Small Business IT

EA

2011-11-11T13:25:00.000-08:00

Developing collaboration in Small Business

2011-03-08T07:38:00.000-08:00

There has been a lot of talking about collaboration lately with most conversations linking to social networks and the like. Nothing wrong with that but I don’t buy the idea that collaboration is only possible with technology. This idea is driving companies to miss the point and as a result, there is a lot of them looking at high tech social solutions as a golden ticket to success or as a requirement to survival.

Even though social network tools like facebook and twitter make it really easy to collaborate, one shouldn't forget that those tools exist because of collaboration and not the other way around. So, before investing a lot of money in collaboration tools, how about investing some energy in collaboration itself?

First it helps to know what is keeping people from collaborating. Is it really a lack of tools or could it be a lack of will? If they don’t want to collaborate, buying better tools might not help much.

I want to invite you to a very simple experiment:

Run a survey asking how much people at your company think they help others when they collaborate and how much they have being helped because of collaboration. You might find out that some people think that collaboration is only helping others while they are not being helped at all.
Communicate how important collaboration is for your company and let people know that the company will provide better ways to collaborate.
Provide a very elementary way to collaborate; like a white board with post-its for instance. Tell people that it is the place to share problems, thoughts, suggestions, etc.
Allow anonymous comments but encourage identification so everybody knows who is helping with what. Doing that, everybody will know who to look for when similar problems arise or in case one wants to know more about a specific problem or suggested solution.
Take part of the process. Share specific problems the company is facing at the moment; like how to improve the collaboration process, for instance.
Show appreciation not only for the good ideas that will certainly appear but also for the fact that people are exposing themselves showing the problems they have. They need to know that “that is ok” to have problems.
Let people implement their good ideas and suggestions.

It is very probable that, in such a fertile environment, questions about how to avoid losing all the good ideas posted on that board will arise. That kind of question will drive to the desire of having a better collaboration potentially social tool.

Know more:

Setting the Stage for Best Practices in Small Business

2011-03-02T12:55:00.000-08:00

Part I

First develop a corporate culture built on excellent communications, collaboration, cooperation – These business practices have taken on special importance in the highly competitive, global business environment of the 21st century – they are at the foundation of business success today. If these characteristics are part of your business culture or you are actively pushing your organization in this direction, your potential for joining the ranks of successful best practice companies has a good start.

Why are these practices so important? They are about creating a “learning organization” the kind of organization that is sharply attuned to changes in its marketplace and can adapt quickly, the kind of organization that thrives in our technology driven “knowledge economy.” It is about gathering and using knowledge and information effectively; corralling, sharing and applying all of the knowledge and experience your employees bring to their jobs and acquire during their work day as they perform their jobs, from interactions with customers, with one-another - within and across functions, through their professional affiliations, and yes even from interactions with competitors. It’s about using this information to challenge the status quo in your organization to become better at what you do and what each of your employees do within their departments. When you reach this level, your organization is (or will soon be) working smarter and establishing a culture where looking for new ways to improve productivity, work better in teams, innovate products and processes and meet the needs and wants of your customers is the standard.

Where good ideas come from: " the collision and mingling of ideas"

You went out into the job market and hired, skills, knowledge and ability and you are paying your employees for these things. Help them to contribute to both the organization’s success and their own success. Ignite their enthusiasm and creativity by creating avenues for their participation in improvement strategizing. In the process, increase their job satisfaction and get an even better ROI – Return on Investment - your investment.

Employing technology is an essential component in achieving the level of communications and collaboration that will accelerate your organization’s development. There are tools out there that can be implemented to help your organization become a “learning organization” and they are not out of the reach of the small business. Many companies already have the rights to use such tools and don’t even know it. Customizing these to specific business needs is often affordable and well worth the expense.

JoAnn McClellan, M.S., SPHR

Small Business Portals

2011-03-01T11:18:00.000-08:00

Can your company claim to be Eco Friendly and show the list of successful actions you are taking to become paperless?

Being in such a position not only makes the company to look modern and professional but can also increase efficiency improving profitability and, the best of all; doesn’t have to cost much.

The billing process

Imagine you perform one job a week for each one of your 20 customers. Just billing (considering setting up, printing, revising, folding, closing envelops and fixing stamps) could easily cost two hours or more every month; not considering small problems like running out of paper or even having problems with the printer itself.

But, there are other matters to consider; in extreme cases, the mail delivering time can even impact your cash-flow if you realize that any work executed during that time will have to wait until the next month to be charged as the bills have already been sent. In cases like that, you might have end up paying employees or suppliers before being paid for a job; that situation can drive your company into potential financial problems.

Now, how better would it be for every one if you could just send bills via e-mail? Among other advantages, if any customer ever loses a bill, you can always send it again (for free) with the advantage of showing that you are always there whenever needed. How good is that feeling?

The real deal

Once you have the costumer comfortable about receiving e-bills, it will be the time to go a little further. Build a website where the bill will be always available; not only the current bill but all bills from the past. Such a solution creates a bound between you and your customer causing the impression that you do more than what he is paying for. Such a feeling makes it harder to lose the customer and, even better, makes it easier to negotiate better rates.

But it gets better with time. Once customers are frequently coming to your website, you can interact and collaborate with them and ask for suggestions that will help not only to improve your products but also develop the kind of products and services they really want.

How to define conversion in small business marketing campaigns

2009-07-17T08:46:00.000-07:00

One pain point in a small business marketing campaign is the definition of targets and conversions.

Here is a way to define conversion.
A small business company could classify its market in 6 different groups:

Group 1) People with no contact with the shop at all
Group 2) People that pass by the shop
Group 3) People that enter into the shop
Group 4) People that bought once from the shop
Group 5) People that bought more than once
Group 6) People that recommend the shop.

A good definition of conversion for a small business marketing campaign is the evolution of a customer from a group to the next.

10 Steps to promote your starting Small Business

2009-07-13T02:11:00.000-07:00

As much as a web presence strategy is a must for a starting small business, you should not think about such a strategy without reading these two amazing insights written by Rob Waker and Dan Morrill at Insightcommunity. Here is just parte of what Dan Morrill wrote in his insight called "10 Steps to getting into social media for a new company":

"
Step One: Get started:
Figure out:

what are you building,

why are you building it,

what niche does it fill in

Once you have the mechanics of the business down, and you know what you are doing, you are enthused and passionate about what you are doing, and you want to go to work every day, this is the best start you can have.

Step Two: Start a blog
(...)You are a startup, we want to know more about you, we need something to link to, you get Google page rank the more you get linked. (...) This gives us and your readers a way to follow how your company is doing, you will also provide inadvertently startup lessons for everyone along the way. Even if your startup fails, you might end up like Andy Sack, widely respected and followed because of his blog.

Step Three: Twitter
Oh yes, you do want to do this! Even if you think it is silly, microblogging. Tie your blog into twitter...

Step Four: Start a Facebook and Linked In page for your company
Make friends, tie "rule five" into your Facebook account. Friend as many people as you can, or at least those that look like legitimate people who honestly wish you well. Tie your Facebook page into your FriendFeed page (next step)

Step Five: Start a FriendFeed Account
Tie your blog, twitter, and other media (if you make a great video of your product and put it on YouTube, if you podcast, anything that is your own companies channel) so that there is a one stop shop for everything you are doing. Link heavily to your FriendFeed account; use a widget to tie your FriendFeed account back to your blog.

Step Six: Start a "Social Median" account and send all your FriendFeed traffic to that account, this way there is just one feed, and social median is a great way to get noticed... You do need to keep up with this though, the more social obligations you take on, the more people expect you to keep up with them.

Step Seven: Find industry thought leaders
If you are not in Seattle, find the local equivalents to these kinds of people(...) Don’t just send them a PR sheet, court them, talk to them, offer them coffee, come down for a visit. Make a personal connection, and then let them write about you. This means there are at least seven people in the Seattle who will talk about you and link to you right off the bat.Your town might have more.

Step Eight: Keep the conversation going
All of us are busy, we will forget about you in the fog of shiny shiny, let us know how things are going from time to time. Send us a personal note, let us know directly that something big is coming, another guided tour, another cup of coffee, a demo, awesome.

Step Nine: Go to conventions
If you can make it, save money and go to startup conventions like Techcruch and others. Get a booth, smooze, see what others are doing, allow yourself to be interviewed by everyone, this will require more coffee, and in some cases a beer or two. Have plenty of business cards, have a huge sense of humor, but go do this.

Step Ten: Go to every single local meeting for startups and make friends.
MIT Venture Lab, meetings at colleges, small halls, Your local Tech Startup list, and get involved in the conversation. If something grabs your interest, blog about it, tweet about it, keep the connection going. Then revert back to rule two and keep this whole process flowing. It is not so much that your idea is brilliant it is that you need to communicate how brilliant your idea is.

Now, read part of what wrote Rob Walker in an insight called "10 Ways to Promote Your Small Business Online":

"Below are 10 things small businesses should be doing to reach their local consumers online:

1. Facebook Company Profile. Create a Facebook company profile..

2. Google Maps. This free service lets you add your business' information into the Google Map results.

3. YouTube. Create a YouTube page for your business and start creating videos (see #4 below).

4. Video, Video, Video. Have someone with some decent film skills film you and your business.

5. Yelp. Create a Yelp profile for your business.

6. Create and Join Groups. Most of the Social Networking sites provide the ability for you to create a "group".

7. Have a decent Web Site. This one is not free but it's not that expensive either. If you don't know anyone check out the local college (they may work for beer). Link all of the above to your web site.

8. Email. Your domain name and web site provider will also have an email service.

9. Blog. Blogging takes two forms - you can create your own blog and/or you can become active posting comments on other blogs.

10. Pull it all together. Connect your online communication tools together and to your offline marketing. All of the above should link together. And all of your business cards, print ads, fliers, and other offline material should list all of your online contact points. Make fun ways for your customers to engage you online. For example, your restaurant could offer 10% off customers that provide their email address (send the coupon to their email), any customer that becomes a "fan" of your Facebook page gets a free bag of swag, Customers that create a video testimonial get a free meal.

Doing the above will greatly amplify your marketing message into your local market and create new opportunities for your customers and potential customers to engage in your brand.

You can find more about emerging online marketing opportunities at www.internet-marketing-db.com.

Insightcomumunity has other excellent insights and I'd strongly recommend you to read, at least, the two articles above completely before starting a small business.

Small business success...

2009-07-10T06:55:00.000-07:00

...according to Seth Godin.

I couldn't say it better:

"Three things you need:
1) the ability to abandon a plan when it doesn't work,
2) the confidence to do the right thing even when it costs you money in the short run, and
3) enough belief in other people that you don't try to do everything yourself."

Small business success

5 Post Ideas for SmallBusiness Blog

2009-07-10T05:53:00.000-07:00

So, you decided to have a blog for your Small Business but don't know what to write about? That won't work as an excuse any more .

Here are 5 post ideas for small business blog that will help you to start writing:

How did you get started (securing financing, permits required, etc).

What allowed you to move beyond fear and pursue small business ownership?

A day in the life of your store.

How to solve a specific problem

Photo or video walking tour of your business.

Monthly or weekly wrap up post about your biz.

In you need more post ideas for small business blog, take a look into Mark's very good suggestions in the post "31 Blog Post Ideas For Small Businesses"

How to increase Web Traffic in a Smallbusiness Website

2009-07-08T22:47:00.000-07:00

In "The Fastest Way to Build Traffic and an Audience for Your New Website", Maki gives us a set of very good tips about how to increase web traffic for your new website.

Here is part of them:

"

First Step: Give a motivation.

Motivate the user to visit your website.
You can motivate through:

Original and relevant articles
Contests, Awards or Statistics
Web tools or applications
Ranking lists
Showing how to solve problems
Blogging

Second Step: Spread the word.

Most usual ways to promote your website and gain traffic:

Be active in relevant Forums
Be in contact with other webmasters.
Submit Articles to directories or other blogs

Last Step: Build a community.

Interact with your audience.

Analyze and optimize that interaction.

"

See more at "The Fastest Way to Build Traffic and an Audience for Your New Website"
and start to increase web traffic for your small business website right now!

Boosting Pizzeria profit using Business Intelligence in menu optimization

2009-07-01T13:18:00.000-07:00

Using BI in menu optimization to boost Pizzeria profit.

Is your pizzeria profitable in its full potential? If you sell the best food in town, you are head and shoulder ahead of competition but the question remains. Are you making the best use of the restaurant equipment you have? Could you be making better use of your restaurant supply?

As a business man, you already know that if you are not making the best use of your kitchen equipment, you may be leaving money on the table.

Here are two questions that will enhance your profit several points:

How to influence customer's pizza choice?
If you had such a power, which product would you recommend?

How to help customers to choose pizza using BI?

There is a lot of different ways to influence a customer’s choice in a pizzeria:

waiter recommendations,
showing beautiful pictures on the walls,
emphasizing the pizza's name or,
showing the pizza's picture on menu.

If all products look the same on menu, each pizza may have the same chance to be chosen. Which pizza would you choose if you didn't like any one in special in the menu below?

Not optimized pizzeria menu

However, if one product outstands, it becomes a recommendation.

Which pizza would you recommend if you knew how to use BI?

Considering only pizzeria profitability, you should recommend the most profitable type of pizza.
To know which one it is, follow these steps:

Estimate the pizzeria’s cost for each type of pizza
Calculate the profit by type of pizza
Sort the list of pizzas from the most to the least profitable

Suppose you found the "Steak and Cheese" pizza to be your most profitable dish. Why not to recommend it like in the menu shown below?

Pizzeria menu BI optimized for profit

Conclusion

I hope you don’t go changing all your menus right now just because of this article. Product profitability is not the only point to consider in menu or restaurant design. However, I am quite sure you have some customers that just don’t know what to order, right?

When that is the case, why not taking the pizzeria profitability into consideration while you help the customer with his decision making process?

As a conclusion, you don't have to expend mega bucks to have BI solutions in your pizzeria and that could be the road that will take you from a pizzaria owner into a Food Services businessman.

Back to Business Intelligence for Small Business.

Making money because of Small Business Web Site

2009-06-26T15:53:00.000-07:00

There is a fair number of Small Business companies without any sort of web presence. Some companies, one step ahead, are pretty happy with their beautiful web site where two-year-old information flows in a single direction only.

Don't take me wrong, having a website is better than nothing but, as beautiful sites are hardly ever for free, there are good chances they could have found better ways to invest money to promote their companies.

A website can't be a sign in a desert road waiting for somebody to pass by so it can deliver your message.

A few steps to web success:
1) Have good products or services (don't think it is a problem for you);
2) Have people talking about you (it's natural if you make your customer happy);
3) Make it easy to talk about you (use a slogan, a logo or any sort of symbol). See a case to picture the idea.
4) Now that people hear about you, they might want to find you. A web site can make it easier. To be found, you have to be where the costumer will search.
5) Make Google’s life easy. If you appear after the third page in a Google search you can't expect to be found. You will find a lot of information about it looking for SEO.

Find more:
Smallbusiness-it.blogspot.com
Tips for Blogging Your Way to Small Business Success
If I Were Launching a New Small Biz Web Site Today

Small Business and the web

2009-06-25T21:12:00.000-07:00

How can Internet bring you more business?

North America alone has more than 250,000,000 users [1]. Suppose only 1% is looking for a product or service you sell. It is already 2,500,000 potential customers.

Just to give you an idea of how far it goes, take a look at this video...

Small Business and the Media Revolution

Have I got your attention? Well, those are not the best numbers to be looking at, yet. The news become more interesting when we learn that the number of Web users in America has more than doubled since 2000.

So, are you interested now? Good! Very Good.

Next step,
How do I put my small business in the Internet?

[1] www.internetworldstats.com

Critical tasks in Small Business

2009-06-25T11:36:00.000-07:00

Being a Small Business owner doesn't make you superman! So, believe me, there are things you will not be able to do.

Good news are:
Your business will be a huge success!!
It won't take long!

Now, the bad news:
You may not have time for anything but the company for while. How to manage such a situation?
I have three words for you: "Planning, planning and planning".

a) Know your business. Know what is important and what is critical. Plan when each critical task has to be done and what is necessary in order to complete it. Execute yourself the tasks you considered critical.

b) Know which tasks are important but not critical. Plan when they should be done before becoming critical.

c) Consider having somebody else doing what is important but not critical.

Remember, if you are wonderful at baking cakes and you don't know about Internet but you think it is important to have an updated website, a live blog, several followers in twitter and product pictures on facebook; it can be worth to think about having somebody else managing your Small Business "online life".

Back to Time in Small Business

See more:
Social Media Marketing Takes Time

Time in Small Business

2009-06-24T21:35:00.000-07:00

Small business has a lot to do with doing yourself and, most of times, doing everything. It is important though, to learn how critical every task is and there is a difference between important and critical.

One thing is important if you have to do it. For instance, it is important to have good quality and, it is also important, to sell.

Now, when you have to do it now, then, it is a critical thing.

One way to save time is to worry only about the critical tasks.

Ways to save time in Small Business:
1) Reviewing business processes
2) Optimizing processes
3) Automatizing processes
4) Let somebody else to do it

How do I put a Small Business in the Internet?

2009-06-24T10:25:00.000-07:00

Small Business should start an Internet life by building a blog.

Why?

Because it is easy, quick and... it is FREE!!!

The easier way to do it, watch the movie...

Creating a Small Business blog.

Later on you might want to learn how to customize your template so your blog will look more like a web site and less like a blog. But, right now, your small business is already alive in the Internet.

Want to know more? SmallBusines School

Congratulations!!! Go close some deals now!

Back to Small Business and the web.

How to do small business online marketing?

2009-06-20T21:15:00.000-07:00

Small business online marketing! How could that possibly work?

The web is rather a people network than a computer network. As so, it is an excellent mean to send a message as long as you have a message to send.

If you don't have anything to say, the web wouldn't help you much. However, as it becomes more and more easier to say what you want, why don't you say something about:

1) What you have to sell (your products or services)
2) How good are your products or services (explain features, show value)
3) How to use them (people like it better when know how to use it)
4) The customers that are really happy with you
5) Why don't you have them talking about your products or services?

The web will not do anything by itself but it can do an amazing job on helping you to communicate with your customer. This way, you will be able to, not only sell more, but also to have better products, more customers, deliver more value, highier satisfaction level and, consequently, more sales.

Small Business online marketing Case Studies:

John and the house keeping company;

Peter and the painting sign;

Life online

2009-06-20T21:14:00.000-07:00

What does it take, for a small company, to have a web site?
Not much actually. As a matter of facts, it can actually be for free.

There are two things to be concerned about if you want to create a web page for your company:
1) Designing the web page
The design part is related to how beautiful the site is and which information will be in the site.

2) Hosting
Whoever has a website, needs a server to put the site files. When a potential customer types your web address, the server sends to him the site information. There are some companies that provide this sort of service.

3) Registering the domain.
Domain is you address in the Internet; for instance, www.google.com is the domain.
You usually need to register a domain and it costs you some money as well.

Now, how can it possible be for free?

Small Business IT

Business Intelligence for Small Business

2009-06-20T21:10:00.000-07:00

How can a Small Business use Business Intelligence - BI?
BI can be quite simple (and quite complex sometimes). In our case, let's start from something simple:

Suppose, in a restaurant, you sell pizza and pasta. Keeping trek of sales, it is possible to know not only how much you sell but also what you are selling. That is the first step to determine your best product.

If you know prices and costs of each product and how many of them are sold, it becomes possible to develop an action plan to make your restaurant a huge success. The idea is not only to sell more (what is actually good) but improve the sales of the right products.

For instance, having in mind the top 4 products you could consider:

1) Implement a bonus program.
Consider compensations for selling the top products.

2) Product promotion:
2.1) Free trials
2.2) Coupons
2.3) Menu optimization
2.4) Press Release

If you want to know more about BI for Small Business, just stay close.

The cleaning services company web presence

2009-06-19T13:14:00.000-07:00

The cleaning services company and the small business web presence - A case study.

John is on the train heading home, too tired to pay attention to anything at all. He closes his eyes and thinks about Anna (his wife) who is always complaining about the cleaning services.

He wonders why he is thinking about it now. May be because the two ladies next him are talking about a small company that claims to be able to clean a house up in less than an hour. The company's slogan is "Housekeeping in 60 minutes or it's free!".

John wishes he could ask the ladies the company's phone number but he is too shy for that.

Lucky for Anna! John remembered the company's slogan and found it at http://www.google.com/.

Conclusions:
a) It is very important to have people talking good things about your cleaning services company. But would you rely on overhearing train conversation to have new contracts?
b) It is not enough to have people talking about you. You need listeners to remember. A slogan can be very useful in this case.
c) Now that you have poeple talking about your business and a slogan to help them to remember, you use a website to link your slogan to a phone number, a e-mail address or other ways of contact.

As you see, the cleaning services small business does much better with web presence.

Link to:
How to do small business online marketing?
Making money because of the Small Business Web Site

Peter and the painting sign

2009-06-19T11:58:00.000-07:00

Peter does a lot o things in construction. He is one of those people that can be called handy.

People love his work but it doesn't mean he will have work next month. This economy has been tough to everyone.

What is hard to believe when you watch the album he calls "My 10 best works". If only people had the time to read the 5 recommendation letters he keeps safe in a folder inside the truck.

It hasn't been this hard since 2001 when he decided to paint a logo and his phone number at the doors of his truck.

After reading this blog he decided to have all pictures in his "10 best works" album scanned. Those pictures will be in his brand new blog. The blog will also have an area with customer's comments and tips about how to fix small painting problems.

When his brother asked him which were the chances of this new blog been actually seem by anybody he said: "The chances are really small, that is way I'm also painting a small plate to put in front of my customers houses. The plate says "By Peter... see my 10 best works at www.peter's10bestwork.blogspot.com".

Peter is now planning on buying a digital camera. He wants to produce videos explaining how he works. He is dying to see his videos in youtube.com.

How to do small business online marketing?

Small Business and the Media Revolution

2009-06-19T07:20:00.000-07:00

How can Small Business to profit from the web?

"
by kmcgovern on June 19, 2009
Some numbers to chew on…
77% of users search at least once a day
70% of online transactions can be traced back to a search
More than 80% of people are researching purchases online
Google’s 2008 revenue was $22 billion, 98% of that $22 billion was from AdWords advertising
Search ads to be a $44 billion market by 2011
40% of us are watching less TV than in 2004
"
Source: www.algofreaks.com

If those numbers are note enough, see if this movie can help you to consider the possibility:

The media revolution, a big opportunity for Small Business

Back to Small Business and the Web
Small Business IT

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2009-05-05T21:42:00.000-07:00

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2009-05-05T20:44:00.000-07:00

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