Category Archives: Small Business
Free Sound Effects and Sound Editing Software
Multimedia is here to stay. So, it is a good bet that you’re using sound in at least a few of your sales and marketing projects—whether it is a sales training course, a YouTube video, or a radio, television or online commercial.
To create an engaging video or entertaining radio ad, you’ll need to include both speech and music. For even more interesting pieces, you can include sound effects (such as bells and whistles, weather noises or even blood curdling screams—after all, Halloween is upon us). Once you have all your components, you’ll need to edit and mix the audio and then combine it with your visual components (if you’re making a video).
The following resources can help. Continue reading…
The Hiring Process: The Helpful & The Hilarious
If your business is still so small that you’re a sole proprietor, then you probably haven’t faced the hiring challenge yet. But for the majority of small business owners, attracting great employees is a key component of effective operations, future growth, and success.
If you’ve ever been part of a hiring process—whether for your first company President or your first part-time assistant—you know it is full of pitfalls, and that finding that “perfect” person can be extremely difficult. You probably also know how painful weeding through countless resumes from unqualified applicants can be, and how frustrating the interview process can become when people don’t live up to your first-impression expectations.
Use the following resources to improve your hiring process or to just plain laugh about it. Continue reading…
Build a Basic Website in Minutes
If you’re one of those small businesses that still doesn’t have a website (yes, we know there are still a bunch of you out there), then it is definitely time to get one.
You may think you don’t need an actual website if you have a Facebook page, a Twitter account or other social networking accounts such as LinkedIn, Blogger, or Digg, but you do. A website (even a one-page site) pulls all these feeds together in a single place your customers and prospects can access to learn more about your business. It also provides search engines and directories a single authoritative place to link.
There are many options for free and low-cost websites. A good entry-level tool is Flavors.me. This free site lets you create a single webpage that contains information about your company and links to all your social media pages including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube (there are 31 choices in all). Continue reading…
Some handy “green” calculators from PaySimple
The times, they are a changin’ and our climate is, too. NASA’s latest headline reads: Arctic sea ice reaches second-lowest extent on record. Not only is there less ice, the ice that remains is actually sticking around for shorter periods of time. What they’re finding now is that there is more first and second year ice, which interacts with the environment differently than multi-year ice, absorbing more of the sun’s rays and thus, speeding up the ocean’s warming process. A little closer to home, researchers have found that the Colorado Rockies, with “extreme elevation and vegetation gradients, are very sensitive to regional and global climate change.”
A little fun on a Thursday… How to become a celebrity small business owner
As we can’t seem to escape celebrity mischief and absurdity in the news, I had a thought of what it would be like if regular people, or even prominent people in our own lives (like our bosses), acted this way. So here it is – the top ten things you can do to become a celebrity small business owner: Continue reading…
Need Small Business Financing…Ask an Angel
Many small businesses start with a great idea and an entrepreneur with an unmatched work ethic but fail or underperform due to lack of capital. In the past, a great business concept would win a bank loan or a loan backed by the Small Business Administration (SBA). Today with tight credit markets and most banks afraid to take even the slightest risks, even the best business people with proven track records have trouble getting traditional loans. If you’re a first time entrepreneur with few personal assets, you’re probably out of luck.
Enter the Angel Investor. An “Angel” is a person or company that provides a small amount of seed money to a start-up business in return for a piece of the business. While Angels used to be individual investors or small investment groups, large venture capital companies are now getting into the game as are some large compaines such as Google.
The key is finding the right Angel for your business. Think about the type of partnership you want. Do you want a hands-off investor or one who will take an active role in helping your business grow? Are you looking for an investor with expertise in your market or just an interest? Would you be more comfortable with a private individual or do you want to work with a Venture Capital firm? Continue reading…
A growing construction company’s conundrum – How to transition from manual invoicing and billing
While perusing one of my bookmarked small business forums recently, I stumbled upon a post from a small construction company that was looking for a better way to manage their invoicing requirements. The post explained how currently, after a job, they type up each invoice in a word processing program and send them out manually. And how do they track which payments they’ve collected and which are still outstanding? “We do this by memory.” The company is seeking advice because they’re experiencing growth and want to find a better invoicing solution that can grow with them. I give them props for realizing this need before it presents a problem, and thus want to offer my opinion as to why they should transition from their current methods to an electronic invoicing and billing solution in the cloud. After all, I’m sure they’d do the same for me if I was looking for advice on which way to point a nail gun. (If you’ve heard the term “cloud” tossed around a lot, it’s really just a creative term for web-based hosting of information, which is then accessible from anywhere.) Here’s why invoicing and billing works better in the cloud: 1. It’s secure One of the biggest advantages of cloud-based billing and electronic invoicing solutions is the security they can offer. By storing sensitive customer information with a third-party provider, you don’t have to exhaust as many resources … Continue reading…
An easy, often overlooked way for small businesses to cut costs
In tough economic times, small businesses are always in search of ways to cut back costs to help improve their bottom line. While the basic expenses of running a business are obvious places to examine for cost-savings opportunities, many small business owners forget another great place to look – saving time. For small businesses which provide services, time is literally money. But even for businesses which provide goods, spending time on basic operations instead of spending time growing your customer base translates into real expense and lost opportunity as well. It’s a good idea for a small business owner to track how much time is spent on administrative and operational tasks as a real business cost. For many small businesses, billing-related activities and chasing payments is one of the largest time frustrations they face that keeps them away from revenue-generating activities. In fact, a very large percentage of small businesses still use some combination of paper, Excel and word processing to create invoices, track receivables and follow-up on payments. Some small business owners struggle to even get their invoices out on time because they are so tired of filling up their days (and nights) with time that isn’t growing their business. There are many automated billing software solutions designed and priced for small businesses that can net a positive ROI very quickly based on time savings. These solutions cut back on time spent by providing … Continue reading…
Building Great Customer Experiences
The business truisms are endless: a satisfied customer is a repeat customer, it’s more profitable to maintain a happy customer than to find a new customer, word of mouth is the best marketing, and on and on… One other truism is that satisfied customers are built not born, and as a small business owner you need to plan and plot every component of the customer experience from first touch to follow-up after the sale. A four-part blog series, Creating Superior Customer Experiences, from 365 Days of Startups.com provides tips that you can use at every step of the process. Part I covers first impressions and discusses touch points that potential customers have with your business before they’ve ever contacted you and become a “lead.” Part II covers initial contact, obtaining the “lead” and securing the first sales call or appointment. Part III covers follow-up from the first sales meeting, closing the sale and starting the project. Part IV covers follow-up after the project is done to ensure the customer is satisfied and to set the stage for the next project or purchase as well as to encourage referrals. While this series is geared towards service businesses, small businesses of all types can benefit from the many tips provided.
Late Payments: Not So Funny for Small Businesses
PaySimple currently has a “best late payments excuse” contest in progress, and the excuses that our small business customers have been sharing with us are hilarious. While my dog doesn’t go for bills in his food dish, it always seems there are some breeds out there that thrive on them. But unfortunately, late payments are increasingly becoming an issue for small businesses, which is no laughing matter. According to Experian’s recent Business Benchmark Report, severely delinquent debt is on the rise for very small businesses (those with one to four employees). The shift in percentage of dollars considered severely delinquent went from 9.9% in June 2010 to 11.7% in June 2011. According to the report, all business sectors have shown an increase in slow payment in a year-over-year comparison. The largest increases in slow payment came from the Construction industry (17 %) and Insurance industry (15.7 %) when compared with June 2010. What can you do if late payors are causing your small business to suffer? First, it’s important to organize your receivables to figure out which ones to tackle first. Ranking outstanding payments by factors such as the amount due and your likelihood to collect is a quick way to build a priority list to focus your attention. Next, get your contact information together. The more contact points you have, the better (home phone, work phone, cell phone, e-mail addresses, and mailing addresses). It’s … Continue reading…
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