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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Filed Under: Customers, Management, Marketing Tagged With:

Tips for Setting Up Merchant Account to Accept Credit Cards

November 27, 2011


This blog post is written by Shannon Martin.
Most small businesses are overpaying for credit card processing. In our conversations with number of small business owners we have not come across a single owner who does not hate credit card processing companies for the exorbitant amount of money they charge. That is why it is important to do your homework before you sign up with the merchant processing company. In this post we provide useful tips you should keep in mind when talking to credit card service providers.
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Not All Customers are Created Equal

November 19, 2011


Most small business owners do not give much thought to what types of customers they serve. They are happy to sell to anyone and everyone who walks into their business. This can be a mistake, and it can lead to either leaving money on the table or, even worse, not making money at all. When you take a careful look at your customers you are likely to find that some customers bring significant profit to your business, while others may not bring as much or even make you lose money on them. Why would you want to keep those later type of customers or at least treat both of them equally?
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How can you Beat the Larger Rivals at their Own Game

November 16, 2011


In the previous post we mentioned that it is possible to beat your larger competitors and own a successful small business. Many small business owners are scared of their large competitors because of their wrongful perception that large companies can use their size and vast resources to drive smaller rivals out of business.
We described why this is not true in the last post. Here we will take it one step further and show how you can beat those larger rivals.
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Filed Under: Customers, Management, Sales Tagged With: ,

Yes, You can Beat the Larger Rivals at their Own Game

November 12, 2011


Many small business owners are scared of competing against their larger rivals. After all, large competitors have all the resources at their disposal to put you out of business, right? It is a battle of David versus Goliath! What chance does David stand against the Goliath?
While it is true that Wal-Mart has put number of mom-and-pop shops out of business in the last 10 years, there is hope for small business owners. In fact, we believe you can beat them at their own game and become a very successful small business owner. You probably are thinking we are nuts and don’t know what we are talking about, but allow us to explain.
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4-Step Approach to Deal with Difficult Employees

November 6, 2011


Every business owner encounters difficult employees – commonly referred to as jerks – in the course of running his business. These difficult employees are easy to spot in an organization. They complain about any task you give them, spread around rumors, slack on their jobs and bully their peers and subordinates. In general, they drain lot of energy from everyone, particularly the managers and business owners.
How you deal with them can help you minimize the impact on you and your business. As a business owner, avoiding them is not an option for you, as much as you would like. This will only delay the problem for later and make it even more challenging to address. Rather than avoiding them it is better to nip the problem in the bud and address the situation head on. From our own experience and after talking to fellow business owners we have come up with a 4-step approach that can help you deal with this problem in an appropriate manner.
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When is a Good Time to Increase Your Payroll?

November 3, 2011


This blog post was created by Bert Deorhoff, CPA, who specializes in small business bookkeeping in Jefferson City.
If you are running a small business, then you are making a lot of big decisions daily. As your business grows, you will need to start thinking about increasing your payroll and hiring new employees.
The first thing you need to do is start planning. You will have to do quite a bit of number crunching in terms of how another employee will affect monthly, quarterly and yearly expenses.
Ask yourself, “Do I have enough work to justify hiring another person? Am I meeting the needs of my customers?”
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Filed Under: Employees, Management Tagged With: ,

How to Ensure You are Working ON your Business, not FOR it

October 31, 2011


In the previous post we explained that there is a subtle, but important difference between working ON your business and FOR it. The difference stems partly from how the business owner is thinking about the future of his business. Is he preparing the business for long-term success or worrying about day-to-day cash flow? Great companies are created when the founders focus on long-term viability of business and lay strong foundation, even if it means sacrificing short-term gains. Just look at the examples of great companies of today – Microsoft, Dell, Facebook, Apple and so on! All of their founders worked didn’t focus on short-term gains in the early stage of their companies.
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Filed Under: Management, Operations Tagged With: , ,

Are you Working FOR or ON your Business?

October 27, 2011


On the surface this sounds like a trivial question to ask. After all, when you own your business you are expected to take care of everything. Whether you do it by working FOR or ON your business should not be relevant. However, when you read the question carefully you realize that there is a subtle difference between the two. How you approach it can have long-term implications for you and your business.
So what is the difference between working FOR and working ON your business?
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Filed Under: Management, Operations Tagged With:

How to Measure the Success of Onboarding Process

October 23, 2011

Organizations invest a lot in their workforce, and it’s no surprise that they expect to see a return on their investments (ROI). But as business leaders look for the best ways to maximize the ROI of their workforce, the onboarding process is often overlooked. For many, the onboarding experience is reduced to a mere checklist of tasks to be completed and forms to be submitted. The fact that such organizations fail to understand, though, is that an employees that experience a smoother onboarding process will be more connected to the organization, better trained and, thus, quicker to produce.

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