7 Interesting Ways Small Business can Use Social Media

February 18, 2012


When small business owners hear about social media their attention immediately goes to Facebook and Twitter. They think of social media as a place where customers go to gossip and complain about their businesses or where business owners can go to publicize their products. This limited view doesn’t do full justice to the potential social media holds for small businesses. There is lot more to social media than just Facebook postings and Twitter broadcasts. We showed how you can use other interesting social media tools as well as some emerging social media tools in earlier posts. In this post we will review how you can use those and other tools in interesting ways to improve your business.
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How to Make Daily Deals Work for your Business

February 14, 2012


Daily deals facilitated by companies like Groupon and Living Social are double-edged swords for businesses. On one hand, they help you get new customers and improve sales. On the other hand, you end up with high operating expenses and dissatisfied customers, if not done right. Reading the horror stories that some businesses experienced you might think that it is never a good idea to work with daily deal companies. While this reaction is understandable, it may be extreme and may result in you losing out on the benefits offered by daily deals. We think with the right approach and proper planning you can make daily deals work for your business. Below we provide tips on how to do it.
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Is Groupon and other Daily Deals Good for your Business?

February 11, 2012


Daily deals have proliferated in the last year like dandelions during spring time. I am receiving at least 4-5 deals from one well-known daily deal company alone. Are you feeling left out because you still have not run any daily deal yet? While many businesses and consumers have taken advantage of this latest marketing tactic, I don’t think you need to feel sorry if you have not jumped on this bandwagon. This is because for every business that has seen great success with daily deals, there is another one who can share horror story from his experience. Just look at the experience of one particular business.
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What Business are you Really in?

January 28, 2012


“What business are you in?” This is one of my favorite questions to ask when we meet with small business owners and entrepreneurs. On surface this appears to be a very simple question. If you are a pizza business owner, of course you are in the business of selling pizza or food. But, think about it in terms of what value are you bringing to your customers rather than what you are selling. Are your customers really craving for pizza or are they looking for the convenience of no cooking and pizza happens to be one of the choices? Are they ordering pizza to feed bunch of kids at a birthday party? Are they looking to satisfy their hunger after late night partying without having to drive to your store? As you can see, how you look at your business can have a significant impact on how you run your business. In fact, it can determine the success or failure of your business down the road.
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7 Common Mistakes that Impact Cash Flow and How to Avoid Them

January 3, 2012


Cash flow is a lifeblood for small business. Fail to plan properly for the month-end cash flow needs and you will start losing your sleep when the time arrives to write paychecks for employees or to pay vendor bills. That’s why it is very important to keep a keen eye on money coming in and going out, and plan for those times when you will need sizeable cash outflow. Not only that, but you have to take into account unexpected emergencies that will force you to spend money here and now. In earlier post, we showed how managing your inventory, account payables and receivables can help you better manage your cash flow.
In addition to those tips, you should also look at the obvious as well as not-so-easy-to-find ways in which small business owners squander cash and end up in dire situations. Here are examples of the mistakes many small business owners make and how you can avoid them.
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Filed Under: Employees, Finance, Management, Marketing, Purchasing Tagged With: , , , , ,

How can you Send Consistent Message to your Customers

December 14, 2011


In earlier post we showed how sending inconsistent messages to customers through your actions can harm small business owners greatly. Many small business owners don’t pay attention to how customers perceive their business as a result of actions they take and end up confusing the customer who keeps wondering what your business stands really stands for. Is it low price vendor like Wal-Mart or high quality, easy-to-user products like Apple?
To provide consistent message to your customers all departments within your business have to work in harmony like well-oiled machine. The departments you have to pay particular attention to are customer service and marketing. The list below gives specific actions you can take to achieve this:
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Not All Customers are Equal – Which ones are Right for your Business?

December 3, 2011


As mentioned in the earlier post it is crucial to pay attention to the types of customers your business wants to attract. Most small business owners do not pay sufficient attention to this subject and end up leaving money on the table or not making money at all, as a result. That is why it is important to not try to sell everything to everyone and instead think about what types of customers are the right fit for your business.
But how do you go about finding the “right” customers? We think this should be a two-step process. First you should think introspectively about your business and then identify what types of customers will be attracted by the value offered by your business. We explained these steps in detail below.
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10 Things (Bad) Franchisor will not Tell you (Franchisee)

October 16, 2011


When buying a franchise business you should make sure the franchise you are looking to get into is good and will make you successful as well. After all, selecting the wrong franchise can hurt you and may even wipe out your hard earned savings. Below we have listed traps many novice business buyers fall into when choosing a franchise.
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How to Team up with Cool Businesses and Improve Sales by 10%

October 12, 2011


In the previous post we mentioned that small businesses can improve brand and increase sales by 10%-20% by teaming up with “cool” businesses. Subway’s partnership with American Heart Association to position them as a healthy food purveyor by teaming with an organization that promotes heart health is a great example. Recently, Ford announced partnership with a Zipcar to improve their brand perception in the minds of college students based on the same principle.
Small businesses such as yours can also realize benefits from such partnership. It can improve the brand image of your company by “rubbing some the coolness” from your partner to your business. In the process, it can bring new customers and increase sales from those new as well as existing customers. The association can also teach you a great deal about how to work with and attract different customer base.
The key to successful partnership is to understand your overall objectives as well as the target customer base you want to attract and find businesses that are deemed as “cool” by those customers. This needs careful planning on your part. We have come across number of ways in which businesses have gone about implementing this. Below we explain some of the tactics based on our experience and observations.
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Improve Sales by 10% by Teaming up with Cool Businesses

October 5, 2011


Small business owners can improve their brands, while increasing sales by 10-20% by teaming up with the “cool” businesses! On August 31 Ford announced partnership with Zipcar by which Ford will sell cars to Zipcar at a discounted rate for them to use for their rental fleet. For those not in the know, Zipcar is a next generation car rental company with a very different business model. They typically rent their cars on a per-hour flat fee that includes fuel and insurance to mostly young customers, college students and such, who do not own a car. By associating with Zipcar, Ford will improve their brand image and get more sales from the younger generation. This is a brilliant move on Ford’s part to attract buyers at an early age who typically tend to stick with them for years to come. You can find similar tie-ups at many places in the business world.
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