As 81 million American baby boomers begin to move into their retirement years, they are redefining what retirement means. For many, it doesn’t mean they’ve stopped working, but rather that they are exercising more choice over how they work. According to a 2009 survey, some 75 percent of people who chose to engage in some form of work found the work satisfying, and in four out of five cases, they were able to find white collar jobs for what are known as “encore careers.”
Picking the perfect second act for your career can involve trying a field that’s always interested you, helping out with a cause that you believe in, or getting a chance to run your own business.
If it’s running your own business that appeals to you, chances are you don’t want to sink a large chunk of your retirement savings into a new venture at this point. Therefore, the key is getting started with minimal investment up front. This is very possible these days, depending on how you set up your business, and what type of business you choose to go into.
Getting Started with a Shoestring Budget
To start a business with relatively little up front capital, the key is to minimize fixed costs. Variable costs–expenses of the pay-as-you-go variety–are preferable because they allow you to ramp up or scale back investment depending on how the business is going.
Here are some key tools for keeping fixed costs to a minimum:
• E-commerce Solutions. Who needs a business location when you have the Internet? The ultimate low-overhead storefront, the Internet gives you access to a world of potential customers. Utilizing e-commerce solutions is much cheaper than having a physical place of business where you receive customers. For example, it allows you to avoid the many expenses of having a retail outlet, such as rent, utilities, staffing, and insurance.
• Outsourcing Back Office Infrastructure. Rather than building a complete organization from scratch, try to outsource anything that isn’t central to the unique value proposition of your business. For example, functions such as customer support, credit card processing and human resources are only needed occasionally or periodically. Therefore, it makes more sense to utilize outsourced call center services for telemarketing or customer support or HR outsourcing for human resource activities than to try to staff it internally.
• Use Online, Social Media Strategies to Promote Your Business. Developing a full scale online social media strategy can seem overwhelming at first. But you can implement simple things by hiring interns to do the leg work such as starting a blog or using Twitter, and tracking different programs making adjustments along the way.
Low-Cost Entrepreneurial Business Ideas
If the above are some techniques for structuring a business with minimum up front investment, what are some lines of business which lend themselves to getting started with minimal capital?
One rule of thumb is that services generally require less investment than manufacturers or retailers, though with e-commerce some re-sellers can operate cheaply if they have tight supply lines and add value in the process. Focusing on services, the following are some examples of businesses that might be right for the current environment, and can be started on a shoestring.
• Business consulting. If many retiring boomers are going to be starting their own businesses, why not use your business experience to help show them how to do it?
• Green consulting. People are striving to become more energy-efficient, for economic and environmental reasons. If you have expertise in this area, consulting with businesses and homeowners on how to reduce their consumption is a natural.
• Public relations. If you have media and promotional experience, you could be in demand with the new wave of entrepreneurs starting their own businesses. In particular, bringing knowledge of modern promotional techniques such as social media strategies could be valuable to these new businesses.
• Employment counseling. Between a weak economy and an aging population, there are many people facing a career crossroads these days. Helping them find the right niche can be a good way to make use of any personnel experience you have.
• Online Lead Generation. Sales Lead Generation is growing by leaps and bounds as far as start up industries are concerned. This is a very special industry that affords flexibility and freedom that is unparalleled. And, there is even a significant demand for highly specialized lead generation consultants to help companies generate qualified sales leads in this market.
Running your own business may not have been your parents’ idea of retirement, but things are very different today. If you have the entrepreneurial itch, starting a venture might just give you the satisfaction and extra income to make your “golden years” more than just an expression.
Month: September 2009
StartupNation by Tom Now: If you are an online retailer or otherwise rely heavily on the holiday season for a good percentage of your sales, guess what?
It’s time to prepare your website for the holidays. Believe it or not, the time is now. In September. With no time to lose!
So, you’re probably thinking, “Come on, Tom. You’ve got to be kidding me. I can wait for at least another month before I need to be thinking about the holidays…”
Well, if you want to maximize your sales over the winter period, and if you want to avoid last-minute fire-fighting, panicking and compromising, there are a number of first steps that you should take right now.
These steps include the development of the following strategies, plans and initiatives:
Customer Acquisition Strategy: How are you going to win new customers? What is it that will make them purchase from you this holiday season, as opposed to anyone else?
Customer Retention Strategy: What specifically are you going to do to ensure repeat business from existing customers? What are you going to offer your current database?
The WOW Factor: How are you going to absolutely “Wow!” your website visitors during the holiday season?
Holiday Promotional Planning: What special holiday promotions will you run? What is the lead time that each promotion requires?
Website Infrastructure: Will you need any additional website functionality to support your holiday initiatives? If so, make sure you are acquiring the right technologies and securing technical resources now.
Marketing Integration Planning: How will you integrate your promotions and campaigns across your entire marketing mix?
Agency/Consultant Alignment: Have you already laid out a plan with any marketing agencies or consultants with whom you work? Collaborate with them now to build the perfect marketing plan, rather than blindsiding them the week before Thanksgiving with urgent requests…
Inventory Management: This one is rather obvious, but make sure that your inventory management is aligned with your promotional plans.
Testing: Be sure to allow sufficient buffer time to test new web pages, technologies and site functionality before going live with your holiday initiatives.
Post-Holiday Planning: And remember that the true “holiday season” extends well beyond the end of December. Look to leverage people’s natural urge for “renewal” in the new year. January can also be an opportune time to appeal to customers looking for bargains.
About the Author: Tom Now of Website Marketing NOW helps small businesses maximize their website results through Website Consulting, Website Audits and additional online marketing services.
To start learning how to create an amazing small business website that thrills your site visitors and drives your revenue growth, read Tom’s book Make ‘Em Scream “Gee Whiz!” – A Roadmap for Creating a Small Business Website that Ignites Your Sales.
Small Business Trends by David Cotriss: One area many business owners struggle with is keeping track of their finances, but it is one of the most important areas given that cash flow is the lifeblood of the business. Small mistakes and a lack of knowledge and resources can be costly and problematic.
We’ve selected some of the most important things to consider and provide these tips and resources.
1) Find the best local credit union. Given their frequent willingness to provide loans, finding a credit union that understands the needs of your business can go a long way. There are many online tools to find credit unions based on specified criteria.
2) Find a trusted mentor. Access to free help is just a click away, with sites that help connect entrepreneurs with mentors fitting their needs. Having a mentor assist with setting up finances can be invaluable if the person is trustworthy.
3) Choose the correct accounting software. While software is a mainstay of small business finance, sorting through dozens of choices isn’t easy, since there may be better options for your specific needs than the popular QuickBooks program and related packages.
4) Consider hiring a bookkeeper. A good, trusted bookkeeper can handle all of the mundane tasks that go along with keeping finances on track. Be sure to understand the various types of bookkeepers and how to avoid fraud. A free bookkeeper hiring test (to be taken by prospective hires) can be requested.
5) Accelerate cash flow with mobile payment systems. Mobile payment systems can allow faster and easier acceptance of payments for products and services. A system called GoPayment from Intuit allows acceptance of payments through mobile phones and can directly download the data into QuickBooks. To monitor transactions, users can access Intuit’s online Merchant Service Center to search, view and create reports.
6) Look into factoring receivables. Accounts receivable financing allows immediate payment for invoices rather than waiting 30 days or longer and tying up working capital as a result. Factoring services advance the amount of the invoice minus a “discount”, or fee (advances of 80 to 90 percent are common), and provide a “rebate” when invoices are paid – the amount depends on how long it takes the customer to pay. FactorFind provides a directory of factors specializing in small businesses.
7) Understand and measure capital versus operational costs. The goal often is to drive down the totals on the capital costs side of the spreadsheet and move more over to the operational side of the equation. Operating costs don’t require complex depreciation calculations and are more easily adjusted from year to year. Outsourcing is one way to do this because it sits on the operating cost side and helps to free up cash by not tying it up in capital investments or tasks like head hunting and payroll management.
8) Measure bottom line impact by looking at the service budget year over year. Are the costs for delivering a service going up, staying the same or dropping? Figure out how much it costs to deliver specific services to the business such as recruitment, payroll or benefits management. Understanding cost-to-serve offers the business great insight into projects and tasks, how long it actually takes to do them, and as a result how much they cost.
About the Author: David Cotriss is a business/tech and new media writer, having published 500+ news and feature articles to date worldwide in magazines ranging from PC Magazine to The Industry Standard.
Categories
How to Fit 24.5 Hours Into A Day
Article Contributed by Patrick Jobin from Storagepipe Solutions
Sometimes, when you’re juggling many tasks at once, it can seem like there just aren’t enough hours in the day. If only there was some way that you could make a bit more time for yourself.
Imagine that you’re working on an important project, and the ideas are just flowing out effortlessly. Then suddenly, you stop to take a quick phone call. Well, although the call may have been short, it completely threw you off your train of thought and it will take a while to get your momentum back.
In a typical day, you may encounter dozens of such small interruptions. Although it may not seem like a big deal when you’re in the moment, these little “time vampires” quickly add up to hurt your productivity and (more importantly) suck the life from your valuable time.
In order to get more work done in less time, you need to eliminate all minor interruptions from your day.
High-powered executives are acutely aware of this. That’s why they have personal assistants, receptionists and other gatekeepers to prevent interruptions. This allows them to focus all of their energy on only the most critical business tasks.
In fact, many time management experts estimate that it can take up to 30 minutes to recover from a single interruption.
In other words, if you can eliminate just one interruption from your daily work, you can get an extra 30 minutes of personal time without negatively affecting your productivity.
And with this in mind, I’d like to propose a challenge:
Here’s Your Mission
Over the next week, I want you to keep a diary of all the workflow interruptions that happen in your work life. Then, pick just one common daily interruption and take measures to ensure that it will never happen again. Some easy ways of doing this include:
+ Putting a do-not-disturb sign on your cubicle or office door
+ Ignoring calls for 1 hour every day, then returning the voicemails
+ Blocking Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and Digg from your web browser’s security settings
+ Bringing a large water bottle to your desk instead of heading off to the water cooler for a cup
+ Using a fully-automated online backup solution instead of switching backup tapes at the end of the day
If you can eliminate just one interruption per day, you will have more free time and be more productive.
Effective time management is especially important for entrepreneurs who need to maximize the profitability of every second spent on their business. Having more free time opens up more opportunities to expand the business.
Try this challenge out for a week, then post your comments below and let us know how this has affected your life, and what you’re doing with the extra 30 minutes that you’ve just added to your day.
About The Author:
Storagepipe Solutions is a leading provider of online backup and e-mail archiving solutions that helps businesses save time and money by automating their backup and business continuity process.
Article Contributed by Heather Dorso from TRUSTe
Web sites are increasingly asking consumers to allow access to their address books to send invitations to their friends on the consumer’s behalf. A common technique to increase the site subscriptions, and benefits for the user by bringing their friends into the service.
A recent article in the New York Times highlights the complexities of implementing an address book import feature. Done well, such a mechanism provides clear notice to consumers to ensure that they understand what will happen to the addresses in their address book, so the consumer has a meaningful opportunity to consent. Implemented poorly, it can leave consumers distressed and even mortified to find their personal and professional contacts getting messages demanding to know why they aren’t on the latest social networking site.
In TRUSTe’s experience of certifying the online privacy practices of thousands of web sites, the use of address book contacts import features is rising. Here are some general “best practices” recommendations for helping web sites make their “Contacts import” features live up to consumer expectations.
1. Ability to Skip using the Import Contacts feature
If you invite consumers to let you import their email address books, make sure they can opt out or skip that step. Make the Skip option equally prominent compared to the Submit button, so the consumer is provided a clear choice around using the feature.
2. Messages Sent on Behalf of the Consumer
If you send messages to the consumer’s contacts, place “on behalf of” in the From line. This will alert recipients that the message is not actually from the consumer’s e-mail address. Offer consumers a preview of the message to be sent that includes header and body text.
3. Use of the Contact Information Supplied
Notify consumers at the Point of Collection and in your Privacy Statement about how you will use the imported contact information. Explicitly state whether you will be sending a one-time invite or a reminder email in addition to the original invite.TRUSTe also recommends stating that the imported contact information will not be used for other purposes beyond sending the requested invite or reminder messages.
4. Requesting Login Information for Other Accounts
When asking consumers to supply login information they use for other services such as an email account to import their address book, provide clear and conspicuous notice about how your site will use this information. This will help avoid surprising users who think they are choosing the same login information to register with your own site.
5. Additional Checks if Providing Incentives to Import Contact Information
If you are providing an incentive, such as a contest entry or rewards points, for consumers to import contacts, additional CAN SPAM requirements may apply. Be sure to provide an opt-out from receiving additional email messages. Additionally, some recipients ask for a global opt-out mechanism if they want to receive no further such e-mailed invites through the web site’s servers, regardless of who subsequently imports the recipient’s address as part of their Contacts. A site should make sure they have a way to block further such invites to e-mail recipients upon request, even if resulting from actions by the user’s contacts.
The guidelines above should help ensure that consumers get an opportunity to provide informed consent. Address book import can be a powerful feature to help a site expand its reach and can make use of the site much more convenient for the user, provided the feature is implemented carefully and respects the consumer’s consent.
About TRUSTe
TRUSTe Privacy Seals help consumers click with confidence by guiding them to trustworthy Web sites. More than 2,400 Web sites rely on TRUSTe industry best practices to help them make the right decisions about privacy and protecting confidential user information. Half of the top fifty Web sites are certified including Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft, Disney, eBay, Intuit, and Facebook. Independent research shows that when a TRUSTe web seal is present, visitors are more likely to share personal information, register at higher rates and spend more money. To learn more about internet privacy services for SMBs, visit http://www.truste.com/privacy_seals_and_services/small_medium_business_privacy/index.html