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To help, and because I have heard from so many small business people wanting to know how they can tap into the new economic stimulus law funds, I will be conducting a two-part webinar on how small businesses can get some economic stimulus contracts and funds, starting July 1.

Here’s the lowdown: The Small Business and Economic Stimulus Law Webinar.

Small Businesses are Starting to get Stimulus Money!

I have been working with Office Depot for the past few months on this project and we are really excited about it. The new site is very Web 2.0 with videos, articles, specials, and plenty more. You just may find some great Steve Strauss content there as well!

In addition, you should check out the new contest that is also part of the Self-Bailout plan, the Office Depot Adopt a Small Business Contest. Office Depot will be looking for the country’s best and smartest small businesses and will be giving away over $1 million to 500 small businesses. To enter, simply make a two minute video of the smart things your business is doing to survive these tough times and submit it to www.TheSurvivalOfTheSmartest.com.

You will also be able to find my video pick of the week on the website throughout the summer.

Who knows, you may be a winner !

“Look both ways before crossing the street”: What is she really saying? What mom means is that it is a dangerous world out there and you have to careful.
That is certainly true in business, is it not? Before doing a deal with someone new, before taking out that line of credit, before opening that second location, look both ways before crossing the street. It might just save your business life.

“Play nice”: In business, this sage piece of advice could have many meanings:
• It could mean, be kind to your employees, and be a good boss
• It might mean, in a negotiation, think win-win
• Maybe it means, remember that business is about more than just the bottom line

However you want to interpret it, playing nice usually means your business will be more fun and more fulfilling than if you don’t play nice.

“Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do”: This is something my mom used to tell me (like maybe when I knew my Aunt Rhoda, bless her heart, was going to place a big lipstick kiss on my cheek.) It is advice that has always served me well, in life and in business.

In business, sometimes you do indeed have to do things you don’t want to do: Let someone go, pay a bill for services poorly rendered, do your taxes, that sort of thing.
The good news: Doing the unwelcome thing means that you can then go back to the fun things.

“There’s always a solution”: This is something my wife always reminds my kids. It’s good to learn, and true. No, the solution is not always easy or simple, but guess what? Sometimes it is, you just have to look harder. The important thing is to remember that solutions are out there.

“Eat your vegetables”: Really Steve, this has to do with business, really? Yes, I think it does. What is the underlying point of ‘eat your vegetables’? Isn’t it, be well-rounded, be healthy? That, I think we can all agree, is in fact good business.

“Have fun!”: Good moms are not just about teaching life lessons, they also want their kids to enjoy themselves ( safely, of course.) Well, this certainly is some great business advice. You have to keep things fun, especially in this economy.

Whether that means being a good boss and giving yourself Wednesday afternoons off to golf or whether it means keeping things light and playful around the office is of course up to you. Just be sure to have some fun.

“Clean your room”: Mom knows that it is hard to work in a messy place. She also knows that impressions count, and the cleanliness of your room (or office) matters.

“Actions speak louder than words”: How many people have you met in business who talk a great game but can’t seem to deliver when push comes to shove? Many, I bet. We don’t want to be that guy. In business, your word is your bond, or it should be.

“Remember to say please and thank you”: I am amazed how often people with whom I do business forget their manners. Please and thank you are basic, essential, and make a difference.

Moms: What would we do without them? To my mom, and the mother of my kids, and to all the moms out there – thanks for everything!

So the alarm goes off at 2:30 a.m. and I think “what the heck are you doing Strauss?!” I am scheduled to debate Joel Comm (he of TwitterPower fame) on Fox News at 6:20 a.m. est. Topic: Should small business use Twitter?

As I live on the west coast, I am therefore up at this unGodly hour.

Not surprisingly, my 14 year old daughter decides not to go to the studio with me, even if Fox was kind enough to send a car for us. “Sorry Pop!”

So I get to the satellite studio and we are given all of about 3 minutes to debate this topic. I must admit that Joel and his Twitter brethren have taught this old dog some new tricks. Twitter is a more powerful platform than I previously realized. I hope I conveyed that. It is tough to do so in such a short segment.

But I also hope MY point is not getting lost in the tweets, namely, that in this economy, at this time, small businesses have to be really smart about whether they should use Twitter. Having 1,000 followers is not the same as having 1,000 customers. The question is whether it would be worth the sustained effort it will take to turn even some of those followers into customers.

That is not an insignificant question. And you better be pretty sure of the answer before you start tweeting your day away. Just because it is the flavor of the month, it does not mean it is right for you.

It may be, and if it is, great! But one size does not fit all.

Steve

The Twitteratti were in an uproar.

They were convinced that I am some old-school moron who doesn’t get the value of social media in general and Twitter in particular.

So let’s get this out of the way up front: I like and very much appreciate social media. I write about it in the latest version of The Small Business Bible, last year, I named it the #3 most significant small business trend, and two years ago, it came in at #1 on my annual list.

I also have checked out Twitter plenty, like it well enough, but admittedly, I am no Twitter expert. So I get why not a few Twitter users thought I missed the boat. By the same token, I still think that my distance gives me a little perspective that they may not have.

Could we both be right, and wrong?

First, where I was wrong: What really surprised me about the column was just how much play it was getting. I had never had so many people comment on a column. Then one of them explained that it was because the column had been transplanted onto Twitter. Aha!

So I saw firsthand what a powerful tool Twitter can be for spreading a message and creating instant feedback.

Mea culpa. I did not get that before. Score one for the Twitter nation.

I was impressed and wanted to learn more. My friend Rieva Lesonsky uses Twitter plenty, and she offered to hook me up with the charming Gini Dietrich, the CEO of Arment Dietrich, a PR firm in Chicgao. Gini had had great business success with Twitter.

So I called Gini up to see if she would be willing to show the enemy the error of his ways. She was more than happy to oblige.

Gini told me that after the market crash last fall, her business started to tighten up (as it did for everybody) and she became “scared and depressed.” But rather than let events run her, she decided to learn more about social media, as a way to prospect for new business.

Net result? Her business is up 21% this year thanks to Twitter. Dietrich’s firm does a lot of work with franchises and so she began tweeting with other franchise folk. This in turn created new relationships that led to new business.

She says that what ‘ol Strauss didn’t get is that Twitter is a fantastic tool for networking, building a brand, and prospecting. “Twitter is great for creating intelligent conversation, leads, and tips,” she says.

Score two for Twitter. Used properly, I see now that Twitter can be a great business-building tool for the right business.

Now it is my turn. Notice that I said for Twitter to work 1) It has to be used properly, and 2) It has to be the right type of business.

There are plenty of wrong uses of Twitter, and tweeting improperly will not only not make you any money, it can actually hurt your business. Members of Congress tweeting during the State of the Union address is an example of Twitter gone very wrong. Looking inattentive and shallow is not what we want, right?

And that leads to another potential danger for small businesses and Twitter: It is instantaneous, public, and written. What you say gets published, period. Sure you can delete, but still, bad tweets will reflect badly on you.

Last week, as I spoke and corresponded with people who disagreed with my take, I asked two questions:

• Are you making any money with Twitter?
• Why should my dry cleaner use Twitter?

A few, like Gini Dietrich, said that they are indeed making money with Twitter, but the vast majority could not say that. Sure, they were marketing and networking and branding. Yes, that is great, and yes, that takes time.

But I still think I am right in this regard: In this economy you better be darn sure that your use of time is paying maximum dividends because there is little room for error. If all of your tweeting is not impacting the bottom-line, that is something to consider.
Indeed, to be effective, Twitter is not an insignificant commitment.

Finally, I still don’t see why my dry cleaner should use Twitter. “To announce sales!” was the most common answer, but really, why would I ever follow my dry cleaner on Twitter to learn of a sale? This is one place where physical reality still trumps virtual reality.

In the end, I see how, if people are willing to take the time, Twitter could be of benefit, especially service oriented businesses that traditionally benefit from networking. But the local coffee shop or mini mart? I think not.

Not having a great website, not having a robust Internet presence, and not marketing and selling online constitutes business malpractice in the 21^st Century.

Beefing up your online presence is like getting in shape. What you must do today is flex your digital muscles.

Here’s how:

1. Build website muscles. As I said, the only thing worse than no website is having a bad one. We all know what those look like, don’t we? It’s the site where the homepage scrolls on for about five minutes, where the graphics are jarring and ugly, it has too much copy and slow loading graphics, and it says “© 2004” at the bottom. In short, the bad site looks like, not only did your teenage daughter build it for you, but no one has attended to it in several years.

What a mistake.

To me, there are two exceptionally great things about the Internet, from a small business perspective:

• It allows you access to markets you otherwise could never reach, and
• It allows you to look every bit a big and professional as the Big Boys.

So where do you get that great website? There are no shortage of online options.

Example: Last week, my brother (who is no Webhead) had to build a site for one of his marketing clients. So he surfed over to Microsoft Office Live (Microsoft is a company I do some work with, btw), and built his client an elegant, great looking site – for free.

With a simple point and click graphic interface, and pre-loaded templates, here is but one way that anyone can get and grow online easily and affordably.

The important thing is that you take advantage of such tools. Beefing up your Web muscles will make your business less wimpy.

2. Find some “workout” partners: Going to the gym is a social activity, and in that vein, the more friends who support your efforts to get in digital shape, the better you will do.

The Web is a social medium, so it behooves you to take advantage of everything that it offers. Doing so will help you create advocates, find new customers, locate strategic partners, and drive increased sales.

There are several ways to do this:

Get social: It’s not called “social media” for no reason. Sites like Facebook and Twitter enable you to connect with other small business owners and potential customers. I have a pal in San Francisco who has created many significant and lucrative business deals via LinkedIn. He will have some project he is working on and will need to tap some business for sales or partnering or whatever. He has found that he almost always is able to get to the right person in those companies through his LinkedIn connections.

Be Web 2.0 friendly: This era of the Internet, the Web 2.0 era, is distinguished by interactivity; people want to do more than just read about your business on your site. They expect to some level of interaction. So that is what you must give them.

That means different things, from forums and videos to blogs, comments, and podcasts. Making and posting a video, for example, explaining who you are and what you do is not difficult.

Help people find you: Your site also needs to be search engine optimized (SEO). SEO will allow your site to be found by people who share your interests, who are looking for what it is you sell. Having keywords sprinkled throughout your site will, like Jerry Maguire, help them help you.The point is, the more professional, social, and interactive your site, the more you will be able to grow your business, easily and affordably, and thus allow you to get in Webtastic shape.

Today’s Tip:Warrilow and Co. is looking for the next Small Business Marketer of the Year. If you or someone you know has created a marketing campaign that created superior results, you could win an all-expenses paid trip to Las Vegas, and, even better, inclusion in various social networking sites. Apply here.