I love a new year. It’s a fresh start, an opportunity to refocus my goals, a chance to try something new. And there’s party hats!

But there’s not a lot to poke fun at. You can use the number of the year, but that obviously has an extremely short shelf life. There’s the ball dropping in New York, but drawing a big crowd is no fun. So, you’re pretty much left with resolutions.

After some thought it occurred to me that a New Year’s resolution is very much like a contract. It’s a promise to either do or not do something. But it’s just with yourself, so it usually doesn’t last long.

So I thought maybe inserting it into some legal paperwork might be fun, and I came up with the above cartoon.

Happy New Year everyone!

From Small Business Trends

Make a Contract with Yourself for New Year’s Resolutions

Though 46 percent of small business owners still don’t even have a ‘traditional’ Web site, it’s becoming more important to think about not only creating a mobile Web site, but creating an optimized one for users.

Who cares about mobile?

For one thing, your customers do.

I’ll be mentioning this a bit more in an upcoming SmallBizTrends post, but according to a recent Nielsen study, the number of people using their mobile phones to access the Web is up 34 percent from last yearm, bringing it to 56.9 million people. Now that’s enough of a reason by itself, but consider along with it that most of those searchers are people who are on the move or looking for information related to things in their neighborhood. That’s targeted traffic. And if you’re not taking the steps to make sure your Web site is mobile-accessible so that these people can find you AND access your site, you’re throwing it all away.

There was an interesting article on Read Write Web that showed just how frustrated consumers are with the state of mobile Web sites today. According to the survey quoted in the article, 58 percent of mobile users expect a site to load ‘almost/just as quickly or faster’ than the PC version. Even worse, if the site doesn’t load quickly enough, sixty-one percent said it’s unlikely that they would ever visit that site again from their mobile device. Still not bad enough? Forty percent said they would seek out a competitor’s site that provided a similar service. Ouch!

What should a mobile site contain?

It should contain only the information that would be most vital to someone looking up your site on the go.

Mobile searchers are typically people on a mission. They’re looking for an address or a phone number because they’re lost. They want a menu. They want hours or need a map to see which points of interest you’re near. Your mobile site should be set up to immediately address these questions so that you can take advantage of these targeted searchers.

There are lots of ways to create a quick mobile version of your Web site. WordPress plugins like the one from Alex King can help you create a mobile-friendly edition. You can also find paid converters like MoFuse and MOBIFY (I recommend them in that order), to help you optimize your site for a smaller browser and offer a condensed version of your site instead of the entire kitchen sink.

How do I know what my site looks like?

If you’re not sure how your site performs or renders on a mobile device, your first step is find out. Most phone and PDA brands offer emulators that SMB owners can use to test their site. The Opera Web browser will also let you test by selecting the Small Screen viewing option. Using these emulators will give you a good idea as to how your site will load and operate on different handsets. Outside of the free emulators, BrowserCam is a paid service that will help you determine how pages are loading, whether certain functionality is disabled, where it’s hanging up, etc.

We’ve reached a point where it’s not good enough for SMB owners to simply be targeting people on the PC Web. As the social media craze has taught us, we have to attract customers where they are. And more and more that means hitting them on their mobile phones. Search Engine Land recently offered up 10 reasons your Web site should go mobile that are very on point, as well.

From Small Business Trends

Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly For The New Year

Consider that:

• There are four times the number of cellphones in the world versus PCs (4Bn vs. 1Bn) and 20% of all U.S. households are now “mobile-only”
• Over 130 Billion texts are sent each month, up from practically nothing in 2000
• Gen Yers (18-29) say their phone is the most important device they own
• According to multiple analysts, Mobile Marketing and Advertising will explode from just a couple hundred million dollars in revenues in 2008 to $3 – 5 Billion by 2012.

What may be less apparent, though, is how various mobile technologies are ready to leap off the inventor’s table and into your marketing toolkit as a small business owner. If, like many other small businesses, your greatest fear is “not marketing effectively” and your greatest pain is “poor sales” then check out these five top mobile marketing trends you can latch on to today to grow your business.

1) Text message marketing goes mainstream

According to the Mobile Marketing Association, text message marketing is already the most widely-used form of mobile marketing, but you would be hard pressed to find it in use on Mainstreet U.S.A. That’s going to change in 2010, but first an explanation.

Think of text message marketing as you do email marketing, except instead of collecting an email address you collect a mobile phone number. Like email marketing, you create campaigns at a website and only send them to customers who have opted-in to receive your message. But unlike email, you don’t need fancy graphics, just up to 160 characters of plain ‘ol text. So even the most non-technical and non-marketing savvy small business owner can pick it up in just a couple of minutes. Your customers will instantly read your message 97% of the time.

Text message marketing for business use has been around for several years now, especially at youth-friendly establishments like fast food joints, hip clothing stores, and the nightclub scene. Already, a Comscore study shows that 25% of mobile phone users participate in at least one (and up to 10) SMS marketing program monthly.

But I expect 2010 to see far greater adoption due to:

• Adoption of Texting across generations – Texting is now engrained in our way of communicating, with the average American sending/receiving almost twice as many texts than phone calls
• Acceptance of mobile coupons – A recession-weary public hungering for discounts is latching on to mobile coupons as the ‘killer mobile app’ due to their convenience. More consumer-packaged goods companies, restaurants, and grocers are launching mobile coupons each month.
• Proven ROI – Texting is proving its chops versus email and social media. On average, texting gets seven times the response rate versus email (7% vs 1%) and reaches twenty five times the number of users as does Twitter.
• More small biz friendly offerings – Owners need easy-to-use and affordable texting providers if they are to be successful. Thankfully, providers are recognizing it’s not always about catering to the Fortune 500 and are starting to offer price points as low as $10 or $15 per month.

The uses of texting are as varied as those of a swiss army knife: promotions, coupons, alerts, staff messages, sweepstakes, trivia, and voting. Whether you’re a barber shop, video store, or yoga studio, see what texting can do for you in 2010.

2) Texting will be offered by local media (e.g., newspapers)

With newspapers and magazines rapidly declining in circulation, it was only a matter of time until they sought to add new marketing techniques such as Mobile to their offerings. Money Mailer, which traditionally direct-mailed packets of coupons to households, is selling a mobile coupon that gets placed into their iPhone application.

Local print publishers are also getting in the game. For example Metro U.S., a local magazine publisher in cities across the U.S. is using text messaging to enable its “readers to instantly interact with the print.”

And in 2010 some of the largest media brands in the world such as Conde Nast will be teaming up to create mobile versions of their content in order to generate more advertising revenues.

3) Retailers will move beyond mobile marketing to enhance the overall shopping experience – raising consumers’ expectations of what they can do with their phones.

After several years of experimentation, big brands are poised to make mobile a significant – and permanent – part of their spend in 2010.

In 2008 and 2009 fast food joints like Wendy’s, Burger King, Subway, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and Chipotle launched texting programs, mobile sites, and iPhone apps that enable a consumer to order food for pick-up.

Big box retailers Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Sears, J.C. Penney and Target began sending holiday text alerts and built mobile sites and iPhone apps every bit as powerful as their online cousins. These applications have allowed consumers to order products, read reviews, send gift hints to friends, text early wake-up calls, and conduct a slew of other services typically only available online.

With these experiments having proved successful, look in 2010 for these pioneers to keep blazing trails with:

• Bar Coded Coupons – 200 7-Eleven stores in San Diego are testing scannable bar codes on consumers’ phones to get up to one free drink per day. Indeed, in the next two years Juniper Research projects three billion mobile coupons will be issued to phones.
• Pay by phone – Starbucks is testing Starbucks Card Mobile, which allows customers to pay for coffee in the shop with their phone. Initial tests saw a 60% redemption rate of the coupon component.
• Integration with real-time data – Ace Hardware is combining weather forecasts with text alerts to hawk more shovels.
• Building out their profiles in localized smartphone apps – Gap Outlet, Sports Authority, and REI are experimenting with the new crop of local smartphone apps, such as Yowza and FourSquare (see next.)

4) Inventive smartphone applications will dazzle with new ways to engage customers – but ultimately disappoint in 2010

Each month it seems a new crop of mobile applications let consumers check for nearby deals and receive news and promotions to their phone from local businesses. These apps use a phone’s GPS to figure out where the consumer is and serve up your business’ information if he/she is nearby.

Some of these new apps, with colorful names such as Booyah, Whrrl, and Gowalla, even create a game-like environment where consumers ‘check-in’ and otherwise express their affiliation for the merchant in return for discounts. Other applications, such as MobiQpons, Yowza, and Google’s just launched QR codes, ditch the fun and games for a serious focus on mobile coupons.

A bit down the road, ‘augmented reality’ applications like the Sekei Camera iPhone application let a consumer point his phone at any real-world store or object and receive an overlay of rich data about the image. Clearly, not your dad’s rotary telephone!

But before you go rushing to build out your profile on the latest smartphone application, consider that smartphones made up only 25% of all new phone shipments in the U.S. in Q3 2009 and only about the same percentage of subscribers say they surf the mobile web at least weekly. So these hot new applications are attracting the mobile jet-set and Gen Yers but in 2010 will miss the mark if you are looking to reach anyone other than a small fraction of your total customer base.

5) In 2010, you’ll have it any way you want

If you don’t want to participate in another companies’ mobile application than why not have your own in 2010? In fact, about half of business’ mobile campaigns will send consumers directly to a mobile website and less than half to a smartphone application.

Price has something to do with this adoption. In 2009 and earlier, it could cost tens of thousands of dollars for a mobile-optimized website or smartphone application. But these days mobile website tools like Instant Mobilizer and MoFuse offer do-it-yourself tools costing anywhere from free on up to $100 per month or more depending on your needs.

There’s even an emerging crop of companies that let you build your own iPhone or smartphone application, albeit using a template-driven approach. Car dealerships, realtors, small hotel chains and other firms seem to be attracted to companies like MobileAppLoader for the easy set-up, low cost, branding, and potential for better customer servicing these more sophisticated applications offer.

Bonus Trend:  Big and successful Internet companies will increasingly bake mobile into their offerings

Whether you like it or not, your company is going to be on the mobile phone in 2010 – it just may not be under your control. In 2009 many big players began rolling out mobile versions of their successful local, online directories. Expect that trend to accelerate in 2010.

In December, CitySearch rolled out its directory on Google’s Android platform, adding to its iPhone, Blackberry, and mobile web offerings already. OpenTable just announced its mobile offerings surpassed a cool one million reservations. Twitter now allows you to broadcast your location along with your tweets. And Yelp, best known for its polarizing – and highly successful – online ratings of local businesses, is already on Version 2.0 of its iPhone application that’s a hugely popular hit with its mostly urbanized crowd.

One of the more interesting emerging concepts is Google’s recent use of bar code stickers. The 800 lb Gorilla just mailed 190,000 of its most prominent local merchant’s fancy bar codes they can stick on their front windows. When scanned by a phone with a bar code scanning application, the bar code calls up that business’ Google Place Pages listing – which can incorporate a mobile coupon.

These mobile offerings typically use GPS to find nearby stores and restaurants, help consumers make real-time reservations, post mobile coupons, share feedback with friends, and submit reviews. What they won’t do is give your business maximum control over your brand and marketing since it’s someone else’s site. However you cut it though, these mega-sites are here to stay and are becoming a must-have for on-the-go savvy consumers.

2010 promises to be a breakout year for how small businesses use mobile marketing technologies. With the proliferation of low-cost, powerful smartphones, ubiquitous and fast high-speed connections, the exploding use of the mobile web, and the ubiquitous nature of texting, you now have many choices to be in the pocket of your customers. Perhaps the biggest question is where to start?

From Small Business Trends

Five Can’t-Miss Mobile Marketing Trends For 2010

When are you going to rewrite your site content? After the first of the year!

When are you going to try out social media? After the first of the year!

When are you going to clean up your site? After the first of the year!

Guess what. That’s Monday. And we’re all in the same boat. Below are some tips for how to make good on all those well-intentioned promises you told yourself, your site and your customers during the last quarter of the year.

Cut the Fear

Come January 1, all the excitement you had toward your new projects may soon turn to fear as you have to actually act on all the cool things you promised to do. Jumping into social media where people may not accept you can be scary. Retackling the call to actions on your site may be intimidating. But that’s not reason to drag you feet getting to it. Lose that attitude and let go of last year’s baggage. It’s a New Year. Anything is possible. Don’t waste time making up reasons you can’t do something.

Create Bite-Sized Projects

If your plan is to revamp the content on your local café Web site, break it down into smaller projects that are more manageable and easier to knock off. You don’t have to fix the whole site at once. Next week rewrite the Food section on your site. Then tackle the Drinks. Then Events. Then the Photo Gallery. Then the home page. Or, if your goal is to get involved in social media – start with one account on one social networking site. Don’t try to create them all at once. What’s important isn’t that you create a huge project for yourself to accomplish, it’s that you look at the year as a 12 month process and plan out your To Dos accordingly.

Create Milestones with Dates

Put due dates on all those mini projects that you create. You may not need to have the whole site rewritten in a week…but if you’re in same place in March you have a problem. Personally, I like to map out my year. Obviously things are going to come into play that will shift your schedule, but I like to get 5 or 6 six big projects for the year on paper and then put them into my calendar early so I know what I’m working on and when. Scheduling the work I want to get done helps make me accountable for it.

Tell People Your Plans

Another way to hold yourself accountable is to tell people what you’re planning to do. Announce on your blog that you’re going to be working on an overhaul of your site and adding new features. Tell your Twitter followers that you’re working on putting together a Facebook fan page. Put it the announcement of a new company blog right at the top of your email newsletters. Making your plans public (assuming you’re not giving away competitive intel…) is a great way to keep yourself on track and remind yourself of the promises you made in January. It’s a lot easier to get that blog out when you know people are waiting for it.

Cultivate the Habit

I’m asked a lot how I blog every day. The secret is that it’s not talent or hard work or a sign that I’m even particularly good at it. It’s habit. It’s about telling yourself that from 12pm to 3pm you’re going to sit down and bust out a few blog entries. That’s how you become a small business owner who blogs. Or, if you want to become a social media maven, it’s about telling yourself that at 7pm on Thursdays you’re going to open up Twitter for an hour and talk to people for 90 minutes. The more you can develop habits for everything you want to get done, the more you’re able to make it a seamless part of your day. The secret to being whatever you want to be is to identify the actions that accomplish that, and then form the habit. That’s all you have to figure out.

Start Today

The best way to keep all your promises for next year? Don’t wait until next year to start. Waiting until Monday just ups the pressure and creates more fear around what you want to get done. Bypass all that by starting now and getting a jump on the year. Maybe you’ll be able to knock a small project off your list before 2010 even starts! What resolutions have you made for your business this year and how are you going to accomplish them?

From Small Business Trends

How To Get Everything You Promised Done

Starting in April, the 22 banks that received TARP funds as part of the federal government’s bank bailout had to start filing monthly reports with the Treasury Department. Since then, total small-business lending by the banks declined by 11.6 percent.

The report came out a day after President Obama met with leaders of some of the nation’s biggest banks to urge them to increase lending.  President Obama had another banker gathering on December 22, to host a discussion with representatives of several community banks.

There are some signs that banks are responding to the pressure. After decreasing its small-business loan balance every month since April, Bank of America announced last week that it plans to loan $5 billion more in 2010 than in 2009.

Wells Fargo has also declared it will increase small-business lending by 25 percent compared to 2009. Although its lending has declined by 4 percent since April, Wells Fargo still makes more small-business loans than any other bank. Wells Fargo has pledged to increase overall lending by 25 percent in 2010 compared to 2009. Marc Bernstein, head of Wells Fargo’s small-business unit, says the bank is optimistic that the economy will pick up in 2010 and that there will be more creditworthy small businesses to loan money to.

JPMorgan Chase said in November that it would increase small-business lending by as much as $4 billion in 2010; it also has a new line of small-business credit cards, Ink, that could account for much of that amount. Chase has also announced plans to hire some 325 small-business specialists to find new small-business customers and work with existing customers.

The Wall Street Journal also reports that banks including US Bancorp and JP Morgan Chase have promised they will take second looks at small-business loan applications that were previously rejected.  Bank of America and Wells Fargo, which already had “second-look” programs in place for most of 2009, are expanding those programs, hiring more staff and creating formal appeals processes.

From Small Business Trends

Banks Vow to Do Better at Small Business Lending in 2010

With that in mind, below are some lessons that I’ve picked up to help small- and medium-sized business owners navigate and get more from the social media waters.

Don’t go in thinking about ROI: The Internet has always been about accountability. It gives business owners the ability to use tools to track everything from conversions to clicks to eyeballs and even patterns of behavior. And you can track social media ROI the very same way. However, don’t jump in focused only on the numbers. Give social media time to prove itself before you start obsessively refreshing your analytics. Even the most basic social media goals (build brand awareness, increase traffic, etc) will take a bit of time to develop. If you go in eyes staring at the numbers before you even developed a following or community you’re going to be disappointed. However, the ROI is there and the average social media campaign needs at least two months to show measurable results.

Focus on the actions that matter: It’s really easy to get lost in the quest to increase Twitter followers, build blog subscribers and get everyone and their brother to become friends with your Facebook Fan page. But what are those numbers getting you? If it’s not people who are engaged with your company and folks who want to interact with you, then you’re chasing numbers that don’t matter. Instead, focus on the actions that will provide these things naturally, but also add value to your community. Concentrate on creating great content, on helping others find resources located on different sites, on forming connections by reaching out to people, and by listening more than you speak. If you take the proper steps now, the right kind of followers will come later.

Schedule time for it: You have a business to run. You can’t spend your entire day in social media. I get that and so does your community. However, do make a point to schedule in time when you can interact so that customers can trust your presence on certain sites. Put yourself on a plan for engaging. For example, perhaps you know that in a week you want to write two blog posts, spend 45 minutes commenting on community blogs, three hours on Twitter reaching out, and an hour on Facebook responding to wall messages. Schedule that into your week so that you know it’s going to get done. Make Monday your blog writing day or Tuesday the day you do the bulk of your Twittering. Planning for social media is really important and makes it far more manageable.

Seek out local prospects: We’re always talking about how big brands are using social media that we often forget how effective social media is for targeting the people in your own backyard. For example, Advanced Twitter Search will allow you to find the conversations based on location. Twellow and Twitter Grader allow you to find people in your area who share your interests. This is where social media becomes powerful – when it intersects with local. Seek out these opportunities to find real customers who are talking about or show a need for what your business does. If you’re a caterer and someone’s talking about their wedding, hop into that conversation (as a friend, not a business) and offer to help. If you’re a local mechanic, find people talking about their bad brakes or the car troubles they’re having and chime in. The opportunities to connect locally through social media are there if you’re listening for them. Start.

Look outside Twitter the box: 2009 was Twitter, Twitter, Twitter. And there’s good reason for that – lots of people are on Twitter, but that doesn’t mean your customers are. Reevaluate where your customers are hanging out this year. Are they on Twitter? Or are they hanging out elsewhere? For example, if you’re a local wedding planner, you may find that you get a lot more value creating a Flickr group to promote photos of the weddings you’ve shot or the area you live in. Chances are people looking for wedding vendors are searching for pictures and living resumes. Flickr gives you that in a way Twitter does not. Plus, by titling your photographs with the correct keywords, you give yourself a chance to show up in the SERPs when potential customers perform local queries. That’s value.

Learn from those before you: Whether it’s Frank Eliason from Comcast, Joe from the deli across the street or a teacher like Chris Brogan, seek out people who are doing social media well and watch what they’re doing. See how they’re talking to people, what actions they’re taking, how often they’re engaging, how they’re able to take online connections into the real world, etc. We’ve seen enough social media success stories that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You just have to see what works and find a way to make it work for your company, as well.

Take it offline: My social Web moment of 2009 was about taking the personal relationships I’ve made online, off. Your business should look to do the same in 2010. Hold Tweetups to give your Twitter followers a way to meet one another in real life. Create an in-store event through Facebook to let people see you in your element and use mobile coupons. Create focus groups of your online fans to help with new product reviews or usability testing. The people engaging with you online want to become part of your brand. Help them to do that in real life.

Those are some ways I think SMB owners can get more out of social media in the coming year. What will you be doing?

From Small Business Trends

7 Ways to Get More From Social Media in 2010

Interchange, or “swipe” fees are fees that credit card companies and banks charge every time customers use a credit card to make a  purchase from them.  These fees typically range from 1% to 3%  of the price of a purchase.  The fees are charged to the retailers.

Some small retailers find these fees cutting unacceptably deep into already-slim profit margins.  For instance, this article from  Bozeman Montana points out how much credit card fees eat into small retail transactions and gasoline purchases.  As a result, some retailers are offering discounts to customers who pay cash. Even with the discount, the retailers net more per sale than when they accept credit cards and have to pay the interchange fees — that’s how much of a bite those fees take.

In September of 2009, franchisees of 7-Eleven convenience stores around the country picketed the U.S. Capitol, calling themselves victims of interchange fees.  Instead of the usual “don’t mess with business” message, this crowd was actually inviting lawmakers to step in.  They requested that lawmakers limit interchange fees.

And in a blog op-ed from earlier this month, the head of a grocery and convenience store trade association calls for Congress to “level the playing field” for small businesses.

Leveling the Playing Field, or Protectionism?

But is it really leveling the playing field?  Or is this about giving one specific subset of businesses (small retailers in price-sensitive industries) protection?

When it comes to small business, “one man’s ceiling is another man’s floor.” Help one group, and you may hurt another.

Remember the efforts to protect the steel industry a number of years ago?  That backfired.   It protected one industry (steel producers)  but at the same time raised costs for others (small manufacturers and end users of steel). Eventually the steel tariffs were reversed, when it became evident that protecting one industry came at the expense of others.

Today that Unpopular Business, Tomorrow YOUR Business

Controlling credit card interchange fees sounds black and white when you have a noble cause.  ‘The ends justify the means,’ you think. ‘After all, someone has to look out for small businesses and protect them.’  The idea appeals to our David-versus-Goliath sensibilities.

But where does “protectionism” end?  What if the tables are turned, and it’s government telling YOUR small business how much profit you can make?

Let’s say, for example, that you have a Web design business, and you normally charge $95 a hour.  That may sound like a lot — outrageous to some people.  But you know different.  You have to pay your employees’ wages, cover their benefits, pay rent and overhead, pay for advertising and marketing to attract clients, pay for various business services, and still try to make a profit for yourself as owner.

Then the government steps in to tell you that you can only charge $75/hour.  Would you consider the government to be “helping”?  Few small business owners I know want government telling them how to set prices.

No Easy Answers

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) looked into the subject of interchange fees during the year.  Their  report (PDF) concluded this is not a simple straight-forward issue with easy answers:

1. Some or all of those interchange fees may have been passed on to consumers already.  Who’s to say that if fees were reduced, it would result in lower costs for consumers.  Chances are, the fees have already been recouped by retailers, at least in part.
   
2. Some small business owners feel that being able to offer credit actually is a net positive, despite the fees.  Customers using credit cards tend to spend more, the seller gets access to the funds immediately and doesn’t have to contend with bad checks or collection issues.
3. The GAO also pointed out the risk that credit card issuers, when hit with lower revenue from fees, might decrease the availability of credit, and could cut back on rewards cards—moves that would harm both consumers and retailers.

The Credit Card Interchange Fees Act of 2009, which Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT.) introduced because he contends “credit card fees are killing small businesses,” would limit the fees merchants accepting credit cards could be charged. The bill would also prevent charging higher fees to merchants when customers use reward cards, and would give the Federal Trade Commission the right to review interchange-fee practices. Other legislation that is under consideration would give merchants more freedom to negotiate fees with their banks.

Regulation May Set the Wrong Precedent

So what’s the answer?  It’s a mixed bag.  While at first glance it sounds noble to help small retailers battle an unpopular industry, on the other hand it really amounts to a form of protectionism.  And that may set a precedent that we as small business owners would find unacceptable if the tables were turned.

From Small Business Trends

Small Retailers Seek Limits on Credit Card Interchange Fees, But Is It Protectionism?

The latest MYOB Business Monitor revealed that business confidence is growing; especially amongst younger business owners with 65% expecting improvements in the next year.

Whilst there will still be challenges to overcome by small businesses, a key to their success in Australia as in most countries will be to meet the challenges head on and act on opportunities to grow their business.

Here are is a list of small business opportunities for 2010:

1. Retail

Australian consumers represent a large portion of online shoppers in the Asia Pacific region with 79% of internet users reporting they had made an online purchase in the last 12 months. Larger retailers are taking advantage of this; however a leading retailing expert Debra Templar says “small business retailers are still reluctant to have an online presence.” This is an easy opportunity to capitalise on now to grow their business.

2. Technology Services

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics 72% of Australian households have internet access and more small businesses rely on their computers and internet to run their business. Whilst there are businesses that offer at home or business service  there is an opportunity to bring this online as a subscription based service with do it yourself videos or instructions for common problems, fixes, maintenance etc.

3. Networking

Offline networking events are commonplace in cities. An opportunity exists for networking events that focus on local and regional areas in different industries such as health care. One company The Brew provides live local events to promote and connect small businesses with their local community as well as now expanding into webinars.

4. Partnering with Larger Businesses

Partnering via blogs with larger companies presents an opportunity for small businesses, especially with companies that target the small business market, such as banks and Telcos. One example is Paul Hassing from The Feisty Empire who features in the Small Business Owner blog on the myBRC website.

5. Pets Services

Australians love their pets and this is a growing industry to cater for their and their owners’ needs. Most of these businesses operate on their own. Again by partnering with retail outlets such as Planet K9 does with Mega Pet Warehouse, opens up opportunities cost effectively.

6. The Environment

Being environmentally friendly and going green will increase in importance; however it is still an area that confuses people and businesses. There are already a couple of web directories and opportunities will continue to increase for consultants to assist all size businesses to have greener businesses.

7. Connecting

This year saw a small business SourceBottle utilizing email and Twitter to connect journalists, bloggers, businesses and PRs. Facilitating these connections is likely to grow and opportunities exist especially using platforms such as Twitter in industries where there is need to quickly connect  two or more parties such as temp or contract recruitment.

8. Travel

With our dollar being healthy and our economy growing, travel will come back on the agenda. Opportunities will exist for experienced consultants and those that specialize in certain travel needs. This also opens up opportunities for consultants to set up home businesses instead of leasing retail space.

9. Work Place Relations

With more changes in workplace laws coming into effect, many small businesses are under prepared in this area. This is especially important as small businesses are a large employer group within Australia. This is likely to be a growth area for consultants who can assist small businesses through the new laws.

From Small Business Trends

Top Australia Small Business Opportunities in 2010

Start Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle is a nonfiction look at the reasons behind these facts and more. It examines Israel’s technological and venture capital industries through the prism of its economic, political, and social culture, as well as through events such as the airlift of Ethiopian Jews in Operation Moses.

Start Up Nation makes for an interesting read, particularly for business owners who draw metaphors from the example of business leaders. In this case, however, the leader is a nation with no natural resources and a short history marked with shorter yet intense periods of war.

Excellent Insight into How Culture Infuses into Strategic Business Decisions

Authors Dan Senor and Saul Singer link Israel’s societal and culture aspects into the personal behaviors of the business leaders chronicled in the book. The first pages tell of a compelling pitch to Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Nissan, for an Israeli electric car battery start up. “Israelis understand not only the financial and environmental cost of being independent of oil,” says start up founder Shai Agassi, “but also the security cost of pumping money into the coffers of less-than-savory regimes.” Agassi made this pitch with former Prime Minister Shimon Peres alongside. From page one the reader experiences how Israelis consider opportunities beyond the terms of money and with cooperation among leaders new and old.

Throughout Nation, Israelis are a frank-speaking people who are willing to explore the world, to learn from those experiences, and to be persistent with implementing ideas in business. Managers at Intel Israel, for example, are credited for changing Intel’s strategic decision to no longer seek increased processor clock speed and instead create new processing paths. The change positioned Intel for offering processors well suited for mobile devices and laptops, capable of even faster running software but with lower detrimental heat. Division managers were persistent; supporting their claims with data, and displaying a culture that “challenges the obvious, ask questions, debate everything, innovate.” There are numerous other big-business references throughout Nation, including Cisco, Google, and even Warren Buffet.

Out of all the influences, Senor and Singer spend a number of pages on the Israel Defense Force and its impact on Israeli life. Military organizations are usually a starting point for innovation. But the book shows how all the personally natural outcomes of a military upbringing translate into civilian life — discipline, drive, national pride, and comfort with ambiguity while developing a new idea. Opportunities for business grow from familiarity with alumni in military units, since military service is honored throughout Israeli society.

Historical Perspective can Influence the Strategic Choices for Start Up Founders

Senor and Singer also root their chronicled individuals with contrast to culture behavior stemming from key historical events, like the The Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War. The comparisons and historical contexts makes the book a solid, compelling read. It is not a history book — though researched, the comparisons do not dwell on data extensively in the text — but Nation provides a context just right for those who are not politically savvy about the Middle East.

The authors offer cultural comparisons to other nations in respect to the potential organizational impact, both large businesses and start ups. For example, American businesses sometimes do not “have a capacity to understand combat experience” from applicants who served in the military.   For Israeli businesses “military service provides the critical standardized metric for employers — all of whom know what it means to be an officer or have served in an elite unit.”

Nation also notes areas of weakness in Israel’s economic model, most notably how its somewhat singular focus on technology has inadvertently left out two significant social groups, Haredim Jews (who enter seminaries while others got to the military), and Israeli Arabs. There is also note to Iran’s pursuit of nuclear technology, which if turned into a support of armed weapons could “spark a nuclear arms race throughout the Arab world … and could freeze foreign investment.”

What Can Small Businesses Can Learn

Israel is a great metaphor for the significant global impact a small business can make despite having “enemies” nearby with huge natural resources. Israel never strays beyond its strengths, and its business leaders treat each decision with care. The book is also displays classic economics — how choosing a specific economic model can eliminate another equally important choice. Small business ultimately learns how effective a cohesive team can be, especially when that team places an emphasis on chutzpah first.

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About the Author: Pierre DeBois is the founder of Zimana, a consultancy providing strategic analysis to small and medium sized businesses that rely on web analytics data. A Gary, Indiana native, Pierre is currently based in Brooklyn. He blogs at the Zimana blog and can be found on Twitter @Zimana_.

From Small Business Trends

Start-Up Nation: Business Lessons from Israel

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Regus Win an Office Sweepstakes: One Year of Manhattan Office Space

Enter by: December 31, 2009

Winner receives fully-furnished and equipped workspace at one of Regus’ 18 New York City locations, for 12 months.

Entries will be accepted through December 31st, 2009. There is no purchase necessary to enter. To be eligible for consideration, contestants can fill out an entry form online or at participating Regus locations.

Go here for entry form and to see contest rules.

The Holiday Spirit Contest
Enter by January 2, 2010

To participate in the The Holiday Spirit Contest 2009, upload your presentation to SlideShare and enter into the contest before Saturday, January 2nd 2010, 11:59 PM PST.

SlideShare shall decide the winners based the relevance of the entry to the contest theme (i.e. The Holiday Spirit). And both Up & Down votes will be considered (in a predetermined ratio) while deciding the final winners.

“Holiday in a Bag” Email Marketing Tool Kit and Chance to Win Marketing Consultation Package

Enter by: January 5, 2010

As part of the “Holiday in a Bag” promotion Campaigner is offering a “bag of tools” including holiday email templates and graphics, holiday e-cards, and 100 tips for holiday marketing. They are also offering a drawing for a day of free marketing consultation from Campaigner marketing experts. Sign-up online before January 5, 2010 for the chance to win.

Enterprise Bank’s Celebration of Excellence Awards
Enter by: January 7, 2010

Any Massachusetts or New Hampshire-based business or individual can be nominated for one of the Enterprise Bank’s Celebration of Excellence Awards. Businesses do not have to be clients of Enterprise Bank to participate. Apply for Entrepreneur of the Year or Business of the Year.

A panel of business and community Leaders will serve as judges to evaluate the applications and select winners based on the following criteria:
• Business Success
• Contributions to the Community and Industry
• Innovative Business Practices or Strategies
• Proven Leadership

Winning Workplaces

Enter by: January 11, 2010

Winning Workplaces and Inc. Magazine are seeking compelling examples of organizations with outstanding cultures for the 2010 Top Small Company Workplaces competition. The winners will be featured in the June 2010 issue of Inc. Magazine. To be eligible, the organization must be:

• North American based; For Profit; Privately Held
• Independent, not part of a larger corporation
• Have no more than $500 million in annual revenue
• Employ no more than 750 people (full-time equivalents, exempt and non-exempt)
• Have been in business at least three years by January 11, 2010
• Not a past Winning Workplaces award winner

More information and application form here.

Catalyst Competition – Awarding Leading Women-led Startups
Enter by January 14, 2010

Startups at any stage of maturity (pre-exit) with female leadership are eligible to apply. Submissions are in the form of a Vator company profile, and a popular vote on Vator.com will determine the top 10 finalists. After the final 10 are selected, a panel of Venture Capitalists and Industry Insiders will rank the runners-up. All 10 will receive passes to the Catalyst Conference and the top five will present onstage at the Catalyst Conference on Jan. 26, 2010 in San Francisco.

Make Mine a Million $ Business Competition

Enter by: January 15, 2010

The “Make Mine a Million $ Business” competition is for businesses organized and doing business in the United States that are at least 50% owned by a woman, who want to grow the business to $1 Million or more in revenue in the next 12 to 18 months.

All applicants who are selected as Finalists must attend the Make Mine a Million event at their own expense and be willing to participate in the coaching program, related public relations events, and promotions for the Make Mine a Million $ Business program and its sponsors and other partners.

Applications for the Make Mine a Million $ Business program are screened by Count Me In staff and a team of banking and financial professionals selected by Count Me In. Applicants with the highest ratings will be selected as Finalists.

At the event, each Finalist will make a three-minute presentation of their business, their qualifications, and how they would benefit from the Program. This elevator pitch is given in front of a live audience and a panel of qualified judges selected by Count Me In. The judges, with input from the audience vote, will select which of the Finalists should be named as award recipients.

Apply for the Make Mine a Million award here.

Keiretsu Forum Angel Competition
Enter by January 18, 2010

Keiretsu Forum, the world’s largest angel investment community, is seeking 10 startups to present at its Bay Area Angel Capital Expo in January. Companies should be in their A or B rounds, usually with $500,000 to $1.5 million friends and family investments. Forum members invest in high-quality, diverse investment opportunities in technology, life sciences, consumer products, real estate, clean tech, social ventures and other segments with high-growth potential. Download application here.

Intuit’s Love a Local Business Contest

Enter by March 3, 2010

In a nationwide effort to help support the growth of small businesses, Intuit is hosting the “Love a Local Business” sweepstakes. Fans of local small businesses can nominate their favorite hometown haunt, which will make them eligible for a drawing to win a $1,000 Intuit Growth Grant, which includes a $500 Visa gift card and $500 in Intuit business services, such as Intuit Websites and Web Listings. One of those five winning local businesses will receive a grand prize of $5,000!

In addition, each business that is nominated will appear on a custom Google Map displaying favorite businesses from across the country. The more nominations a business has, the more chances they have to win a grant. Intuit has already awarded $55,000 in small business grants. Now it’s time to show support for your favorite neighborhood shop! Go to Love a Local Business for more information.

The Rhode Island Business Plan Competition
Enter by April 5, 2010

The Rhode Island Business Plan Competition, open to everyone, seeks to promote entrepreneurship and development of start-up and early stage companies. Winners and finalists in the 2010 Competition are expected to receive more than $130,000 in prizes.

The Better Way Challenge from Verizon
Enter by May 31, 2010

Sign up for a free 30-Day Trial of the Verizon Collaboration Center and be automatically entered to win a Flip MinoHD video camera; 15 per month will be given away randomly to those who sign up for the trial.

There is also a separate video contest: submit a video describing the challenges you face as a small business getting your whole team on the same page and you’ll receive an additional six months of the Verizon Collaboration Center for free.

If Verizon and Cisco select your video, you could be entered to win an exclusive business consultation to help you take your business to the next level in one of these two prize levels:

Grand Prize: An exclusive two-hour business consultation with entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki plus a $2,000 reward card.

2nd and 3rd Place Prizes: An exclusive one-hour business consultation with the Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group – an organization that provides customers with innovative approaches to complex business opportunities – and a $1000 reward card.

Click here for official rules and to enter.

The Shopify Build a Business Contest
Runs January 1 – June 30, 2010

This contest is open to legal residents of the United States who are at least 18 years of age and starting a new business. To enter you must open a new store on Shopify.com. The winner will be selected based on their two best selling months between January 1st, 2010 and June 30th, 2010. The store with the two best selling months will win $100,000. Achieve the same for your store category and win $5,000 as a runner up prize.

The Cleantech Open Ideas Competition
Opens for Entries July 2010

The Cleantech Open runs the world’s largest clean technology business competition and we’re looking for the best clean technology ideas from around the world. Just for telling us your idea, you could win a prize package of services worth $100,000 to help you start a business to grow your idea! Winners of each individual National Competition, get to represent your country as a Global IDEAS finalist at the annual Cleantech Open Awards Gala on November 16, 2010 in San Francisco.

There, your idea will be presented in a five-minute pitch in front of a crowd of 3,000 investors, entrepreneurs, sponsoring companies, corporations, members of academia, press, and others interested in hearing your ideas and getting involved.

The crowd will vote via text message for the “People’s Choice” and you could win $100,000 in marketing support, legal advising, conferencing services and more to help launch your business!

The competition will open in July 2010. Sign up to receive our newsletter to get updates.

To find more small business events, contests and awards, visit our Small Business Events Calendar.

If you are putting on a small business contest, award or competition, and want to get the word out to the community, please email the details to contests.smb@gmail.com. (We do not charge a fee to be included in this listing — it is completely free to list your award or contest.)

Please note: The descriptions provided here are for convenience only and are NOT the official rules. ALWAYS read official rules carefully at the site holding the competition, contest or award.

From Small Business Trends

Awards and Contests for Entrepreneurs