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.
Niki 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.
Tag: business networking
Categories
The Conference Commando
I have just returned from a fantastic, if exhausting, weekend at the Annual Convention of the Professional Speakers Association, where I was honoured to be elected to the Board.
This was my third such convention and, by far, the most valuable. For many small businesses, the investment in such events, both in time and financially, prompts a lot of thought about where the value lies and whether it is worth their while attending. This weekend will see a return of several times my investment should I follow through with a number of the connections made. That’s what I call a ‘no-brainer’!
That has not, however, been the case before. Previous conventions, while enjoyable, have not necessarily produced similar results.
At my first convention, three years ago, I learnt a lot, an incredible amount. I wrote pages and pages…..and pages…. of notes from the excellent speakers and focused workshops. Over the weekend I came up with idea after idea after idea which could transform my business.
And I put none of them into action.
The simple fact is that I learnt too much. I didn’t have a plan to put the ideas learnt into action, hadn’t put the time aside to review my notes and implement key thoughts, I failed to allow for follow-up. One of my contacts took the following week off just to go through her notes and ideas and look at her business, how many of us can add this to the time already invested?
Wary of this problem the following year, I was too resistant to new ideas and didn’t really understand what I was going to get from the convention. I didn’t really understand why I was going and got exactly what I planned for from it…nothing.
As a result of that experience, I didn’t attend in 2006. With the change in my business in January, coupled with my impending election to the Board of Directors, I needed to be there this year, so I started to think about what I could get from the convention.
I knew not to write page after page after page of notes from the speakers. Instead I kept an ‘Action Sheet’ at the front of my notes and focused on writing down the two or three key points from the convention that, added to my business model or speaking style, could make a difference. I wrote only a few notes beyond that, most of them focused on particular areas I need to address.
That is no reflection on the quality of the speakers and workshops. I learnt a lot from some of the best speakers in the world; but there is a huge difference between what you learn and what you implement.
The main focus for me at Convention, however, was the networking. That may sound obvious coming from me but my networking this year was far more focused and planned than previously.
The week before the event I was reading Keith Ferrazzi’s book ‘Never Eat Alone’. In his chapter ‘Be a Conference Commando’, Ferrazzi talks about networking at conventions and says, “Conferences are good for mainly one thing….they provide a forum to meet the kind of like-minded people who can help you fulfill your mission and goals.” Going to a Professional Speakers Convention and focusing on time away from the talks may seem strange but, in a lot of ways, that’s where the value is.
Taking Ferrazzi’s advice I contacted some of the attendees in advance of the events, suggesting that we take time to meet over the weekend. I arranged breakfast meetings, rather than focusing on finding a spare seat, and spent time with individuals. In addition, I have a range of meetings to set up over the next few weeks with other contacts made in the last three days.
The opportunities already created from these connections include a promised meeting with a Director of an NHS Trust to look at networking within that Trust, an invitation to speak to a group of Chief Executives, a meeting to discuss synergies with another speaker that may lead to the creation of a new CD and cross-referrals and the possibility of establishing speaking opportunities overseas.
That’s not a bad return for an investment which, although for many may look large initially, pales into insignificance against the potential return.
Andy Lopata is one of the UK’s leading business networking strategists. He is the co-author of two books on the subject, including the Amazon UK bestseller ‘…and Death Came Third! The Definitive Guide to Networking and Speaking in Public’. Andy offers a full consultancy service and works with companies to help them realise the full potential from their networking.