Small Business- News and reports on Small Business

Didn?t get a chance to participate in the FedEx Office Twitter chat on May 15? No worries ? we have a recap of the highlights below.

The topic was branding:  Is your brand helping or hurting your small business?  Let?s take a look at some of the responses and comments on this topic.  The Twitter handle of the person who said them, follows:

1.       What exactly is a ?brand?? Is it a name, a logo ? or more?  – @FedExOfficeRead More

From Small Business Trends

Is Your Brand Helping Or Hurting Your Small Business? Chat Recap

For new small business owners, meeting your tax obligations is a big adjustment ? particularly when you?ve been used to having an employer take out income tax withholdings with each paycheck. When you have your own business though, tax time isn?t just once a year; rather you have to make estimated tax payments throughout the year.

If you?re not sure if you need to pay estimated taxes for your business, read on to learn moreRead More

From Small Business Trends

Small Business Owners And The Estimated Tax Payment

A sound and holistic marketing plan has always  combined these areas:

• Advertising: any paid form of communication through  mass communication
• Sales promotion: any short term incentive to encourage trial purchase
• Events and Experiences: sponsored events or activities
• Public Relations and Publicity: non paid ways to promote image and reputation
• Direct Marketing:  one-to-one  communication such as mail, telephone, e-mail and Internet selling
• Personal Selling: face-to-face interaction with one or more prospective customers

Read More

From Small Business Trends

The “Belong Subscribe And Engage” Marketing Plan

How do you know that you?re making the right move?  As a small business owner you?re always evaluating and deciding, watching and then doing, discovering and then digging in.  You?re a shopper.

Every piece of software, office equipment and service that you purchase for your business is a shopping experience:

1. How did you find the item or the service?
2. What did you compare it to?

You have a certain type of shopper?s behavior ? theRead More

From Small Business Trends

New Shopping Habits: When Your Clients Go Mobile

You don’t need to be the leader of a multimillion-dollar corporation to create unnecessary drama in your business. Today’s news is full of stories about the latest CEO missteps. Here are some of the headlines, along with some lessons to be learned and tips on how to be a better leader in your business.

Setting the Right Example

Don’t let personal relationships interfere. Even the founder of Best Buy, Richard Schulze, finds his head on the chopping block (in aRead More

From Small Business Trends

CEO Drama and How to Avoid It

I am mortified by what I'm overhearing at the table next to me ...

I don't mean to be eavesdropping. But I couldn't help but listen in when the guy next to me in the coffee shop started selling his consulting services to another businessman. In the past 30 minutes, he's asked maybe two questions. Aargh! That in itself drives me crazy.

Here's just a snippet of what I'm hearing, as well as my commentary on the mistakes he's making.

Establishing Credentials: "I've been president of a company which we took nationwide. I'm also doing lots of consulting and now I'm coaching entrepreneurs just like you. There are so many things people like you don't know."

(Impressive, right? I love how he unwittingly called his prospect dumb. If I were the prospect, I would have much preferred to learn about the results he's delivered for entrepreneurs who have similar businesses to mine. How do you establish credibility upfront?)

Developing a Relationship: "Lots of wives don't understand what you're going through. That's why it's so important to have people like me to talk to. I have lots of tools and techniques you can use with the wife - like how to handle the "honey do" list."

(A botched attempt at bonding! Plus, if it's so important to have people to talk to, why is he doing all the talking?)

Creating Opportunities: "Do you need some writing done? I'm a good writer, not a great one. I write to the best of my ability. But here's how I get people to help me by using Craig's List."

(Clearly the guy needs work. What he doesn't realize is how much his fear and desperation is showing through. He started out as an executive coach and now is trying to do writing for the guy. BTW, Lots of sellers go through their laundry list of products/services hoping their prospect will bite on one of them. Ever done that?)

Building Credibility: "I've read all the great coaches books -- like John Maxwell. I use his strategies. And other people's too. That's my job. To read those books so you don't have to. I read about 3-4 books per month. I've read a lot about blogs and social media. I can advise you on those. The last thing you want to do it go to a web developer. They'll charge your $5000 or more."

(By mentioning what he's read, he's actually distracting from his own credibility. The best way he can turn himself into a trusted advisor is by asking intelligent, business-oriented questions ... but he never did that. Do you plan your questions?)

Closing the Sale: "I'd love to work with you. Perhaps we can meet 1/2 hour each month just to get started. I'd just give you advice for free, till you decide you need a regular consultant. I'd be willing to do that for you.

"If there's anything I can do to help you, just let me know. If you ever want to go through a senior executive planning session, I can help you with that. Tell you what, I'll shoot you an email with all the personal services I can do for you."

(This guy's closing shows his fears. Lots of salespeople, when they know they've blown it will try to do whatever it takes to ignite the opportunity, hoping something will materialize.

You know what's the worst thing? This guy is probably a sharp businessperson. But he's had a bad time recently. He's scared. His fears are driving his behavior and making things even worse for him.

And, he has no idea how he's perceived by his prospects. I see it happen all the time. As sellers, we need to be aware of -- and in control -- of our emotions.

YOUR TURN:  How do you prevent your emotions from  screwing up a sales meeting?  Comment below!

Why is it important to pique your prospect's curiosity? The answer is simple. It creates an opening for you to establish a relationship at the same time it positions you as an invaluable resource.

So how do you do it? Here are a couple ways:

• You can make a statement about the results other companies have realized from working with you. For example, I might say this to the VP of Sales: "One of my recent clients was able to set up meetings with 87% of its targeted national accounts within 2 months." I can assure you that the VP is immediately thinking, "How did she do that? I need to learn more."
• You can ask questions that actually get people thinking. For example, when I'm talking to the VP of Sales, I might ask: "What percent of your sales force is prepared to sell effectively in today's volatile economy?" Or, "Have you ever considered that your salespeople's inability to close orders might be a symptom of a much deeper problem?"

These kinds of questions are high value to your prospects. They expand their perspective of their issues and challenges. They stimulate new options and fresh ways of thinking.

So from now on, I want you to think about leveraging your successes, knowledge & expertise to get your prospect to say, "Mmmm. That's interesting. I need to learn more."

YOUR TURN: What questions do you ask that get your prospects' attention?  Share with us!

Whenever I do a sales workshop, I get asked, "How often should I contact my prospects?" Salespeople want to know if once a week is too much -- or if they should wait longer before reaching out again. If this is something you're struggling with, here's a fresh perspective for you.

VIDEO TEXT:

If you're like most sellers, you worry about being a pest. You hate bugging a prospect over-and-over again. But I'm here to tell you something very different today.

It's your responsibility to keep bugging them -- especially if your prospect told you that they're interested and really do want to work with you and then disappear into the black hole. The truth is, they've been sidelined by other priorities. They still want to move ahead, but other more urgent matters have popped up. 

Let me give you an example. I just went to the dentist the other day. They know I want to get my teeth cleaned on a regular basis. But I can think of gazillion other things that take priority over that.

Fortunately, my dentist's office keeps after me. I get a post card about 3 weeks before I'm supposed to go in again. Then they call, but I don't call them back. Then they call again. Now they're emailing me.

I keep putting it off -- even though I know I need to go. Then I get a message that it's past due -- and they're only trying to help me keep my dental health -- like I requested. 

Ultimately, I do what I want to do. But it's only cause they kept after me and focused on why it was important to me.

They didn't just touch base or check to see if anything had change. They just kept reminding me of my priorities. And finally, I set up the meeting.

See what I mean. It's okay to be a visible irritant. It actually helps your prospects.

YOUR TURN: Do you ever feel like a pest when you are prospecting?  How do you overcome that feeling? Share with us!

"Yikes," I exclaimed as a godawful screeching noise filled the car. We were driving downhill on a narrow twisting road in Escalante National Park enjoying the surreal landscape. It was the first day of our long drive home.

"It's the brakes," my husband said calmly. Instantaneously, my eyes widened and my palms started sweating. I looked at the canyonlands far below and immediately realized there were no guardrails on the side of the road.

"It's just a warning sign that they need replacing," he continued. "We'll need to change them when we get back to Minnesota."

I breathed a huge sigh of relief. It was just an alert -- a signal to get our attention that we needed to do something different.

...which got me thinking about all the warning signs our prospects give us.

I'm talking about things like people checking their cell phones during presentations or working on their computer when you're talking to them. Or, even quickly bring up a price objection before they know if you can provide value. These things drive me crazy. They're totally rude.

But, they are also early indicators that our conversation is not resonating with them.

When I recognize that, I now have a choice. I can either continue down the same path -- which ultimately leads to sales disaster. Or, I can change things up to hopefully get a different response. For example, I might:

• Ask a thought-provoking question. It's a great way to reengage a prospect who's mentally checked out.

• Address the obvious. For the multitasking prospect, I simply say, "You sound really busy right now. Let's reschedule."

• Remove the pressure. Anyone who throws up obstacles early hates dealing with product-pushing salespeople. So I might say, "I have no idea if this would be a good fit for you."

These strategies alter the conversation. They provide a jolt. They build trust. And, they're honest responses to the situation.

Your prospect's warning signs are like the screeching car brakes. Pay attention and you won't have any trouble. But keep going down the same path and disaster lies ahead.

YOUR TURN:  What are other sales warning signs? And, how do you handle them? Please share!

Getting a prospect to return your phone calls these days is a real achievement. When that happens, you need to be at the top of your game, ready to quickly engage them in a relevant conversation.

But what happens when you have no idea who's calling?

VIDEO TEXT: After making a bunch of prospecting calls, have you ever had someone call you back and say, "Hi. This is Mike & I'm returning your call."

And you think, Mike? Mike? Mike who? Your mind goes totally blank. You fumble for words and before you know it, you start sounding like a babbling idiot.

It's happened to me too. That's why I had to figure out a way to deal with it. So what I suggest you do.

The minute you feel that panic button hit, say this, "Mike. Thanks so much for calling me. I'm in the middle of a project right now. I'll be done in about 10 minutes. Can you quick give me your phone number and I'll call you right back?"

In virtually all cases, you'll get the number. Then, you go dig through your files and find all the Mikes you called -- and which one has this particular phone number. At this point, you might want to pop over to his company's website so you can refresh your memory here too.

Then, take a few minutes to figure out what you'll say when you get back on the phone. Remember, you want to be prepared. It's the only way you can be seen as the credible resource that you are. So remember, just say, "Mike. Thanks for calling. I'm in the middle of a project right now. Can I get your number & I'll call you back in 10." Got it?

YOUR TURN: How do you handle callbacks from unknown prospects?  Share your story!

Humble leaders are in charge, yet open to asking for help. They're human, but respected.

Leaders who value humility are the ones other people want to follow.

This was a lesson I observed while listening to Denes Kemény, president and head coach of the Hungarian national water polo team, speak at a recent leadership conference in Budapest. Under Kemény's leadership, the national team has won three Olympic gold medals. Water polo, as I learned, is Hungary's claim to sports dominance and that makes Kemény a national icon, the equivalent of Duke basketball coach, Mike Krzyzewski.

While Hungary is now a democracy and embraces free market economics, vestiges of autocracy remain prevalent in many organizations. The person at the top is the chief decision-maker; distributive decision-making is not the norm. And in this regard, Hungary is not unique. Such top down leadership is standard practice in most governmental organizations both abroad and here in the United States.

So when a leader who as revered as Kemény speaks, as he did, of the leader's need to be humble, listeners take notice. He talked movingly about his appointment as a manager of the team, but said he was not the team's leader until he had proven that he was worthy of being trusted and followed. Humility is integral to the development of that earned trust.

Humility, as I have said many times, is not something taught in business schools but it may be one of the most powerful attributes a leader can utilize. But leaders who do not readily accept it may not always be to blame.

What is important to understand is that very often leaders fear humility. I find this is especially true in autocracies where a leader is expected to "know it all and do it all." A leader who is not in total command of facts as well as the levers of power may be viewed as one not worthy of respect. So leaders who act with excessive bravado, even when in over their heads, are doing what is expected of them.

Sadly they view humility as a sign of weakness. They fail to understand that the humble leader is one who can open the door to improved levels of followership. Humility is integral to "Level 5" leadership, a term that Jim Collins uses in his seminal book, Good to Great, to describe those leaders who not only guide but inspire their organizations to achieve superior results.

Keep in mind, a humble leader is fully in charge. She doesn't back down from challenges or fear adversity. She is the one to whom others defer when tough decisions must be made. She is respected. What distinguishes her is perhaps a sense of openness. She is candid, and self-aware. That is, she knows what she can do, and what she can't. Humble leaders surround themselves with people who are encouraged to speak up, especially when they have alternative points of view. Humble leaders are so self-assured that they are willing to seek help when necessary as well as to step up to big challenges that arise.

When a leader expresses humility it opens the door for greater levels of understanding and productivity. "Do you wish to rise?" asked St. Augustine. "Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility."

Humble leaders are those that others not only want to follow but enjoy following because of strong leadership as well as strong humanity.

Cultivate more business by becoming the online face of your company. Tips from Shira Lazar, co-founder of WhatsTrending.com, and Scott Gerber, founder of the Young Entrepreneur Council.

Who knew what Facebook would become when Mark Zuckerberg launched it in 2004? Not these guys.

Hindsight is 20/20. And sometimes, it's just plain funny.

With Facebook's blockbuster IPO upon us, let's take a look back through the company's eight-year history at some of the people and companies who were doubters, haters, and nay-sayers.

Sure, in 2004, no one really expected the then-22-year-old Mark Zuckerberg's student-only social networking site to become a multi-billion dollar company with hundreds of millions of users. Or that that fledgeling start-up would someday grow to make a public stock offering bigger than that of Google.

But in the age of the Internet, it's so easy to say: "Told you so."

Check out some of the worst offenses.

"For many in the dotcom world, 2007 was dominated by one story: the rise of Facebook. The success of the social networking service has increased optimism about the internet industry. After all, if Microsoft is prepared to buy a 1.6% share for $240m (£121m), there is evidence that good ideas can be worth a lot of money. It is no surprise then that investors are looking for the next big thing--and these are some of the favourites." —The Guardian, 2007

"The context of Facebook is 'social networking.' It's all the rage right now--the novelty of connecting or reconnecting, of building your network, of watching the torrent of trivia flow to and from your network of peeps. But ultimately we as people--at least most of us-aren't social networking hobbyists....While it is likely that Facebook will find a viable and scalable business model somewhere within the monthly engagement of 200 million people, its future is anything but certain." —Jim Banister, SpectrumDNA CEO and entrepreneurship professor at UCLA, 2009

"Facebook is a fad. Yes, a FAD!!! You couldn't give a single legitimate argument to prove otherwise (and don't try to feed me that crap line about social networking being around long enough to no longer be a fad… Facebook, a single company, doesn't equate to 'social networking'). People who waste their time chasing fads (especially in marketing) always get burned, wasting more time than they can justify in the long run." —SocialRealist.com, 2007

"Facebook can't afford to screw up. Facebook's U.S. user base grew 56 percent to 22.5 million in April from 14.4 million during the year-ago period, according to Nielsen Online. That was down from a blistering 98 percent growth a year earlier." —Forbes, 2008

"Ross Levinsohn, president of Fox Interactive Media, told an investors conference in New York yesterday, 'It's a great site and I know the guys there well. We're certainly not paying $2 billion for Facebook.'" —MarketWatch, 2006

There's a better way to manage your inbox--let SaneBox do most of the work for you.

Email is a pain. There are simply too many messages to handle—and I'm not even talking about spam from marketers (I use a separate address to collect those emails). The headache is the increasing number of legitimate business messages—it's a humongous time-suck that only seems to be getting worse.

Two years ago I answered nearly every message. A year ago I downgraded to at least trying to read them all. Last winter I started scanning the sender subject fields concentrating on the ones coming from people I knew or looked like they might contain information I needed. And lately, I've been considering closing my account and starting over with a private address reserved for only work colleagues and select sources.

Until, that is, I tried SaneBox.

It's like Gmail's Priority Inbox feature in that it looks at your messages and prior history engaging with those senders and decides which emails you're likely to deem most important.

When you turn on the Priority Inbox feature in Gmail, Google separates your email into three categories: Important and unread, Starred, and Everything Else; all the mail is still in your inbox, but the important messages are up top.

SaneBox is a bit different in that it removes less important messages from your inbox completely, moving them to an @SaneLater folder that you can peruse whenever you want. If SaneBox puts an important message into that folder you can move it to your inbox and it remembers the action so the next time you receive a message from that person, it will go to your inbox.

Priority Inbox is trainable in this way, as well; the more you move stuff around, the better it gets at categorization. But I prefer SaneBox.

SaneBox gives you a custom dashboard including a timeline that graphs how many important and less important emails you get every day. My current average, according to SaneBox, is 81 a day. If I took a minute to read, digest, and respond to each one of them, that's nearly an hour and a half a day going through email. If you figure there's at least 250 work days in a year, I'm spending 375 hours annually on email. That's not acceptable.

In addition to the @SaneLater folder that stores non-essential messages, you can also enable folders such as @SaneNews for newsletters and @SaneBlackHole for those messages you want to send straight to your Trash. (Ha! Finally I'm getting revenge on a certain five-letter-titled fitness magazine that has not let me unsubscribe to its newsletters for two full years!)

And it also has a nifty feature that lets you CC or BCC a message to @SaneBox.com to remind you if someone doesn't respond.

So let's say you need an answer from your boss about a project and you need it no later than two days from now. In the CC field just include the address 2days@SaneBox.com and in two days SaneBox will put the message back in the top of your inbox if she never replied to it. This way you remember to bug her again.

SaneBox also creates an @SaneRemindMe folder that lets you keep track of all the messages to which you still need replies. Use oneweek@SaneBox.com, June5@SaneBox.com or 5minutes@SaneBox.com; it doesn't matter, SaneBox will figure out the time frame you need.

The service is $5 a month and works with email clients such as Microsoft Outlook, Apple Mail, iPhone, and Android and as well most email services like Microsoft Exchange, Yahoo, AOL, and Gmail. The only service it doesn't currently support is Hotmail.