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Business Ideas Business Trends Entrepreneurs Entrepreneurship Sales & Marketing

Hot New Entrepreneurial Enterprises To Consider

Sometimes, smaller is better–just ask the small business entrepreneurs also called micropreneurs flourishing in today’s marketplace. A growing set of entrepreneurs are building successful businesses by serving a niche market. Micropreneurs aren’t trying to become the next Bill Gates or Larry Ellison. They’re thriving small-scale on the strength of a loyal customer base and utilizing social business networking and utility tools to help with sales lead generation.
Micro-Enterprises Rely on E-Commerce Solutions

Micropreneurs are rewriting the rules of small business–and they’re relying on the internet to make their business model work. A New York Times feature on startups explains: “the Internet has given people an extraordinary tool not only to market their ideas but also to find business partners and suppliers, and to do all kinds of functions on the cheap: keeping the books, interacting with customers, even turning a small idea into a big idea.”Thanks to a range of online small business resources, today’s micropreneurs have the resources to build their venture on a shoestring budget.
With minimal upfront investment, you can:
1. Create an Internet storefront for retail sales. E-commerce solutions can create a Web site with point-of-sale (POS) capability. Online POS systems enables secure credit card processing on your site, allowing you to keep the doors open 24/7.
2. Reach your niche market. Online sales lead generation and marketing tools excel at targeting interested consumers and businesses.
3. Communicate with your customers via online business networking tools, a blog, or social networking tools. Social media sites offer powerful resources for finding your needle in the haystack, also known as your niche customers and partners. They can also help you keep in touch; today’s customer service agents use online media such as twitter, facebook, tradeseam and email correspondence to connect with the public.
4. Need niche supplies or equipment to launch your niche business? Tradeseam connects entrepreneurs and suppliers of all stripes. You’ll find business resources including manufacturing companies, international suppliers, and everything under the sun online.
5. Web-based technology offers a range of resources for small business owners. Time-tracking software and online accounting programs are just two examples of today’s affordable, productivity-enhancing business tools.
6.The Internet offers the reach and low startup costs to support a niche business.
7. For many micropreneurs, the Eureka moment–the business idea–derives directly from a personal passion.
The following entrepreneurs built a following–and a profitable business–catering to like-minded individuals.

Specialty Food Carts

El Dorado tacos? Chow Fun to go? More and more specialty food carts are cruising urban neighborhoods, with offbeat menus to serve the random craving. Restaurant consultant Clark Wolf notes: “Mobile food is one of the hottest things going all over the country. Brooklyn has its ribs truck, Manhattan has its dessert trucks, and now Los Angeles has the cupcake patrol.”
Specialty food carts rely on social networking tools such as Twitter, Facebook to broadcast their coordinates. The strategy seems to work. L.A.’s Kogi taco truck draws between 300 and 800 by tweeting its location in advance, “setting off a taco-minded flash mob.”
Pedicab
A physically fit duo in Spokane, Washington has pedaled to success with a pedicab service. Cheaper and more eco-friendly than a cab, the bike-based taxi is finding no shortage of riders around the downtown area. To get the wheels rolling in your own leg-powered cab service, you’ll need pedicabs, licenses, insurance, and a local marketing campaign. Once you’ve gained a loyal ridership, you can establish a call center or online-based dispatch service linking riders to your mobile phone.
Guerilla Marketing Agency
Seattle businesses looking to make a unique statement can count on Wexley School for Girls to get the job done. The agency uses off-the-wall guerilla marketing stunts to build publicity for clients. For example, they created a buzz around Copper Mountain ski resort by staging a National Snow Day with improv ski-patrol actors and fake snow. The stunts aren’t for everyone; “either you get what Wexley is selling–a very particular sensibility and approach toward marketing–or you don’t,” comments an admirer. But the agency isn’t looking for mass appeal: “Wexley is biting off little pieces, looking to take on a particular niche of a business.”
Build your own businesses staging publicity events for businesses. Start with an eye-catching Website Design and online marketing campaign to get the word out. As the costs of running a business come down, micro-enterprises are flourishing. These small businesses focus on a loyal niche, taking advantage of online business networks to communicate with customers, source, distribute, and to manage the venture.
In today’s Internet-driven economy, it’s no longer necessary to chase the next big thing. A great small idea can take you even further.
NirmalKumarPhoto.jpgNiki is an entrepreneur, business consultant and advisor to several small business entrepreneurs in the San Francisco bay area. She writes extensively on the small business blog and is a frequent contributor to several small business resource and networking sites that offer tools and resources for entrepreneurs and small business owners, including Tradeseam, Dell, Women On Business and Small Business Community.

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Business Trends Entrepreneurs Entrepreneurship Human Resource Legal Operations Planning & Management

What Every Small Business Owner Should Know About Background Checks

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Your employees are your business’ most expensive asset. According to one estimate, up to a third of a person’s salary is devoted strictly to hiring costs. The cost of hiring the wrong employee is even more- reportedly up to twice an employee’s annual salary. Making smart hiring decisions can be tough- you want an employee that has the requisite skills, qualifications, and certifications, but you also want someone that’s the “right fit” for your business. While it’s relatively easy to verify whether or not an employee graduated from a particular institution or has a driver’s license in a certain state using a background check, the “good fit” question can be a little bit more complicated.
Social Media Searches in Hiring
The Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act defines a “consumer report” as “…any written, oral, or other communication of any information by a consumer reporting agency bearing on a consumer’s credit worthiness, credit standing, credit capacity, character, general reputation, personal characteristics, or mode of living….” You’re not the only one thinking that that description is a little vague. A social media search, especially when conducted by a third party as part of a background check, can constitute a “consumer report” for legal purposes. A social media search also typically reveals all kinds of information that is “off limits” for consideration during the hiring process- for example, a person’s race, age, marital status, etc. You can’t consider these characteristics or a host of additional factors- for example, whether the person is pregnant, disabled, or belongs to a certain religious group. Even if you come across this information when you’re not specifically looking for it (as with a social media search), it’s impossible to unring the bell. What’s worse, information may not even be accurate- you may end up discounting a great prospect because of information they weren’t even aware was posted.
Disclosure and Consent
The best policy (if you want to avoid liability) is one of full disclosure- tell the prospective employee that you will perform an online search. The FRCA requires notice to prospective employees whenever you prepare a consumer report (as defined above)-whether you prepare it yourself or use an employment background check service. Outsourcing employment screenings can be a great idea for businesses that aren’t sure about the regulations, procedures, and policies that they need to comply with to perform a legal background search. Though legal opinions vary with respect to social media searches in hiring, it’s better to err on the side of caution- and FRCA compliance.
About the Author
MerrinMuxlowPhoto.jpgMerrin Muxlow is a writer, yoga instructor, and law student based in San Diego, California. She writes extensively for Resource Nation, a company that provides resources for business owners, and is a frequent contributor to several sites and programs that offer tools for entrepreneurs, including Dell and BizEquity.

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Online Business

Social Media: Strategy First, Tools Second

One of the biggest benefits of social media marketing is how easy it is to get started. Anyone can sign up for a Twitter account, or a Facebook account and start using them right away. It’s easy to put up a blog, and, of course, to engage in the conversation.
But the thing to remember is that the ease of use of social media tools does not directly correlate to how effective they will be for your business objectives. Stated another way, you need to think social media strategy first, and tools second.
Very often, people get overloaded with social media simply because they don’t have a strategy. Someone says they should be on Facebook- so they join. Someone says to get on Twitter, so they do. Someone else says to stay connected via LinkedIn- and they do. And it goes like this, on and on, because the number of sites you “should” be on will never stop increasing- and there are hundreds more social media sites coming online each day.
If you constantly jump from site to site, you risk wasting time and losing money.
Instead, start by considering your social media strategy. If you don’t have one yet, let me offer some suggestions and advice for building one:
1) Understand what business objectives you want to reach by engaging in social media. Business objectives might include outcomes such as increasing your network, becoming more visible, positioning yourself as the top expert in your field. Business objectives may also include outcomes such as growing your database, increasing blog visitors, and improving your online reputation. While several of these can be accomplished in parallel, for the most part, stick with one objective at a time. What is the one outcome right now that would move your business forward in the most significant way?
2) Acknowledge the time frame for your business objective. Social media is not a quick hit strategy and it can take a certain amount of focused effort to start seeing returns. If your time line for results is too short, you will feel like you’ve wasted time. If your time line is too long, you’ll feel frustrated, when it seems like results aren’t happening fast enough. For example, if you want to add 100 names to your database, you can probably accomplish this in 4-6 weeks. If you want to position yourself as the top authority in your niche, it will probably take a bit longer, especially if there is a reasonable amount of competition. Right-size your time line to the size of your business objective.
3) Focus on depth rather than breadth. While it can be tempting to be join 100 social media sites, you risk spreading yourself too thin, and diluting your resources. Better to select 2, 3, or 4 sites which you can commit to participating on regularly, than joining 100 sites you never have time to access. Repetition is an important element of building recognition and reputation. Focus deeply on a select group of sites, and participate as fully as possible.
4) Test your levels of participation to define how much is enough. There will be a sweet spot in terms of time put in and results obtained. This is true for any business process. Try participating very fully for two weeks, and see what your results are. Participate slightly less often in week three, and see if your results change. By focusing on measuring one specific business objective, you’ll have a good sense of how much effort you need to make on the social sites in order to reach your desired results.
5) Adopt new technology thoughtfully. There are multiple tools you can use to implement your social media strategy. Typically, you want to use the tools which are easiest, most cost-effective, and which provide the best results. Don’t adopt every new technology blindly, but then, on the other hand, don’t delay when a new technology can help you accomplish your business goals faster or easier.
Remember, the ease of use of social media tools does not correlate with their effectiveness in your business. Craft your strategy first, and then use tools to execute it. That’s the right order for business success.
RachnaJainPhoto.jpgDr. Rachna Jain is Chief Social Marketer at The Mindshare Corporation. Rachna works with speakers, consultants, authors, and small business owners to develop and execute effective social media marketing strategies. Her proprietary persuasive social media process (sm) focuses on building influence, credibility and visibility online. This translates into greater recognition, increased website traffic, faster lead generation, a shorter sales cycle, and more opportunity for her expert clientele. She blogs regularly at The Mindshare Blog

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Operations Technology

Quick Guide to Electronic Document Storage

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We all know that using less paper is good for the planet and can lead to big savings on business costs. You’ve probably heard the little tricks to reduce paper waste: you shouldn’t print all of your emails, you should purchase a refurbished copier and “green” supplies, and you should always research your equipment purchases (for items like copiers) to find the most energy-efficient options. Even offices that use all of these practices to cut back on paper waste can cancel out their efforts by continuing to store documents the “old fashioned” way- in paper files.
Paper document storage is typically more time consuming, waste producing, and error-prone than an electronic document storage system. Why not switch to a more effective, less expensive method of document management? Electronic storage equipment is becoming more advanced and easier to use, and recent data indicates that most companies recover the costs of a data storage system itself in about a year. Here is a quick guide to electronic document storage options for small businesses:
Document Management Software: This is the backbone of any electronic storage system. Document management software is what allows you to scan, convert, save, and retrieve files electronically. The most effective systems employ OCR, or Optical Character Recognition, which allows scanned images to be converted into text, and search functions that allow you search for miscategorized items. Document management software ranges from the basic (free, downloadable programs like SimpleOCR) to the advanced (hosted solutions costing thousands of dollars a month).

Storage Options:
You can store data on your own server, or use a hosted solution. Hosted storage relies on an internet connection, and doesn’t require any large cost outlays for equipment. If you choose the self-storage option, you’ll need to purchase hardware and software outright before you implement the program.
Scanning Services: Documents will need to be scanned before you can access them electronically. Most software programs with OCR require a high-quality scanner- some digital copiers can perform scanning functions, and most basic office color copiers are usually compatible with document storage software programs. If you have a large volume of documents to scan, it’s a good idea to invest in a high-speed scanner or to hire a document scanning service. If you’re hiring a scanning company, you’ve got options- you can have the documents scanned on-site (especially convenient for those companies with large storage needs or very sensitive documents) or can ship them to a scanning service provider. You’ll need to decide how far you want to “back scan” and if you want to keep any paper files.
MerrinMuxlowPhoto.jpgMerrin Muxlow is a writer, yoga instructor, and law student based in San Diego, California. She writes extensively for Resource Nation, a company that provides resources for business owners, and is a frequent contributor to several sites and programs that offer tools for entrepreneurs, including Dell and BizEquity.

Categories
Entrepreneurs

5 Ways to Effectively Manage Your Business for Successful Business Growth

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Let me share a secret with you that many successful online solopreneurs already know – you have to manage your business before you can market your business, and if you’ve been with me for a while you’ve no doubt heard me say this many times!

So, if you can answer YES to at least ONE of these questions then you know you are not effectively managing your business:

* Do you feel overwhelmed at the start of each day – you don’t know what to do first?
* At the end of each day do you feel like you’ve achieved nothing, yet you’ve been ‘busy’ all day?
* Do you find projects/clients are falling through the cracks?

These are some of the classic signs of a LACK of systems – you’re not effectively managing you business so how can you effectively market your business? You don’t have your core systems in place and your business is running you when it should be you running your business!

Let me share with you now five ways you can start to manage your business so that you can effectively market and grow your business:

1. Review your current systems. The first thing you need to do is look at the systems you currently have in place. What is it that constantly frustrates you, or that you feel you are spending too much time on? Are you continually searching around looking for an email address? Or cannot tell at a glance if your project is on track? Make a list of where you feel the problems are – these are your time drains. This is where you need to make improvements in your systems so that they work for you and not against you.

2. Set about creating your core office organization systems. Now that you know where the problems are you can begin to take steps to improve them – in other words you can now start creating your core systems! A system is simply a description of HOW you do something. For example, how do you create a new client file? How do you handle new client enquiries? Look at those areas you’ve already identified as your time drains and decide how these time drains can be turned into a system. List all of the steps you take in a process from start to completion – these steps will form your system.

3. Systemize repetitive tasks. If you find yourself doing the same task over and over again then you need to create a system for it. One example could be you’re answering the same client enquiries again and again. The easy way to resolve this is to put all those questions together in one place and create an email template. The next time a client asks you a question you simply open the email template, put their email address in the ‘To’ field, and hit send! Or, an alternative option would be to create a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page on your website and direct enquiries there.

4. Create a calendar template. Now that you have your core systems in place, start and look at how your work week is structured. Create a calendar template that blocks out time for certain activities, i.e. you might decide that Friday is your business development day, Monday is for marketing, and Tuesday through Thursday are for clients/revenue-generating activities. Once you create a structure around your work week you will find that you become much more focused and productive.

5. Create a long-term plan. I’m a huge fan of spreadsheets – they can be used for so much more than just sums! And I use them to plan out my whole year. I have created an annual marketing plan that shows me month-by-month what programs I’m going to be running, what promotional activities I’ll be doing, and which list building strategies I’ll be implementing. This takes a lot of the guess-work out of running my business because it means I always know where I’m going!

I guarantee that you too will start to see an increase in your business, your income, and your productivity if you start to implement some of the steps I’ve suggested above. You’ll wonder why you left it so long.