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December 28, 2005

Small Business Branding As A Small Business Idea

How about providing a one stop shop branding sloution for small start up businesses

If you're looking for an idea in 2006 that is innovative and provides products and services to a market with customers who want to spend their money a web-based design service that helps small businesses to choose the right identity design package offers great possibilities.

A web based design service that helps small businesses in choosing their corporate identity and brand their products by using web-based design flow application could be a winner.

Such a service could be based on wizard that walks small businesses through the process of picking from an array of branding packages quickly and easily. You could make it a step-by-step design flow application that walks your customers through the process of picking a website, website maintenance plans, logos, design services and print services.

There is definately a need for this kind of service since many small business owners are new to the process of creating a corporate identity and they tend to be very busy. developing service wizard will help small business entrepreneurs get their identity project off the ground easily and quickly.

You could add an array of cost-effective services for our small business customers. As your unique selling propositio, you could include the fact that you provide a one-stop-shop for small business branding that provides small start up businesses services wizard that creates a solid end-to-end branding solution at the right price.

You could also add video and audio to assist small business customers learn about the products and services you provide.

You message to your clients should be simple; "Think Big.”. Think about how Google was started in a college dorm by two brilliant guys and now dominates the internet advertising market with innovative ideas.

David
Small Business Resource

Posted by David at 6:29 AM | Comments (0)

December 27, 2005

Videos As Small Business Ideas For 2006

Producing videos in 2006 is a small business idea that's fit for the times.

As 2005 comes to an end many small business entrepreneurs will reflect on what went well and what did not do so well in 2005. Those who are forward looking with their ears to the wall will read the times and conclude that 2006 will be a year where multimedia finally makes its presence felt.

With Google, Yahoo and MSN all grearing up for showing videos and web site visitors crying out for personalization coupled with the take up of broadband, small businesses, with their unique voice can take advantage of the rich opportunities that are being unfloded.

Producing videos for the web is cheap and there are many resources available that small business entrepreneurs can pruchase to develop a wide range of video tutorials, guides, product reviews and even their newsletters. If you own a digital camcorder you can quickly get your videos on the Internet.

One marketer that is highly regarded and who use videos in his newsletter is Jim Edwards. Here's what Jim has to say about 2006 in relation to developing videos for the internet:

Online Video Predictions For 2006

- by Jim Edwards

© Jim Edwards - All Rights reserved
http://www.thenetreporter.com
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

About this time every year I make a few predictions about what will rate "HOT" for the coming year in the online world. Last year, among other things, online audio topped my list for 2005.

This year, 2006, I see full-motion online video as the "killer app" to revolutionize website communications and ecommerce.

Bottom line: with a digital camcorder and some basic software, you can transform your website into the Home Shopping Network, and with distribution tools like Video.Google.com and video Podcasting on Apple's iTunes, you can broadcast to the masses just like CNN.

Several major changes in 2005 set the stage for full-motion video online.

These include faster, cheaper computers, improved video creation and conversion software, and widespread adoption of the free "Flash" Web browser plug-in (works on PC and MAC).

Combine these changes with the fact that over 50% of all Internet users in the United States got high-speed access as of 2005, and you set the stage for an online video revolution.

In 2006, you will see the equivalent of little online TV stations cropping up all over the Internet.

Along with the free-form, "anything goes" content of video blogging (vlogging), commercial use of full-motion video will fall into 4 basic categories.

Website "Infomercials" - Any savvy business knows the Internet actually represents the largest direct-response advertising medium ever seen.

As such, infomercial techniques of late-night fitness, self- improvement, and real estate gurus will spill over into other niche markets online.

Though initially not 30-minutes long like their TV counterparts, online infomercials will last 2-5 minutes - long enough to get all the main sales points across.

Live Demonstrations - If a picture is worth a thousands words, then full-motion video is worth 100,000 words!

Any product that easily gets sold once people see it in action will greatly benefit from online video.

Also, service businesses such as Realtors can now easily and inexpensively create full-motion video home tours.

And, sellers on the popular eBay auction site can now show and demonstrate their items rather than depending strictly on text and static pictures to make the sale.

Before and After - Anyone selling a diet product, skin care, cleaning, car repair or other product promising specific results for the end user can now "show and tell" using full- motion online video.

Imagine the impact of showing concrete evidence in "before and after" video to help you make the sale online.

Product Testimonials - Despite widespread acceptance of online shopping and ecommerce, many people remain skeptical and somewhat leery of purchasing anything online, especially based strictly on promises made on a website.

With video testimonials you can put their minds at ease by showing video of people who used and benefited from the product or service.

Imagine the impact that will have on the trust and credibility for any website.

A word of caution to all would-be online videographers: dial-up users still make up a huge part of the online population, so you must always try to offer them a dial-up- friendly option to watch your video or receive your information.

Don't cater strictly to the high-speed crowd because you'll alienate a significant portion of the marketplace.

--
Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the creator of an amazing course that will teach you step-by- step and click-by-click how to finally create your own money-making mini-sites...

-=-=-==-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
"Finally! A Quick and Easy Way For YOU to Painlessly Set Up Your OWN Moneymaking 'Mini' Websites... Without Being a Computer Geek, Buying Expensive Software, or Paying Outrageous Fees To A Webmaster!"

Click Here => http://www.MiniSiteCreator.com
-=-=-==-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Posted by David at 9:26 PM | Comments (0)

December 26, 2005

Small Business owners Planning To Retire From Their Business

Eighty percent of small business owners surveyed are happy running their businesses and have no intention of retiring.

Starting a small business and steering it until it is a thriving and profitable concern takes hard work and lots of dedication and motivation. It is no wonder that many small business owners, especially those who have been immersed in their business find it hard to imagine the day when they'll have to let go and turn their backs on their "baby".

A new Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index finds that 80 per cent of small business owners surveyed are happy running their businesses and have no intention of retiring at 65. Almost 40% say the only thing that would force them to retire is their health.

We started this business with our hearts and our minds and are extremely passionate about its success. It would be very difficult to just walk away from what we have built and 'retire' completely," said Nancy Fe Tom, owner of the Architectural Company in Tucson, Arizona. "I will always have an interest in the success of this company and will be committed to continuing that success for as long as I can."

Listed below is the result of the survey. See where you feature is the survey results:

Survey Results of Entrepreneurs Planning to Retire From Their Business
A new Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index finds that eight of ten small business owners surveyed are happy running their businesses and have no intention of retiring. Presented below are the survey results. See if you agree with the survey statistics.
Survey	You	Statictical Results
		42% of small business owners surveyed indicate they may cut on work, but will never completely abandon their business
		66.6% of small business owners expect their business to continue operating after they have retired. Plus 41% from this expect someone in their family to keep the business going.
		19% plan on traditional retirement
		41% of those business owners who expect their businesses to carry on beyond their working years
		34% expect sell their business to someone from outside the business
		21% say they will sell it to one or more employees in the business.

Posted by David at 1:49 PM | Comments (0)

December 24, 2005

Successful Small Business Marketing Strategies: Word of Mouth Advertising And Customer Satisfaction

As a small business owner you should influence what your customers are saying about you.

The purpose of these articles on small business marketing is to improve your marketing which is often neglected or reduced to secondary importance. An aspect of your marketing that can have a multiplier effect is "customer word-of-mouth". To help you improve your marketing in this area let an expert marketer (Dan Kennedy) with invaluable experience on this topic guide you on towards improving your marketing in this area.

The main objectives of these articles on "customer word-of-mouth-advertising" and customer satisfaction are:

#1: To give you some ideas that may make your contact with your customers or clients more pleasant and enjoyable,

#2: To give you some ideas that may make your job a little less stressful,

#3: To give you some ideas that may give you an added edge in understanding other people and engineering cooperation from them, and

#4: To give you some ideas that may help you in advancing yourself.

These articles focus on you and the customer. Where we believe the action is in business today. The experts and the research behind best selling business books as, In Search of Excellence, have reeducated American business about the value of recognizing the importance of the
customer.

Quality is a frequently used business buzz word and much time and energy is devoted to talking about the quality of a company's products, quality of services, quality control in the manufacturing plant but probably most important is the quality of customer relations.

To begin let's look at the core of the problem then why the solutions are so important. In looking at all the available research data about customer and client behavior, we found that on the average a satisfied customer will tell about three other people about his satisfaction with a particular product, service, place of business or company.

That's often called word-of-mouth advertising and is widely recognized as the most effective kind of advertising of all. Think about it doesn't a trusted friend's recommendation or opinion about a place of business carry more weight in influence with you than all other types of advertising that business or its competitors may do. Obviously what a customer says about a business can have great affect on other people. From a positive standpoint it's possible for this word-of-mouth advertising to make a big contribution to the growth of a business.

Consider this little math game. If one happy customer creates three more who each create three who each create three who each create three who each create three who each create three you've got 2,217 customers.

This story has a flip side though. The same research indicates that on the average a dissatisfied customer gripes to eleven other people. This shouldn't be surprising. Bad news or negativity seems to spread faster and farther than good news. When you're irritated, annoyed or disappointed with a business you probably tend to tell that story to a lot of people too.

This negative or critical word-of-mouth advertising is powerful also. It can stop people from doing business with a company who might otherwise have done so. If you want to think about this in shear numbers it only takes one dissatisfied customer to wipe out the positive affect in the marketplace of four satisfied customers.

All this only serves to reinforce the obvious it's very desirable for you to do everything possible to insure that its customers have satisfactory experiences whenever they call, come in or transact business.

In the next SSuccessful Small Business Marketing Strategies article, we'll pick up with the third fact uncovered by all our research to reveal the truth about how to deliver customer satisfaction and just how challenging it is to do so.

D Kennedy

Posted by David at 11:25 AM | Comments (0)

December 23, 2005

Successful Small Business Marketing Strategies- Why 85 Percent of Small Businesses Fail

Why 85 Percent of small businesses fail?

Here are some specific ideas or processes that you can use to promote, to market yourself, your products, your services, your small business, whatever it is that you are involved with.

The next key concept is an 'organized presentation. There are some problems that we have to deal with today in communicating with people.

First is a thing called the attention span. There is NONE. It's very important for you to know that. Many years ago during a Super Bowl there was a big event that happened in television for those of us in marketing. It was the 15-second commercial instead of the 30-second commercial.

There are several reasons why this was done.

1. They could get more commercials in per hour than they could obviously before.

2. Although the 15-second spot will cost more per second than the 30-second spot does, the 15-second spot in dollars cost less than the30-second spot so some advertisers who could not before afford television advertising now can afford television advertising, which makes the pool of perspective advertisers bigger.

3. This is really an interesting reason why it was done. It was because of the declining attention span of the American public.

Think about it. How many TV watchers have a remote control for their TV? Everybody... right! Okay. How often do you click onto another channel when a commercial comes on? If you drive through a neighborhood at night now very quietly with your windows down you can hear click, click, click, click, click. Those aren't crickets folks; those are people clicking from channel to channel to channel trying to find a car crash.

The next key concept is a lost art which is salesmanship. Even sales people today don't really sell. The great masters of salesmanship generally tend to be older individuals not younger individuals. Every once in a while you'll run across one.

Unfortunately, most sales people today are order takers and you won't excel as an order taker.Great salesmanship is what Paul Parker called it in his book, which you can't find in the bookstores but you can find in the libraries, Tact and Skill in Handling People.

Contrary today, we try and get things done by brute force, partially because we're in such a hurry. We're so rushed and you practice salesmanship, the way you get great at salesmanship is you practice it all the time. You don't just do it in the narrow parameter of selling an item to someone. You do it in every relationship, you do it in every conversation, and you do it in every encounter with people.

Now Napoleon Hill made a recording many years ago called, "Sell Your Way Through Life." And he said that's the onlyway you will get through life and get what you want is if
you sell your way through life.

You know that the failure rate in small business in this country is very high. At least 85% and maybe as high as 98% of new small businesses fail before they hit the five year mark and the statisticians and the accountants will tell you that they believe that the reason for that failure is under capitalization and poor fiscal management.

I can point you to small businesses that have failed with enough money to do everything they needed to do ten times over. And some management consultant will tell you its poor management ability. I suggest to you what it is in most cases is that the small business owner decided that once he or she was in business they didn't have to sell.

Many people in many types of small businesses believe they don't have to sell. For example, Doctors believe that they don't have to sell. There are a lot of restaurant owners who believe that. There's a lot of retail store owners who believe that we open the doors and the customers come to us and we don't have to sell anyone. That's why we got business.

You obviously have some method you use to promote what it is that you do or you wouldn't even be in existence. But you probably only have one method or two methods or three methods thatyou use. The more methods the more business. Diversity is the creative opposite of laziness. So you need to think how can I use more methods to attract people to do business with me than any other competitor will use? The more methods the more business. Hopefully that thinking process has begun to take place for you today.

D kennedy

Posted by David at 8:28 AM | Comments (0)

December 22, 2005

How To Stop Your Small Business From Failing

Business failures are predicted to rise next year based on recent study and the bulk of failures will be small businesses. Here's how to ensure the survival of your small business.

But first,

According to a study carried out by BDO Stoy Hayward, the professional services firm, released recently, the number of businesses crashing will rise before falling back again in 2007.

The study suggests that 17,303 businesses failed this year, 9 per cent more than in 2004. BDO Stoy Hayward expects the number of failures overall to rise by another 4 per cent to 18,052 next year, as the full effects of the slowdown are felt, before fallingback to low levels in 2007 as economic growth improves.

If you run a small business you must take action now to ensure that your small business will survive the crash.

You'll find some useful tips on how to ensure your business survive in the downturn by reading the following article: "Surviving A Business Downturn"

David
Small Business Resource

Posted by David at 4:56 PM

December 20, 2005

UK Entrepreneurs With Flair Are USA Bound To Develop Their Business Ideas

tudents that exhibit entrepreneurial flair are to be sent to the USA to make the most of their business ideas at the expense of British taxpayers.

Under the plan that was announced by the Chancellor Gordon Brown, the government wants to add summer schools for budding entrepreneurs to the requirement that children should receive five days a year of education that promotes entrepreneurialism.

Enterprise teaching in schools, which is backed with £60m of funding from the department of Education, was introduced to encourage young people to act on their business ideas. However, head teachers are concerned because they cannot see how they can fit the subject of entrepreneurialism into an already busy curriculum. They are also concerned about the lack entrepreneurial skills among teachers to adequately teach the subject.

How Do You Teach Students To Be Entrepreneurs?

Teaching students to be entrepreneurs in a traditional school setting that is more concerned about teaching to pass exams and working for an organization instead of working for yourself poses many challenges.

Heads, Teachers and Industry, an organization that builds business links with education, said many schools lacked the skills and knowledge to put the plan into action. HTI is launching a scheme for business people to be seconded for five days to help with enterprise programmers in schools.

Anne Evans, chief executive of HTI, said: "young people can be put off by business as they see it as boring but at the same time they think IPods are exciting. We need to demonstrate to young people that business is not just about figures but also the products and services they use everyday. It's about motivation rather than teaching them about profit and loss."

It is crystal clear that neither the government nor teachers have the slightest notion about what it takes to be an entrepreneur. For a start, let's forget the term entrepreneurialism because it's meaning is not helpful to the nuts and bolts of starting a business and successfully steering that business through the ups and downs of real life challenges where you learn to survive on a daily basis.

Learning to be an entrepreneur by reading books written by academics who have never been in business, who have never sold anything "door-to-door, nose-to-nose and toes-to-toes" is completely useless; a complete waste of time and good taxpayer's money.

So How Can You Teach Students To Be Take Risks And Be Entrepreneurs?

Learning from books written by entrepreneurs who have been successful at starting and running their own business can help as well being mentored by these same entrepreneurs. Encouraging and assisting entrepreneurs with their ideas can also help as this puts the onus of success on the budding entrepreneur. This is where the seeds of business ideas can germinate and with some watering, can develop into viable businesses.

Networking with other entrepreneurs is a MUST if you want to leverage your time and resource. This is an area that entrepreneurs cannot learn is the classroom. Yet, this area alone can make a massive difference to anyone in business, particularly small businesses.

Finally, we get down to the heart of what drives entrepreneurs and individuals wanting to be in business for themselves rather that opting for the safer less stressful option of working for a company in a paid job. What motivates some people to take risk and start their own business is a question that has different answers, depending on the entrepreneur you pose the question to.

If the government and schools want to really encourage young people to be entrepreneurs then they should first seek out entrepreneurs of all colours and backgrounds and get then to set the curriculum and provide the framework. That's what I would do if I wanted to foster entrepreneurialism among young British students.

What do you think?

David
Small Business Resource

Posted by David at 6:51 PM

December 15, 2005

“Why Small Businesses Should Leverage Their Marketing Through Joint Ventures”

If you're a small business owner with a limited marketing and advertising budget then you cannot afford to leave out joint ventures from your marketing and advertising mix.

I've just returned from a joint venture seminar / workshop held by Michael Penland in Orlando, Florida. I traveled eighteen hours roundtrip (London to Florida return) because I wanted to build relationships with small business owners in the USA.

Given the size of the USA small business sector and that many visitors to my web site are from the USA the decision to go to the USA was an easy one. If you are a small business owner marketing on the Internet and your web stats tells you that you should be leveraging your marketing by forging partnership with companies in countries where your traffic comes from then you better act on the intelligence.

The conference / workshop was a total success. Not only did I met and shake hands with real life millionaires; I was also able to discuss my business and how we could work together in the future on joint venture deals.

There were many highlights from my trip, perhaps the most memorable was discussing with Glen Turner (arguably the world's greatest speaker - according to Dan Kennedy) how he trained Anthony Robins, who is arguably the most popular motivational speaker / coach alive.

These are just some of the highlights from joint venture business trip to the USA:

1. Met with and discuss joint venture opportunities that could generate millions of pounds / dollars in 2006

2. While cash flow and profits are the currency that drives your efforts, the bottom line is financial freedom or "being able to live the life you choose with the independence that money gives you".

3. Being totally honest in the way you treat your customers, your business partners and more important, being honest with yourself.

4. You will fail if you try to do it all by yourself. This is perhaps the most important piece of advice I learnt. Leveraging is key to your success.

5. Outsource those activities that stop you from spending time being productive. If you're wasting time trying to do everything yourself when you should be marketing, your business will suffer and eventually fail. Look at the opportunity cost of your efforts and outsource those activities that can be done cheaper by someone else.

6. Emulate and Copy successful strategies instead of wasting time trying to reinvent the wheel. Develop and work a success oriented system.

7. Invest in your marketing education instead of investing in products that you file on your bookshelf or in your garage where they gather dust.

8. Develop your business plan and work you plan. Take incremental steps towards reaching your ultimate goals.

9. Develop mental toughness and train your mind (brain) daily to experience the full gratification and pleasure or your goals being realized.

10. Take action now, today and stop procrastinating.

David
Small Business Resource

Posted by David at 3:18 PM | Comments (0)

December 8, 2005

Small Business Tax: Urgent Issues Task Force Abstract 40 (UITFA 40)

Small businesses face higher taxes due to change in accounting rules relating to short term contracts work in progress under UITFA 40

The new accounting rules will impact professional services firms and tradesmen. Because the new accounting rules relating to short-term contracts could result in a high one off tax charge the treasury is expected to introduce spreading relief to reduce the impact.

Chas Roy-Chowdhury, head of tax at the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, said he expected the treasury to give small and medium size companies the ability to spread the extra tax charge over three to five years.

Accountancy representatives and the Law Society have lobbied Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, to spread the tax charge over 10 years.

It warned the Treasury that many businesses would struggle even with a 10-year spreading, and that anything shorter than that will see a lot of small businesses folding.

A survey of their members, conducted by the Treasury found that 25% of small businesses faced an increase in their tax bill of more than 50%.

A further 17% of businesses faced a tax bill that will more than double.

David
Small Business Resource

Posted by David at 6:05 PM | Comments (0)