have a megalithic organization overnight.

Small business owners, passionate about their product or service, may need to rely on other companies to do some of the jobs they don't (or can't) do themselves so they can spend their time specializing in the parts of the job that they like to do. Other times, you simply need a small business to look big in order to land the big client (which is how Faith Popcorn, author of The Popcorn Report did to get her first client).

So don't ask yourself what you can do for others, ask what others can do for you!

Need writing, marketing, accounting, sales, telemarketing, or web design services? Sites like www.Guru.com and www.elance.com let your small business appear big. Other services can be obtained on an ongoing basis from a business process outsourcing (BPO) company like http://www.egensource.com.

Use a virtual assistant from services like www.onebox.com to manage your incoming calls. Use services like www.getfriday.com for a more complete virtual assistant to send correspondence, pay bills, etc.

Need a bigger office? Services from companies like www.hq.com offer the home based business a prestigious address, along with meeting rooms, mail forwarding, and call answering services.

To get her first client, business futurist Faith Popcorn rented a large office and “staffed” it with family and friends talking on phones that didn't connect to the wall. Since then, her firm has enjoyed huge, legitimate growth offering business forecasting services. You, too, might find that there are times when you'll gain an edge by acting bigger than you are. Or, maybe you just want to focus on your core competencies and let specialists take care of the details.

My economist friends tell me that confidence is one of the most significant factors in the health of the economy. When consumer confidence is up, people buy things freely and that flow of money is good for the economy. When consumer confidence dips, people stop buying things and that lack of money is bad for the economy. As funny as it sounds, the way to get out of a recession or depression is to spend your way out of it… which can be done by boosting consumer confidence. Economists try to find different ways to identify confidence so that they can predict the direction of the market.

Just recently I stumbled over a different kind of confidence measurement. It's one I am still learning about:

Reported at Louisville’s Business First, it measures outlook and hiring plans for the near future. They study just 7 states to get the pulse of the market then they divide their findings by state, industry, and major cities.

The confidence indicator shows that small business confidence dipped in February but rebounded in March and is currently just 0.1% shy of an all-time high. It's a great time to be a small business owner.

See the most current version of their index (which they produce monthly).

Other Links: Apply for Credit Card that will help your business flourish ant let you save money on business and other purchases.

Although this won't work in every small business, there's one tool that I know some of my small business owner friends can't be without.

A stopwatch.

One of the best parts of quitting the 9-5 day-job is also one of the hardest parts, too: Your business starts at home, sometimes in a spare bedroom or spread across the dining room table (when supper is not being served).

Some small businesses are very customer driving, meaning that you end up reacting to your customers' demands as they come up. Often, these are very reactionary businesses and can be slow for some time and (when you get the service call or the order) quite busy at other times.

Other small businesses, though, are more proactive. These are businesses that usually require you to create something: marketing consultants, freelance writers, musicians, for example, are all business people who have to develop content. And that can be hard when the lure of the television or a sunny backyard pool tempt you.

In fact, one friend swears by his 9-5 day-job. He doesn't love it, but he knows that most of the small businesses he's considered will have him starting at home… and he admits to a television addiction that might keep him from turning a profit.

If your business is a content-driven business, consider getting yourself a stopwatch. Set a goal (for example, an hour of work and a 10 minute break). It sounds funny but it's an easy and
inexpensive way of keeping you on track and focused for longer periods of time.

You've probably read a bit about RSS feeds and podcasting on my site in the past. Podcasts are audio shows (like radio-based talk shows, but usually in mp3 format and often specialized for a certain niche) that you can download and listen to on your mp3 player. RSS feeds are computer programs that act like homing pigeons, bringing the podcast mp3 file (or other file formats) right to the computer of the person who has subscribed to the RSS feed.

I've suggested that podcasts (and text-based subscription content, too) are great ways to promote your expertise to your niche, and RSS feeds allow you to do two things: get the file to your subscribers, or post fresh, revolving content on your site to keep the search engines happy.

But what if you want to receive news and podcasts yourself? You need an aggregator, which is what allows you to subscribe to the RSS feed. The feed will return to your aggregator on an ongoing basis, as long as you remain subscribed.

One free aggregator that I really like can be found at www.feedreader.com. This aggregator is really lightweight, meaning it won't take up a lot of space on your harddrive, and it's very easy to use, so you won't be fiddling with it constantly. Also, Feedreader lets you enjoy podcasts right on your computer, instead of on your portable mp3 player.

Once you've downloaded the “binaries” file, they have some good default subscriptions (to BBS and the Wall Street Journal). But you can subscribe to the ones you like by going to an RSS directory (there are so many, just Google “RSS directory” or go to www.2rss.com) and looking for some news or podcasts you'd like to subscribe to. Although you may want to look for one or two that are humorous to bring some levity to your day, make sure you are subscribing to text or audio files in your industry and especially to podcasts by your competition.

Additional information:

Find news and podcasts at www.2rss.com

Need more help? Try:http://www.feedreader.com/node/19 which can take you through the steps quite clearly.

If there's one thing I'm guilty of, it's loving the “For Dummies” series too much. When I go to a book store (which some think is too often) to buy books (which some think I spend too much on) I usually end up in the business book section (no surprise there) and drift toward the For Dummies series.

In general, the books in the series are written by qualified people, and they really boil out the filler and non-essentials that plague many business books. They are practical in a roll-up-your-sleeves kind of way.

Marketing Kit for Dummies is even more hands-on than Marketing for Dummies, by the same author.

This book, which comes with a CDROM, is filled with practical marketing ideas and snap-together templates.

It starts the reader off with some of the basics of marketing (like the 5 P's: Product, Place, Promotion, Price and People) although I wish they would have covered the basics a little more thoroughly. By the end, the book walks you through the essentials of what a brochure for your business should look like. It deals with some of the big picture ideas like publicity and branding, as well as some of the details like what makes good ad copy, and why.

The only thing that would make it a better book is if they took Marketing for Dummies and Marketing Kit for Dummies and squashed them together. Then I could probably throw out half of the books in my library.

It's a great book because I use it over and over now. What's a better measure for value than that? It's also one of those books that I wish I had owned when I was first starting out in
business years ago.

As my inbox fills each day with messages, I'm struck by the lack of standards in place for email users.

So I'm writing my own. Here are my 3 rules for email:

1. Don’t react! Email is a quick medium, which makes it more like conversation than like traditionally written letters. This speed is convenient, but also means that we may be more likely to respond harshly to someone who upsets us. If it's a client, employer, or employee, a sharp response could potentially destroy our business. Even though email is a quick medium, respond with professional kindness. If something is said that upsets you, let them know that you'll get back to them later… then cool off!

2. Be concise. Long emails don't get read. It's a simple fact that people are willing to read long letters, long books, long sales pages, but not long email. Keep your emails short with bullet points and a very clear message.

3. Be professional. Keep your emails to clients, vendors, and employees completely professional. You likely already follow a strict “no spam” requirement, which is a good policy. But you should avoid forwarding those “cute” emails that promise “wonderful luck and blessings if this email gets forwarded 10 times in the next 10 minutes.” Those emails might be enjoyable for you to read and send to friends, but keep them out of your business relationships; send only positive, business-oriented material. And, what you do send should be proofread to make sure that it is free from spelling or grammatical errors.

Your emails are a form of marketing communication. Make sure they always positively promote your business.

It won't be long before we'll be able to pay for our purchases with our cell phone. I accidentally stumbled across this piece of news at the bottom of this web page:http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/business/14174221.htm

It intrigued me enough to search out more details, which I found here:http://www.technewsworld.com/story/49559.html

Paypal is currently testing a system where cell phone users can text a purchase request by cell phone. Paypal will call them back to confirm the purchase. Once it's confirmed, the product will be shipped to their home address.

This is only the beginning! At first, they'll have to work out the bugs and make sure that consumers feel secure enough to use text messaging (short text-based messages you can type on your cell phone and send to recipients) for a purchase. Text messaging is becoming more popular (it's currently growing in popularity and is used by shows like American Idol to get viewer feedback on contestants), but is yet to be accepted and used as regularly as the typical cell phone function.

Once Paypal tests their system and as text messaging becomes more widely used, I believe we can expect to see online and offline businesses posting a “Text to Buy” address in their stores so that consumers have an additional way to purchase the products they like.

Get ready to make more sales by asking your customers, “Will that be cash, credit, or cell phone?”

It's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day stresses of running a business. You can get so focused on wanting to make your business succeed that you sacrifice many things to dedicate 100% of your attention to running your business.

This is not healthy! It's important to take a break and relax for a moment. If you are stuck in your home office, get up, stretch, and take a walk. Even though you don't work in an office environment anymore, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't religiously take a lunch hour.

For some, a few stretches might be the critical stress reliever that they need. Check out this site which talks about exercises in an office environment.

Or, if you just want to sit quietly in front of your computer and not think about work, check out this humorous site for some stress-relieving laughter:

Take a Break and Smile!

Although I sometimes forget to do it myself, I really like the idea of scheduling my day into one- hour segments, then working for 50 minutes and taking a 10 minute break. When I remember to do it, I find that it helps me keep my sanity, even during high stress situations. Even with deadlines looming, I can work more effectively if I take a few minutes off.

Now that I've written this, I'm going to take a quick walk around the block before coming back to work. Maybe I'll see you on the way!

Staying on top of your industry can be tough… but important to do. You want to know what's going on in your world.
 
Many business owners find one of two things happen: they're either too busy doing other things to pay attention to what's going on in their industry, or they're too busy watching their industry to maintain their business. If it's the former problem, you stand the risk of being passed by your competitors who have their finger on the pulse of the changing industry. If it's the latter, you may lose business because you're too busy worrying about the shape of your industry tomorrow to be effective today.
 
Google provides a good program without requiring you to download anything. Check out http://www.google.com/alerts .
 
Google Alerts let you sign up to stay informed about breaking news in the topics of your choice. Sign up and type in the keywords you'd like hem to monitor for you. Whenever a news item breaks with that topic, they'll send you links to the stories, right to your email. Now you don't have to spend all your time trying to find the pulse of your business's industry… now it comes to you.
 
It's easy to sign up and it's free. It works for you because it lets you focus on your business instead of on time-consuming searches. 

Let's face it: most people aren't writers and don't like to write. There's nothing wrong with that; we all have our interests… and dis-interests!

Sandra Lamb's book, How to Write It, is not something you'll pick up and read from cover to cover. It's more of a resource book that you will turn to now and then; whenever you need to write something. I keep my copy beside my dictionary and thesaurus.

The book's subtitle sums up nicely exactly what it's good for; it really is “a complete guide to everything you'll ever write.”

A brief list of some of the things covered in her book include: how to write…
1. Letters to refuse an applicant
2. Business memos
3. Agendas and minutes
4. Fundraising letters
5. Direct mail letters
6. Public relations materials
7. Credit approval letters

… and so much more, for both business and social situations(although admittedly, I don't do a lot of social writing; I primarily use it for business).

Each section is very easy to read and understand, so it doesn't add a lot of time to the process. There are examples you can use to help you, and she provides suggestions to help you eliminate wrong messages (to avoid confusion!) and gentle reminders to edit.

I only wish that the book came with a CD-ROM of templates to use.

If you buy it and use it regularly, you'll find it will pay for itself by improving the clarity of your messages (thus saving you time and effort in future memos and responses to questions).