Small Business Blog

Archive for April, 2010

Are you looking for a business partner? What are the ideal qualities one should look for in a business partner? I was reflecting on this today and this article is based on my personal business history.

In my business experience I have learnt that the qualities I look for in a friend are not the same as the qualities I would look for in a business partner. In many cases your friends could possibly make the worst partners!

The ideal business partner is someone who possesses skills that you do not have. This makes the business stronger by enhancing the qualities you can bring to the table in any discussion, negotiation and meeting. It also helps greatly if they are financially very strong and can bring further resources to the table if required.

In my previous business my brother was one of my partners. He was exceptionally good at art and design. He created our first brochure and our website. He helped to create the brand image for our company.

I was good at creating and holding together the team so that the business could grow. Together we created a highly profitable company employing over 45 people.

I believe that the type of partner one should look for is someone who is highly enthusiastic about life. Enthusiasm is infectious and can help you to stay motivated when times are tough. I also like people who are full of ideas and can see opportunity where others can not.

I admire people who refuse to take no for an answer. Persistence is a great quality and often it can be successful. In my previous packaging company my partner called the largest company in Dundee – NCR (National Cash registrars) every three months for over four years only to be told to go away. “Do not call us, we will call you” was the standard response.

In the fifth year they did call us and asked us to quote for over a million dollars of business. The whole process from initial quotation, trialling our products to securing the business took a further three months. They only gave us a chance to quote because of his persistence.

The ideal business partner should also have the same commitment to business as you. In one of my previous businesses I had a partner (also a friend) who was very lazy. This created a lot of friction in the business and almost broke our friendship.

Whatever you do, do not go into business with a person who has a short fuse. People who lose their tempers quickly are much harder to get on with in the long term. One business I was closely associated with had two partners who both had bad tempers. Even though their business had great potential it ended up failing due to their aggressive behaviour towards each other.

If you are going into a business relationship with somebody you do not really know then it is a great idea to carry out a credit check on the individual. If the person has a high credit score this says a lot about their values.

Their hobbies and the organisations they belong to can also help you to understand the person’s true character. Speak to other members of these organisations to find out more about the person you are considering. It might be a good idea if somebody else carried out this research on your behalf.

If you do end up with an ideal business partner who agrees with your plans, goals and ethos of the company it should accelerate your growth. Working with a business partner will provide you with more business opportunities as opposed to working by yourself. Together, you can come up with twice the business ideas and trade leads.

“Back in the good old days”, Fortune 100 companies recruited beautiful women with sexy voices, coiffures, expensive dresses (and brains). They were called “Receptionists”. It was their job to sit at the front desk and be the “face” of the company. After the company name hanging on the wall, the beautiful receptionist was the first thing people saw. The receptionist had to have brains. She had to be tactful and diplomatic in handling whoever contacted the company. She was the front line of what would be called: “Customer Service”.

Today the majority of incoming communication is by telephone and email. A pretty receptionist is nice but not that important. When someone contacts the company, these days, they are likely to encounter the dreaded “telephone tree”. This diabolical device, certainly not invented by customers, can be an additional source of and addition to their frustration, consternation and (frequently) anger. It is not uncommon for customers to be placed on hold for over an hour.

They are calling customer service because they either didn’t get what they wanted or they have a problem. They are not real happy, and what do they get? The Telephone tree.

Bestselling author of Freakonomics Stephen J. Dubner, says, “I am probably typical in that I hate making a customer-service call to just about any large company. The odds of getting useful information in anything under a half hour are pretty slim”. He seems to be the flag bearer for frustrated consumers who want to fight back, “I can imagine that some people won’t be interested in giving out their phone numbers, even to a website that’s providing a free and pretty useful service,” he writes. “I can also imagine that some people may be tempted to exploit this service, getting a customer-service rep on the line and then, since it cost nothing to do so, hanging up on them out of spite for all the past injustices”. Ouch!

IT’S ALL ABOUT YOU!

Is your customer service guilty of causing this kind of frustration? How quickly does your company respond? How long do your callers wait on hold? What do you do to keep customers satisfied, happy and above all: keep them as a customer? Klixxx contacted some industry leaders to get their view. Mary Gillis, Queen of Marketing at FlashCash says, “These days, it is Customer Service who responds to whoever might have a question, complaint or query. The CS person might never be seen. But their ability to reply in a positive manner is what puts a “face” on a company”. According to Ms. Gillis, “The first and most important thing to do is to have dedicated Customer Support Specialists, who are happy and professional”. Klixxx couldn’t agree more.

WHAT IS CUSTOMER SERVICE?

Let’s define the term. Doug Howardell, of ACA Group (Canada) a management consulting firm says, “Customer service is the ability of an organization to constantly and consistently give the customer what they want and need”. If you are in business to provide XYZ and you take the customer’s money but don’t provide XYZ, the customer will probably contact you…duh! They want to get what they paid for. If your company does not give the customer what they think XYZ entails, in a timely manner (making them wait on hold for an hour) then you are not doing a good job of Customer Service.

YOU ARE A SERVICE ORGANIZATION!

You provide an intangible service. You are not selling stainless steel widgets! If yours is a website, then you are a service company! Harmik Gharapetian, of Epoch, who was named the Xbiz Business person of the year, says, “At the heart of what we do, Epoch is a service organization. What makes us stand apart from our competition is the way we handle the customer experience. We’ve concentrated heavily on our philosophy and approach to customer service…the average caller gets to an agent within 5-10 seconds and never has to navigate though a myriad of phone menus. Our agents are trained extensively before taking their first call. I can truly say that our customer service is state-of-the-art”.

THE ART OF KEEPING CUSTOMERS AND THE COST OF LOSING THEM

A lot of professionals know that the cost of acquiring a customer is up to ten times the cost of keeping them. If you are good you can make a great presentation and sell the prospect…once! But the way you handle the bump in the road; how you respond to your customer’s call for service, will determine if that person remains a customer or goes off to your competition.

Professionals will also tell you that it is easier to sell someone you are already selling than it is to establish a new relationship. So, companies frequently bend over backwards to make sure the customer stays a customer.

123Resourcing Customer Service Call Centers offer Customer Support on a pay per call/pay per minute or flat fee per month basis. Fabian Buys of 123resourcing.com says, “When customers take the time to call and complain about charges it means the membership is over. The program has lost a client and incurred a potential chargeback. Our company has standards in place to evaluate a customer’s level of dissatisfaction and offer them the proper alternatives. In certain situations we advise clients to allow us to give their client a 3-6 months complimentary password. For example, if a consumer charged a recurring membership for 6 months, it is beneficial to everyone involved to refund 1 month’s membership charge and give 3 months free access. Versus risking 6 months charge backs, which in reality is 6 separate charge backs, it’s a win – win situation.”

Professionalism is being able to handle the irate caller and keep them as a customer. “This is not a job for random part-timers,” Mary Gillis says. “You need educated, intelligent staff. These people are often the only people who interact directly with your consumers; they are the representatives of your company. If they don’t know their stuff, your company looks foolish”.

YOU NEED A GAME PLAN

A good strategy planning session makes sense. Put down in black and white just what your policy is (or policies are). Who will handle specific kinds of queries or complaints? Mary thinks, “Another important aspect is to ensure that your CS team is included in major decisions. They know how consumers react, they know what sort of issues will come up and (they) can contribute meaningfully to your projects. So, educate your CS Team, keep them in the loop and keep them happy so that they can be the type of representative that YOU would want to answer YOUR questions.”

DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU’RE TALKING TO?

Who is your customer? If you are a doing business in other countries, do you have people on staff who can speak to customers…in their language? Harmik Gharapetian, of Epoch says, “Since the Internet is a global marketplace, we staff our customer service department 24-7-365 and our agents can accommodate customers in over 100 languages”. Now that’s Customer service!

HOW TO PROVIDE EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE!

What can your company do to keep customers happy? Here are some tips:

1. Answer the phone. When someone calls and hears the phone ring and ring, it sends the message that nobody is in the office. And it raises questions. Is the company out of business or incompetent? Are they understaffed? Do they have the capability to handle the customer’s needs? Not answering quickly is a big mistake!

2. Do What You Promise. There is a basic law of CS that Mary Gillis cites and that is doing what you say you will do. “By remembering the one true secret of good customer service and acting accordingly; ‘you will be judged by what you do, not what you say.”

3. Listen to what they have to say, really listen. Customers hate having to repeat their complaint over and over just because the person on the other end isn’t really listening. Active listening, asking questions and determining the problem is very important.

4. Handle the complaint. Find a way to give them the satisfaction they want. It’s an opportunity to be creative or to find the person in your company who can give the customer what they want.

5. Be there for them. Be human. Be nice. Give them a good experience with your company even if you can’t make a sale. By being the Good Samaritan, they will remember you.

6. Teach the staff your philosophy. Make sure the staff all sings the same song. Let them hear you handle some complaint calls so they know your feelings and how you want the job done. They will follow you by example.

7. Go “The Extra Mile.” Just as in #5 above, when you are kind, courteous and respectful, but above all friendly and helpful, people remember you and come back.

8. Offer A Token Gift. As Fabian Buys of 123Resourcing Customer Service Call Centers, does, offer a gift. He gives them 3 months free access. You think they’ll remember that? Damn straight.

Good customer service is the heart and soul of a company with a future. You can offer promotions, price reductions, tie-ins and other incentives, but if your service to your customers – when they really want it – is nonexistent, then your company will need a beautiful receptionist with brains.

“Standard profit and loss statements provide historical data, but don’t allow executives to correct unfavorable trends, measure results of specific strategies, and/or reward outstanding performance,” says Michael Emaus, President and CEO of eEnterprise (www.eEnterprise.com), a global integrator of NetSuite, the world’s leading on-demand business management software. “A P&L is only a scorecard of what happened in the past. The actionable information is in the key performance indicators – the metrics of who is doing what with whom, when and how. This is what we call the 360-degree view of a business, department, and/or location.”

All too often, business teams are hamstrung because they receive untimely information that reports performance rather than actionable metrics. “In a variety of ways, these executives say the same thing: they get balance sheets and profit and loss statements, but they have no way of knowing what’s causing the numbers to trend up or down,” says Emaus. “Because they don’t know the cause of the trend, it is largely unknown whether to focus efforts on certain offices, targeted geographic locations, certain salespeople, specific products, or a particular type of client.”

“In today’s environment, the growth organization needs to think fast, move fast, and embrace change,” says Emaus. With the global economy pressuring the market to build virtual and instant locations, executives need accurate, real-time, standardized information that is accessible to all levels of management and key employees. “That actionable information is especially crucial for growing a business or a multi-location enterprise,” says Emaus, whose company integrates NetSuite for businesses of all sizes, particularly multi-location, global and/or franchise organizations. “Now we are talking about the NetSuite 360-degree view of a business, department, and/or location.”

NetSuite’s two primary advantages are ease of integration and information accessibility. NetSuite integrates its four major components – sales (CRM), back office (ERP), support, and eCommerce – and makes them accessible in one system via the Internet, offering a business owner no limits on growth, management, and reach. According to Emaus, “NetSuite provides a true single view of the customer – the lead, the prospect, the product or service, the invoice, and the support. So, when a salesperson needs a history of buying patterns, they see it in real-time. When someone from accounting wants to see which products or services have been invoiced, he or she can reference the same record as the salesperson. And, when the support staff needs to view the knowledge base, they can refer to the same record and attach alerts back to sales.”

Because NetSuite is an on-demand solution, it triggers positive payback by eliminating the restraints of the traditional client/server environment. The result enables users to access relevant and timely information from anywhere/anytime.

But Emaus emphasizes that the software alone isn’t enough. “Our customers generally understand immediately that an integrated, on-demand Software as a Solution (SaaS) requires business engineers who understand their industries and goals. It requires an understanding in business first, and technology second. Delivering 360-degree collaboration tailored around a variety of industries is the true differentiator for eEnterprise.”

Concludes Emaus, “Larry Ellison pioneered the Internet for the Enterprise. Now he and NetSuite are pioneering it for the SMB market. The Internet has been his baby, and for him to acknowledge that the Small-Medium Size Business (SMB) market is where the drive is tells me he hasn’t lost his game. We’re thankful for that.”

What are small businesses?

Small businesses are businesses with less staff. The staff limit is different for different areas. These businesses are generally owned by individuals or are started in partnerships. Other criterions to decide small businesses are the turnover and profit. The less is the turnover or the profit, the smaller is the business. The smallest businesses are called as ‘micro businesses’ and those managed by families are called as ‘mom’s and pop’s business’. These smaller businesses generally have employees in number from 0 to 10. Many a times, the owners are the workers in these businesses.

Advantages in small business:

The basic advantage of starting a small business is that you need less capital and money to start the business. Also, one can start a small business on part time basis. The basics of a successful business are the regular modifications that one does to it. In small businesses these modifications can be easily done as one does not need to follow any trend or face any compulsions in small business unlike in big businesses. Also, a small business can give much more to its customers than a big one as they have the power to provide each and every customer the required personal attention and take into account all the suggestions and even implement some of them. Small businesses provide daily bread to many a people and thus are very important.

Marketing small businesses:

The most common methods of marketing small businesses are customer referrals, mouth publicity, radios, newspapers, internet, directories, boards, etc. Television ads can be a bit expensive for advertising small businesses. Internet marketing is considered the most cost effective and result oriented method of marketing small businesses. The ads can be placed on websites or even search engine web pages. The costs are decided on the size of the ad and thus can be easily moderated.

Small business ideas:

- Franchisee business: this is one of the extremely profitable ideas of a small business. The only things that you need to start this business are a place and some capital. The best part of this business is that the things that you sell are already quite famous in the market and thus you need to do very little expenses on the marketing.

- Event planner: if you know the knack of organizing things perfectly, then you can become an event planner. You need to plan out meetings, parties, weddings and other such get-together for your customers in the given budget. The best part of this job is that it is extremely interesting and your work does the marketing for you.

- Computer repair: if you have done any hardware or software course or have learned any computer language then you can start the work of computer repairing. You just need to sort out simple problems in computers. The best part of this job is that you get to learn a lot more than you have about computers. But, you should do only the work that you can manage and avoid doing any guess work.

This unique small business financing program offers many benefits, and not just to small business owners. This program allows referrals, and this can help you make a nice sum simply for referring small business owners to the program. The referral program is a situation where everyone involved wins, and there are no losers. This program requires no credit checks, tax returns, or any of the other documentation that is usually required. It is one of the best available small business financing options, and the referral program means that you can earn extra money simply by telling other small business owners about this fantastic program.

Referrals are paid for by the lender to help identify other small business owners who could benefit from this program. Many small business owners have networks of other small business owners, who may belong to the same trade groups or associations. In addition, many of us know people who own a small business and could really use financing right now to help in these tough economic conditions. The referral process is very easy, and takes almost no time at all. Anyone you refer will put your name as the referral source on the paperwork, and when your referral qualifies for the financing then you are paid a referral fee. You get money simply for helping an acquaintance or friend get the money they need for their small business. This financing program is risk free, because the processing fee is completely refundable if you are not one hundred percent satisfied with the amount of financing offered.

The referral program offered by this financing opportunity means you can help out any small business owner you know or meet, and benefit from it. The extra income you can make from referrals can really come in handy, especially with the slow economy and financial crisis that is raging. The best part is that this small business financing program sells itself, because of all the benefits offered and the fact that there are no disadvantages. You do not not to push to sell the benefits of this financing program, once small business owners realize the enormous potential and the ease and convenience offered. Financing is critical for any small business to grow and expand, and the financial crisis has made getting this financing extremely difficult from banks and other traditional lenders.

This new and unique small business financing program is a lifeline to small business who need financing but do not meet the perfect credit and documentation requirements that are needed in the current climate. The referral program means that you can get the small business financing you need plus earn some for telling people about the program you use. Unlike all the other financing options, this program is very flexible, and requires a small amount of documentation. Bad credit is okay and can still get approval. This program has helped many small businesses get back on their feet by providing the financing needed. The fact that you can earn money for telling people about this fabulous financing program is just another benefit, for a program that has many.

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There are a wide variety of techniques that can be used to improve the general ranking of your online home based business on the major search engine sites, including Google, MSN, Yahoo, Ask, and a number of others. Why do you want to improve your website’s ranking? It holds true that the majority of the internet searchers start their search with a visit to one of the major search sites. Therefore, it is good to try to make sure that your own site pops up when potential customers are searching for what you have to offer in your home business endeavor. If search sites can deliver up your website to the computer screen in front of your potential customer, you could be on your way to make the sale-and with absolutely zero spent out of your own pocket for additional advertising. Cutting expense is always a good thing for any business–and online business at home is no exception to this rule. (And advertising can be expensive.) What you would need to have done to attain this free advertising would have been to make small changes to your the content of your website in ways that the search engines see and appreciate, and have your site float up to the top of the listings.

But how show you do this? Search engine logarithms (formulas that that search sites use of determine what is relevant and what is not) have become more and more complex as the internet has matured. This is necessary so that the Google and the other search sites can render precisely what the searcher is seeking, with little duplication or irrelevant content. It is no longer sufficient to simply list your site in a few online directories to achieve good ranking. The more successful the Google searcher is in finding what he/she is looking for, the more likely it is that that individual will return to that search engine for their needs the next time.

One way that search engines use to find relevant content is through keywords. A keyword is just a word or phrase that identifies what you are promoting. Search engines initially go about the task of determining a precise match for the term that the searcher has typed into the search box. If it is a popular search, there will be a vast number of web pages that have some relation to the search term used. If the search was placed in quotations, then the exact phrase will be pursued (if not in quotes, the search site simply looks for the individual words no matter where they may appear on a page.

So then, it is important to use the proper keywordsones that prospects for your product might use when looking for what you have to offer. If your product or service is very unique, it may be easier to select key words that are very specific, and therefore probably used less often, which results in a smaller number of results. Your market is then more targeted. This can be a positive thing because then you are sure that the prospects who search that term desire specifically what you have to offer in your online home business–for instance, “crossword puzzles for children” is a rather specific category.

If you are selling to the business opportunity seeker, however, you’ll find that the search terms can be very popular and therefore harder to specify. Definitely, if there is something particular or unique about your product, this should be reflected in your choice of keywords. What benefits does your product offer that the prospect is looking for? Additionally, you can do a quick check of keyword popularity tools to determine any other terms searchers are using to find the kind of product you have.

Make sure that your key words appear in the proper place on the webpage. By editing your HTML source code, you can find the correct location of your keywords and specify the keywords you prefer. Some search engines look for keywords in a specific place, while others can spider sites to get a sense of overall use of specific terms on a webpage. It is good to learn more about the preferences of the various search engines so that you can optimize your webpage for the search they are conducting. Formatting such as bolding, placement of keywords within a page title, or keywords appearing as a hyperlink can achieve greater significance in search engine page rank, also.

Link exchanges are very popular among webmasters because search engines recognize and still reward a site that is linked to another one, preferably related in subject matter. Having multiple mutual search links with other sites is not only a factor in achieving page ranking, but will likely render much additional traffic in and of itself.

But what is really more preferred by the search engines are backlinks. Backlinks are those one-way links from another site not related to your own. The presence of a backlink “says” to the search engine that another site on the web considers the content of your web site to be sufficiently worthy that they wish to send their own traffic there, with no reciprocal link required.

But beyond the backlinks that may come as others recognize the value of your site over time, you can create backlinks yourself. How? One method is to post comments regularly on large website forums, preferably on sites that are somehow related to your own. At the conclusion of your posts, at the bottom, you may place a “signature” which includes a line about your site and gives its URL. Presumably, if you have posted interesting or valuable comments, readers will want to visit your web site to see what other insights or valuable products you have to offer them. Using your posts to “advertise” the site itself is generally considered a no-no. It is better to write interesting posts related to the thread of the forum topic, and then allow the reader to find you via your website link in the signature if they wish to do so.

Another highly popular way to achieve backlinks is to write articles and post them on internet directories. Articles tend to stay published for a very long time, so a good article can provide some additional traffic flow for yearsso long as your topic is interesting and still relevant. Still another way is to submit your web site to online web directoriessome charge for this, even though many are free.

One thing that the internet does very well is to remember. It remembers forum posts. It remembers articles. It remembers links and backlinks. It remembers your listing in web directories. It is this inherent memory that can serve to greatly improve your bottom line. Do the work once to optimize keywords, and to achieve some one-way and two-way linking, and you may financially benefit for a very long time to come.