I want to start using this blog to explore in depth some questions around small business. Seemed like a good fit, seeing the name of this blog is All Business Answers. My plan is to take one question at a time and suss it out until I feel like it has been well answered.

I can’t think of a better question to start with than: Why start a business at all?

It takes a certain amount of courage and, some would say, craziness to launch your own venture. What drives people to do it? Why should, or shouldn’t, you consider doing it?

I’ll be posting some of my own thoughts, and hope to collect opinions and answers from experts and friends in small business. But before I dive in with my own commentary, I want to give you a chance to answer the question for yourself. Whether you have started your own business or not, feel free to chime in.

Add your answer in the comments below. Why did you start your business? Why does anyone? I can’t wait to find out what we learn!

photo credit: prayitno

When you run a small business, you don’t have a lot of limits. There is no job description. There are no set guidelines on how to handle customer service (other than ones you write, which you reserve the right to ignore). Having no boundaries is often exhilarating. But if you’re not careful, it can be exhausting, and sometimes harmful to your business.

The Danger of Shiny New Objects

If you are anything like me, you like new things. You may be quick to take risks and try a new approach to something. The problem is, those new things add up. Soon, you are very busy, but your days may not be as productive as they should be. You become distracted, and core parts of your business are effected negatively.

Lets take a look at customer service, by way of an example. Perhaps your goal is to offer the best service in your industry, or at least in your area. Its a noble and worthwhile goal. So you set out to make sure that you are accessible to your customers all of the time. You set up a Google Voice number that dials your cell phone during off hours. You commit to responding to every email quickly. You have customers on Twitter and Facebook, so you monitor those streams obsessively. And when you do get a customer service issue, you do amazing things to make sure it is resolved incredibly. Yeah, you become a customer service super star.

Don’t Forget to Add Limits

This is great, except you forgot to put limits on yourself. You can’t expect any employee to take a call at midnight on the weekend, so you commit yourself to doing it. You spread yourself too thin, along with your team. You set the gold standard of expectations, now you need to meet them every time. This costs a lot of time and money. It can hurt your family, too, because you have to prioritize your business over them.

Be the Best at One Thing

I am in no way suggesting you phone it in. You should strive to be the best. But not at everything, all at once. Maybe you can nail it with customer service. But I bet if you do, other parts of your business that need your focus will suffer. Even in that one area of focus, you don’t need to do everything. Instead, make it very clear to customers how they can receive customer service. It may be simply via email. Focus on it, do it great, and amaze customers in that one focused area. Then go repeat that in other focused areas throughout your business, from sales, to product development, to business management.

Great businesses are not built on constantly doing more. There are many examples of amazing businesses that grow because they simplify. They pick one thing to focus on and get really good at it. What is your one thing?

I love results. With a small business, the number one result measured is usually sales made. There are some other important results to measure, like repeat sales, customer life-span, up-sell percentage, etc. But most folks are happy to see a new sale, and rightfully so.

You are probably getting sales now. Does that mean what you are doing is working? Yeah, it does. But, just because it is working, it doesn’t mean it can’t be improved.

Make Steady Improvements

Lets say you close a sale 30% of the time you make an in-person pitch. That means you are getting 3 sales for every 10 pitches. Pretty good, right? You can extrapolate the number and make sure you are doing enough pitches to stay in business. However, what if you could tweak that pitch just a little? What if you could move that number up to 35%? Would that be good? Of course it would!

You should consider experimenting with all of your marketing and sales messages. Try out two variations, the one you have now that is working, and the slightly different variation. Measure the results, adjust, and keep testing. Through targeted testing you can see real improvements in your sales results.

A/B Testing

This kind of testing is called A/B testing, because it compares two variations and measures which gives better results. It is popular to do with websites, where you can tinker away in a thousand different ways until you see improved conversions. But A/B testing is not just for the web. Its for every part of your business.

Think about some of the things you could test:

• Your presentation slides
• The length of your sales presentation
• The voice mail you leave
• The text of the sales email you send
• The copy in your marketing brochure
• The color of your postcard
• The style of your proposal
• And on and on

Test Everything

I love my iPhone. Sure, I play games on it and have a lot of fun with it, but it is also a sleek business tool. Here are 7 apps you should be using on your iPhone for your small business.

1. Facebook

You do have a Facebook page for your business, right? Use the iPhone Facebook app to keep your page up to date when you are on the go. Share photos from the work site or of happy customers at your special event, and keep a running stream of updates that will be interesting to your customers. Plus, if you have customers asking you questions on Facebook, you’ll want to have easy access to those any time so you can answer them quickly.

2. iBooks

Any small business owner worth her salt is continuously learning. Download that business book you want to read, but can’t find the time for. Now the book will be in your pocket, and instead of pulling up Angry Birds while you have a couple of free moments, you can read a few pages of the book.

3. Camera

I have three different camera apps on the first screen of my iPhone alone. We live in an age where sharing pictures and video is easy. Use your camera liberally for your business. Whether you want to take pictures of products, customers, or customers with products, you can’t lose by having too many pictures. When you share pictures on Facebook, your blog, or your newsletter, you’ll get more engagement, which is a good thing. And don’t forget about the video option. Record customer testimonials, how-to videos, office dance offs! Have fun, snap and shoot, and have interesting things to share with your customers!

4. Mapquest

Save yourself some money and don’t buy a new GPS. Use the free Mapquest GPS app to get around a new place.

This works best if you have an iPhone holder and FM transmitter for your car.

5. Dropbox

Have your important document, product photos, sell sheets, spreadsheets, or whatever, with you always. Dropbox is a slick tool that gives you a shared storage box that you can access from any computer or device, and across a team. Not only can you get your stuff with the Dropbox app, you can add content from your iPhone, like pictures you want to share with the team.

6. Google Voice

Google Voice gives you one number to give out. You can set it up to dial any of your phone numbers. So, rather than give out your personal cell number, get a Google Voice number and give that out. Set it up to ring your cell at certain times, or the office phone, etc. Importantly, turn off the forwarding when you are on vacation, or just need some family time. Plus, and this is a big plus for money conscious small business owners, you can text from Google Voice. For free. Without a texting plan. I love that!

Other Apps

Now, of course, there are a ton more useful small business apps. Whatever your needs, you can probably find an app to help you fill it. These six are just a few that I use regularly.

How about you? What apps would you suggest?

I had an interesting conversation with my dad recently. It all started when I overheard him telling my brother, who works for him, that he would have some information faxed over to him. These seemed kind of old fashioned to me, so I asked what that was all about.

Turns out the he had printed out some information for my brother and left it on his desk at the office. However, my brother has a flexible schedule and did not end up coming in to the office that day, preferring to work from home. Since my father was out of the office, he had to call his office administrator (who happens to be my mom, gotta love family business!), to have her find the paperwork and fax it over to my brother.

This is a lot of work to pass on a bit of information. Not only that, but the paper and ink that the information was printed out on (about 2 pages) cost money. So extra time and money went into this that didn’t need to be wasted.

This is when I suggested that my dad use Dropbox for this type of thing. If he has a document that he needs my brother to see, he can put it in a shared folder, rather than printing it out and putting it on his desk. That way, if my brother is not in the office, he can still grab the information, easy as pie. With just a little set up and thought, there are probably a lot of things that my parents’ family business could share virtually via Dropbox versus printing out pieces of paper and clogging desks and in-boxes.

Sure, a piece of paper is a tangible thing, and hard to ignore. But it isn’t hard to get in the habit of checking a virtual in-box if you just try.

Dropbox is good for other things, like document collaboration or just storing your own files that you want to access on different computers and your smartphone. Its also very easy to get started on for business. My father and brother would just need to both start free accounts, and then create one or a few shared folders. Since they do a lot of work in Word, they can just save their documents to the right Dropbox folder from there. And since Dropbox is available offline, they don’t even have to worry about what happens if their sometimes spotty internet connection goes down for a few minutes.

Technology is a beautiful thing, and small businesses of every size should spend at least some of their time figuring out how to use it to make their lives easier and save money. Dropbox is just one of many simple tools that you have at your beck and call. So, why not do as I advised my father, turn off your printer and turn on Dropbox. After that, look for other ways you can save time and money in your business!

In the field of architecture, there is a maxim that says form follows function. In other words, you can make something beautiful, but you have to make sure it works first.

My concern with small businesses is that many succeed in function, but ignore form completely. In other words, they may have a product that works, a business that makes money, or whatever. Its an engine, it works, often well. But it may not be refined in any way. I suppose you could argue that your business doesn’t need to be pretty, it just needs to work.

This approach makes it possible to pull up to a worksite in a rusty old van, when a little paint wouldn’t really cost that much. It allows for websites that look like they were designed in the stone age. Focusing just on function may also lead you to make a product that is good enough, but maybe it is a little rough around the edges.

But does any of this really matter if you are making money? Why should you care about form when you are functioning just fine?

Form brings pride

Start by thinking of form as tidying up. When you go a bit beyond the function of your business, you can start to build a brand, or perhaps this is better described as a feeling, around your business. Take your work truck for instance. Wouldn’t you rather tool around in a smartly painted vehicle that shouts the name of your business to the world? Sure you would, and so would your employees. You don’t need a brand new vehicle, you just need to treat it like you care about it.

Form as tidying up also means you have a clean and nice workplace to go to. It means you pay attention to things like business cards, web sites, even email signatures. Form can bring cohesion amongst the various faces of your business. While you will need to spend hard earned money, you will feel the reward in a new pride that you can take in your business. You aren’t just raking in the bucks. You are establishing a presence.

Form helps you grow

Good form isn’t just eye-candy. It can help you grow you business. You may have started out in a garage. Heck, you may plan to never leave the garage. But businesses do grow. Form can help you establish a strong identity, one that customers can relate to and share with their friends.

Who do you think has an easier time getting business? Is it the handy man who you hired because your brother knows him, but who doesn’t do any kind of advertising? Or is is the company that has the nice green truck with their name on the side? The company whose signs you see in a lot of lawns around town? At first, both of these could be one man bands. But eventually, the one who pays attention to form is going to outpace the other.

Form isn’t just about looks and marketing. Form is how your business handles tasks, such as billing. Do you do it systematically and with elegance, or do you send your bills handwritten on scraps of paper? Form is about thinking through your approach, and adding a little beauty to how you conduct your business.

Form gives meaning

In the end, form can transcend business. Form can be what you are about, what meaning your business brings to the world. It can be as simple as a mission statement, one that sets a goal for you business that isn’t just about making money. You might sell washing machines, but maybe your vision is to help customers save money and the environment by only selling more efficient machines. That is form being applied to your functioning business.

Social businesses are great at this type of form. They exist primarily to raise money or awareness for a cause. Tom’s Shoes exists to provide shoes for those who can’t afford them. That is form. Many companies donate some of their earnings. Still more run their business with some kind of purpose beyond personal gain. This is all form.

Start to think about form in your business. If you are functioning, making money, what little tweaks can you start to make to add beauty to your business? Whether it is to improve your pride and that of your employees, or to establish your brand so people can understand what you are about and fall in love with your business, or whether it is to make a much bigger impact on your world, form can and does have an important roll to play in your business.

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 photo credit: joiseyshowaa

How do you measure whether you give good customer service? Does it come down to being quick to answer customer questions and to solve problems when they arise?

It seems like a lot of the stories that I hear about amazing customer service involve some kind of issue that a customer had which a company was able to solve brilliantly. And, of course, bad customer service is when a customer has a problem and the company is not helpful at all in solving it.

Here is the issue I have with measuring customer service on these terms. In order for your customers to experience the great customer service you promise you will give them, they have to first run into some kind of pain point with your product.

Think about it. Does your customer service marketing basically say that if your customers ever have a problem, they will get great customer service?

Customer service is so much more than problem-solving. At its core, shouldn’t it be more about avoiding problems in the first place?

Customer service needs to be proactive, not reactive! Sure there are potential problems that will spring up, but shouldn’t your goal be to help your customers avoid those problems before they happen?

You have a lot of knowledge. Running a business has made you a specialist at what you do. Don’t keep all of that knowledge to yourself. Use it as a tool to bring in even more income.

I am a big fan of educational marketing (or selling). The concept is simple. Instead of hitting prospects with ads and sales pitches all of the time, give them something that they can use.

When you educate someone, you have added value to their life. In most cases people will be grateful to you for this. They will also place you in a special category in their mind, that of expert. And who do people want to buy from when the time is right? That’s right, the expert!

Inventory Your Knowledge Base

Start thinking about all of the interesting and helpful things that you know. Can any of them be shared on a blog or in a newsletter? How about in the newspaper or on the radio? Can you host an event or have a class at the local library?

Stick to subjects that relate to your business. Your general education doesn’t have to include a heavy sales pitch. Just make sure that people know who you are and what it is that you do.

Target Education to Dream Customers

Besides getting in the habit of offering general education, you can also target some of those dream customers of yours with an educational campaign.

Rather than beating down the doors with hot and heavy sales pleas, share key insights with these prospects that will help them in their lives or businesses.

When you educate in a helpful way, getting in the door will be easy. Building trust will be easy. Getting the sale will be easier.

Provide real value around your years of accumulated knowledge and you can attract more leads and build all-important trust with prospects, even before they become customers. Sound worthwhile?

You would never build a building without a plan. However, many small businesses are being built right now without any kind of design in mind. Owners are just winging it, making decisions based on today’s input, rather than on a grand plan.

A good design is a great benefit to any business, and it can help your business stand out and succeed where others have struggled.

Know Where You a Going

A design can help you determine where you are going with your business. Take a few minutes to write down why you started your business and what you hope to accomplish with it. You don’t necessarily need a full-fledged business plan, at least not at first. More importantly, you need a purpose.

When you have a purpose, you can make decisions based on that. If something will get you closer to achieving your ultimate goal, than you do it. If not, you avoid it. Its simple, but a design really helps you keep your business on track.

Understand What Your Business Should Look Like

Each small business has a unique character. Often, that character is shaped by the owner and the first few employees of the business. However, be careful to not let the character of your business be created by accident. As owner, you should have the vision for what your business should look like. You need to be able to communicate this vision and inspire others to get behind it.

The best way of doing this is to imagine where you want to work. Do you want your business to be highly professional? If so, you better invest in nice business cards, put in a dress code, etc. Or, do you want your company to be a great place for people with families to work? If so, you should think about flexible scheduling, company get-togethers, etc.

Don’t let your business become something you don’t like because you did not have a strong design for how it should look in the first place!

Attract Through Cohesive Design

One of the great benefits of a well-designed business is that it will be attractive to others. You will find that it is easier to hire great employees and to find willing investors. Perhaps most importantly, a really well-designed business will attract customers.

These things happen because, with good design, your business can become more than just a place to work or spend money. It can become something that people identify with. Pepsi and Coke don’t really spend their marketing dollars fighting over taste. Instead, they get people to identify with their brand, so that you have Pepsi people and Coke people.

If you don’t have an identity, you won’t have a lot of rabid fans. Build your identity through good design.

It all starts and ends with you. What do you want your small business to be. It will only end up like that with a good design.

Sometimes we think of an entrepreneur as a lone gunslinger, fed up with corporate bureaucracy and ready to risk it all to start his or her own business. Think Jerry Maguire.

But, if there is one thing that can help a new business be a success, it is collaboration. Working together with a diverse group of people has a lot of advantages. Going it alone, well I’m not sure if it can be done.

There are a lot of different opportunities for a new small business owner to collaborate. Here are some that come to mind.

Hire a Team

One of the most common ways to collaborate is to hire people to work in your small business. Too often though, the first few hires are just to fill spots. You need someone to help with X, so you hire a friend or family member to get the job done.

Instead, you should think of your first hires as key collaborators for your business. These are people who can have a lot of influence, because they are with you in the very early stages of the business. So hire with the long game in mind. Find people that you mesh well with, that inspire you, that work hard, and who are brimming with energy and ideas. Then find a fit for them in your business.

Get Mentored

A wonderful form of collaboration is with a mentor. Seek out someone who has experience in business and in life, and who is okay with you calling them whenever the need arises. There are a lot of mentorship programs available to entrepreneurs, some which are free and some which cost a lot of money. It is okay to pay to be a member of a group of entrepreneurs, but in most cases you should not have to pay for a mentor.

Instead, seek out mentors from the people that you know. You want someone who can devote time to you.

A mentor is someone you can bounce ideas off, but perhaps more importantly, they can be an emotional rock for you as you struggle with important issues. You need someone you can spill everything to and who you can trust to give you unbiased advice. Therefore, your mentor should have no financial ties to your business.

If you feel bad about asking for someone’s time and energy, don’t. When you find the right person, they will light up at the opportunity to help you. And someday, you can return the favor to some new entrepreneur who really needs a hand up.

Use a Specialist

Whether you want to design the next big thing in software or if you want to build houses, specialists can really help. You can find people who are willing to work for hire, on a job to job basis, who are really good at what they do. They are often called freelancers, but they also come in the form of professionals (lawyers, accountants), contractors, firms, etc.

Sure, specialists cost money. Your job is to figure out a way for them to pay for themselves. The nice thing is that you usually only need to pay them for the work they do, when you need them. Used strategically, specialists can catapult your business to the next level.

Be Social

When you run your own business, you can recede into it like a hermit into a cave. Avoid this! Get out and be social. There are likely business groups near you that you can join, which offer social activities and opportunities to find like-minded people. There is also a world of people waiting to meet you on the web, via social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter.

Social collaboration is a great way to feel the pulse of your fellow small business-people, to get and share ideas, and to shoot the breeze with people who know where you are coming from. You may also find great new employees and specialists via social networking. You really must commit some time to being social, as it is both healthy for you and for your business.