Small Business Trends Contributors

If you’ve been following our blog series on internationalizing your company, On Your Mark, Get Set, Go Global, you will have made considerable strides by now. You’ve considered the pros and cons of exporting, weighed your chances for success and learned the importance of choosing a promising product or service. You’ve taken advantage of the wealth of information and assistance that’s available to hopeful overseas traders, and you’re moving toward putting together a viable plan for your first export trial run.

Now you are ready to think about recruiting your in-house export team. As you prepare for this new development, you must remember this above all: The success of your export venture depends on a company-wide commitment. If you’re a solo operator, that means you. If you work for a large corporation, it means the executive committee, followed by the finance, operations, marketing/sales, transportation, legal, communications, data-entry, research and service departments. You’ll be setting up a network rather than an isolated department of your own, and utilizing your company’s existing human resources as much as possible.

Once you’ve evaluated the departmental resources already in place and mapped out exactly what will be required to export your product or service, you’ll prepare a list of what is required from each of these departments. Then you’ll approach each department and present the list to someone who might be willing to be a part of your export team. To whom do you go first? Someone with great sales(wo)manship qualities, an interest in the international scene, bi- or multilingual language abilities, cross-cultural awareness, good communication skills, attentiveness to detail and persistence. Use your own salesmanship here, and frame it as a challenge they won’t be able to resist. read more

I have come to understand that the various social media tools can be used in both social and business cases. But I can’t help but wonder when some of the social tools will generate money?

If you are not very familiar with social media, I recommend that you stop right now, and have a look at Common Craft’s instructional videos which deal with social media and social networks.

It seems as if businesses are finding ways to use social media (usually without paying anything). One high-profile example of a business which has taken up social media is Zappos. This is an extract from Sarah Milstein’s article in the New York Times, How Twitter can help at Work, where she points to one way to use Twitter: read more

Not only are small businesses struggling to find and keep good customers, they’re also having a hard time predicting when an opportunity they’re working on will become cash. And having a good handle on when to expect the cash to come can be just as important as how much to expect. Why do you think Popeye would always lend Wimpy money to get a burger? Because he knew he’d get his money the next Tuesday.

If you can gauge about when it’s coming that can help you plan a more effective money management strategy. And a good way to start improving your ability to predict when deals your working on will become $$$ is to define a few things. Take a look at the image below:

Milestones and Stages

If there is more than one person responsible for selling and/or interested in knowing what’s in the pipeline you’ll definitely benefit from identifying a few basic milestones you may go through when trying to close a deal. The above diagram lists a few as an example. Don’t get scared thinking you need some long drawn-out sales process to follow, but think about maybe 4 or 5 stages you go through on a regular basis when selling. Once you identify these come up with a short description of what it means when the deal is in this stage of the game. read more

There are tons of books and articles on goal setting, visioning, reaching for the moon and landing among the stars. But how many of those how-to guides talk about what to do after you set your goal?

As we begin a New Year and thoughts turn toward New Year’s resolutions and wiping the slate clean, I would suggest that once you set your goal, you let your employees know.

They say that “what gets measured gets done” and if you write a goal down it is more likely to become a reality, but still so many managers feel that letting their team know about the goal is just TMI.

Too much information.

“They just need to do as they’re told,” is the old school of thinking.

“If we tell them too much and they leave and go to the competition, they’ll take our plans with them,” those that are a little more paranoid or perhaps have been burned in the past might say.

Yet when we let our team know the big picture, they are more inclined to take ownership in the ultimate success and help you achieve your goals even faster.

When I worked for Pearle Vision I found that many of the franchise owners were reluctant to let their employees know their break- even number.

“They don’t need to know my financial information,” the franchisee would say.

That way of thinking came back to bite one owner who was consistently missing their break even number and money was tight. The employees, clueless to the financial strain, began demanding a raise. The owner stalled and tap danced and finally came to me for help. read more

Netbook sales are exploding. Netbooks are ultra portable notebook PCs that generally cost less than $500. The form factor has become so popular that 5.6 million netbooks were sold in Q3 of 2008.

To put that number in perspective, Apple sold 4.7 million iPhones during that period.

Netbook sales are rising for several reasons. One is price. Netbooks are cheap yet meet the web surfing, email and word processing needs of many users. And with web-based software and storage becoming more common, many users simply don’t need higher end notebook PCs.

Their small form factor also makes netbooks attractive for mobile computing. All have WiFi and support cellular modems. AT&T even offers a netbook for $99 to customers who purchase a data plan. read more

Can you remember back to the days when having WiFi was a status symbol?

Just about every business person, college student and family member has WiFi built into their computers. What we are now starting to see, more and more, are PC vendors marketing mobile broadband, embedded on our notebook computers.

Notebook computer vendors are more aggressively pushing to have you buy a mobile wireless card that’s built into your computer. Nothing to lose, nothing to break - and you might just get a sweet deal on the monthly service charges.

What’s exciting about this emphasis from WiFi to mobile broadband is that not only can you access the Internet anywhere in the country, but if your travels take you across borders you can use your mobile broadband connectivity there as well. Many vendors are using dual GSM and CDMA wireless technologies, with GSM being quite popular outside of the US, in their mobile broadband platforms.

Regarding the world of cloud computing, If you are a “traditional” mobile professional you have software installed on your computer and save your data to your hard disk or USB key. You are probably more familiar with “My Documents” or your “Desktop” than you are with the local streets in your neighborhood. read more

The recession has hurt the franchise sector, and because of that, I predict that the industry as a whole will be getting extremely creative in 2009, when it comes to attracting prospective franchise owners…

A few franchisors are already headed that direction:

• Papa John’s has lowered some of their food pricing for current franchise owners, and have even absorbed some of the high diesel fuel costs that they were passing on to franchisees for food deliveries.
• Pet Butler has decreased their franchise fee for new franchise owners.
• Emerald City Smoothie is offering to give new franchise owners a free kiosk, with their purchase of a free standing store.

Is this the start of an industry-wide trend? Will franchisors have to risk upsetting some of their current franchisees, by offering discounts to new franchisees? read more

If you’re like me, you have a love-hate relationship with the phrase “boost productivity.” You know it’s important. Your business depends on it. But who has time to focus on boosting — let alone doubling — productivity in tough economic times?

Well, the fact is, in our current economic recession, increasing productivity is one of the most important things you can do to save your business from going under.

Boosting productivity will:

• Increase your profit.

• Improve your efficiency.

• Ready your business to get back in the game quickly when the economy opens up again.

Implement the following week-by-week steps, and you’ll find yourself doubling your productivity in six weeks or less.

Six Weeks to Doubled Productivity read more