Got a business and want to make it grow? We’re excited to introduce our new workshop series JUST FOR EXISTING SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS! Growing Your Business (A Simple Steps program) starts Feb. 21. Sign up for all – or individual – workshops in the series.

Go Social with SCORE Lancaster! Like our Facebook Page / Follow our Company Page on Linkedin / Join our Linkedin Discussion Group

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From American Express OPEN Forum

 By Karlee Weinmann  

Original Post

There aren’t enough hours in the day to waste any. Time sucks backlog your output, slow your creative flow and frustrate you to the extreme. The bottom line: Small-business owners can’t afford to waste time.

And yet, they do, without even realizing it sometimes. By being more attentive and applying a few (relatively easy) fixes, small-business owners can boost their productivity and stop wasting time.

Know what needs to be done

List-making is a pain, but when you find a tool, app or method that works for you, embrace it, says Rivka Caroline of So Be Organized. She says you should never leave your office for the day without knowing the eight to 10 tasks that need to be done the following workday.

That might sound daunting, but there are ways to make it easier on yourself. Caroline likes to divide her tasksinto categories and split up her daily tasks between them. That way, she gets some variety and contributes to several different areas of her company.

Delegate

Even if you run a small operation, you can cut back on your workload to invest more time in the most important aspects of your company, says Donald Wetmore. He is a time-management expert at the Productivity Institute.

For the past 15 years, Wetmore has hired a college student to assist him with the minutiae. He sees it as purchasing 10 to 15 hours a week that he can devote to marketing and product development. Wetmore wrote Organizing Your Life and The Productivity Handbook.

Get to work early

Setting your hours to assure yourself a bit of alone time in the office before your employees show up could be key, Caroline says. It gives you time to devote to your to-do list without distraction (or at least with a lower chance for distraction).

But it’s not about setting your work-life balance askew. If you come in early, you shouldn’t be staying extra late, too.

“It shouldn’t be about being in the workplace longer,” she says. “It should be about leveraging your time-management [to maximize productivity].”

Keep a time log

For a week, Wetmore recommends dividing your days into either 15- or 30-minute increments, and tracking how you spend your time. This sort of “snapshot” of where your time goes can help you realize where you have fat to trim and where you need to delegate.

After that, integrate a time budget into your weekly routine.

“Ask yourself, ‘Which [task] represents the best use of my time?’” Wetmore says. “I do this every Sunday when I look forward to my business week … I look at all the different dimensions of what makes my business work.”

Track your interruptions

Interruptions are a fact of office life, particularly for small-business owners and managers. They’re not all bad. A new customer calls to inquire about your product or service. But some of them can eat up your work time.

Wetmore suggests drawing up an “interruptions log.” Create a few columns with dates and times of interruptions, their source and the duration. Spend a few days keeping track of all of them. By the end of that process, you’ll have a good idea where your wasteful interruptions are coming from, and you’ll be able to take action to reduce them.

Manage your information flow

The average person spends about two hours each day reading, according to Wetmore. We live in an age where the information flow is constant and access to it is easy.

“We can’t stop that flow, but we can increase the rate at which we absorb it,” he says.

So how do you do that? Wetmore suggests learning to speed-read. It’s something that’s offered through classes, and he says you can expect immediate results.

Skip meetings

The only thing worse than a meeting is an aimless meeting. The roundabout dialogue makes you feel like nothing gets accomplished. Without a clear outline and direction, meetings can be among the biggest time-sucks in your office. But Caroline offers a few suggestions for making meetings useful, productive and way less hateful.

First, have an exceedingly clear agenda. Know what you’ll discuss, who you expect to contribute and why. Circulate a rough draft outline ahead of time and invite meeting participants to add notes or answer questions beforehand. Sometimes, that simple step eliminates the need for a meeting altogether.

Second, stand up. If you can’t recline and swivel in your office chair, chances are meetings will speed right along.

Embrace “white space”

No one likes clutter. Eliminating it is a rule of thumb when it comes to advertising design and interior decorating, and the principle should carry over to your work life, too.

If your schedule doesn’t have enough “white space” between appointments, tasks and deadlines, you can get overwhelmed and fumble the things you need to do, says organizing expert Harriet Schechter.

“White space functions as a sort of shock absorber for scheduling bumps caused by distractions, interruptions, emergencies and delays,” she wrote in a piece for Entrepreneur.

“White space pumps flexibility into your schedule, and flexibility is one of the keys to an effective structure.” Schechter also wrote Let Go of Clutter and pens answers for Ask Our Organizer at Stacks and Stacks.

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Got a business and want to make it grow? We’re excited to introduce our new workshop series JUST FOR EXISTING SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS! Growing Your Business (A Simple Steps program) starts Feb. 21. Sign up for all – or individual – workshops in the series.

Go Social with SCORE Lancaster! Like our Facebook Page / Follow our Company Page on Linkedin / Join our Linkedin Discussion Group

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In December 2011, the SCORE Lancaster Chapter started a new recognition program to honor members who have made

Lou Davenport - Hall of Fame Award Winner

major contributions over a significant amount of time to the SCORE organization. At the Chapter’s annual Christmas luncheon on Dec 21, 2011, 15-year SCORE Lancaster volunteer, Lou Davenport, was presented with the first ever “Hall of Fame Award.”

Tom Burgum, VP of Member Services, presented the Hall of Fame of Award to Davenport. “We wanted to create and sustain a permanent honor/recognition for those SCORE members who make remarkable contributions to the chapter and its clients,” says Burgum. “While we give a variety of project- or service-oriented awards, we had nothing to honor those individuals who contributions have driven the success of the chapter for its 46 years of service to the small business community.”

According to Burgum, Davenport was chosen for the first Hall of Fame Award due to his long- term loyalty to SCORE Lancaster. “For the past 15 years, Lou Davenport epitomized the ideal candidate for the first Hall of Fame Award through his work with SCORE clients and  his work as co-developer of business workshops, many of which were adopted by SCORE National and distributed nationally.”

Davenport humbly accepted the award from his peers. “I was truly touched and so very honored to have been recognized with this very special award from my friends and colleagues at SCORE,” shares Davenport.

Davenport joined SCORE Lancaster 15 years ago to share with entrepreneurs the business management knowledge that he acquired while working for Armstrong Industries as a manager in the Treasurer’s Office. He continues to volunteer his time to the organization and help entrepreneurs and small business owners start and grow their businesses.

Volunteering at SCORE is a rewarding experience! Contact Tom Burgum, VP of  Member Services, at burgum@scorelancaster.org for more information about joining our team.

Start a business the smart way – Sign up for our Kauffman FastTrac® Course! 12 weeks of classes to take you from business “idea” to making an informed “go” or “no go” decision. Sessions run March 9 – May 22, 2012, so don’t delay!!!

Got a business and want to make it grow? We’re excited to introduce our new workshop series just for existing small business owners! Growing Your Business (A Simple Steps program) starts Feb. 21. Sign up for all – or individual – workshops in the series.

Go Social with SCORE Lancaster! Like our Facebook Page / Follow our Company Page on Linkedin / Join our Linkedin Discussion Group

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From American Express OPEN Forum

 Nellie Akalp Mashable Recent Posts

Original Post

With each new year, budding entrepreneurs look to turn their vision into a business. These startups are often overflowing with tremendous ideas, energy and optimism–but don’t always have a roadmap for the legal aspects involved in starting a business. In the flurry of drumming up new customers, getting ready for a website launch and building the first prototype, it’s all too easy to put off some of the less glamorous, more administrative aspects of running a company.

Yes, company filings and regulations are not the most exciting parts of your startup. Yet they’re critical to the health of your business and personal finances. Here’s a quick rundown of eight administrative aspects you need to consider for your startup or small business. Of course, depending on your situation and type of business, hiring a tax accountant and/or good attorney with specific experience in your industry can go a long way to helping you steer clear of trouble.

1. Did you pick a name? Make sure you’re legally permitted to use it

Before you start printing out business cards, make sure the great new name you thought of isn’t infringing on the rights of an already existing business. In most cases, you don’t need an attorney for this task, as you can perform a free search online that looks at business names registered with the Secretary of State–that will tell you if the name is available in your state. Then, take your search to the next level and conduct a no-conflict, free trademark search to see if your name is available for use in all 50 states.

And considering you can still infringe on someone else’s trademark even if they’ve never formally registered it with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, you should also do a comprehensive search into all state and local databases (look for an affordable online service to help you with this).

2. Register a fictitious business name/DBA

Ever notice those endless fictitious name announcements in the classifieds of your local paper? You may need one, too. A DBA (Doing Business As) must be filed whenever your company does business under a different name. If you’ve got a sole proprietorship or general partnership, a DBA is needed if your company name is different from your own name. For an LLC or corporation, a DBA must be filed to conduct business using a name that’s different from the official Corporation or LLC name you filed. For example, my company is officially incorporated as CorpNet, Inc., so we needed to file DBAs for the variations CorpNet.com and CorpNet. These are typically filed at the state and/or county level.

3. Incorporate your Business or form an LLC

Forming an LLC or corporation is an essential step to protect your personal assets (such as your personal property or your child’s college fund) from any liabilities of the company. Each business structure has its own advantages and disadvantages, depending on your specific circumstances. Three popular options are: the LLC (great for small businesses that want legal protection, but minimal formality), S Corporation (great for small businesses that can qualify), or C Corporation (for companies who plan to seek funding from a VC or go public).

And one other word of advice, Delaware and Nevada are two popular states for business incorporation. However, if your business has less than five shareholders, you’re better off forming an LLC in the state where you operate your business (i.e. where you live).

4. Get a federal tax ID number

To distinguish your business as a separate legal entity, you’ll need to obtain a Federal Tax Identification Number, also referred to as an Employer Identification Number (EIN). Issued by the IRS, the tax ID number is similar to your personal social security number and allows the IRS to track your company’s transactions. If you’re a sole proprietor, you’re not obligated to get a Tax ID number, but it’s still good practice as you won’t have to provide your personal social security number for business matters.

5. Learn about employee laws

Your legal obligations as an employer begin as soon as you hire your first employee. You should spend time with an employment law professional to fully understand your obligations for these (and other) procedures: federal and state payroll and withholding taxes, self-employment taxes, anti-discrimination laws, OSHA regulations, unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation rules, and wage and hour requirements.

6. Obtain the necessary business permits and licenses

Depending on your business type and physical location, you may be required to have one or more business licenses or permits from the state, local or even federal level. Such licenses include: a general business operation license, zoning and land use permits, sales tax license, health department permits, and occupational or professional licenses.

7. File for trademark protection

You’re not actually required by law to register a trademark. Using a name instantly gives you common law rights as an owner, even without formal registration. However, as expected, trademark law is complex and simply registering a DBA in your state doesn’t automatically give you common-law rights. In order to claim first use, the name has to be ‘trademarkable’ and in use in commerce.

Since you’ve spent untold hours brainstorming the ideal name, and you’ll be putting even more effort into cultivating name recognition, you should consider registering your trademark for proper legal protection. Registering a trademark makes it exponentially easier to recover your properties, like if someone happens to use your company name as their Twitter handle. Having the right documentation means you have the legal right to that handle, and Twitter will take steps to give it to you.

8. Open a bank account to start building business credit

When you rely on your personal credit to fund your business, your personal mortgage, auto loan and personal credit cards all affect your ability to qualify for a business loan (and for how much). Using business credit separates your personal activities from that of the business. To begin building your business credit, you should open a bank account in the name of your company, and the account should show a cash flow capable of taking on a business loan.

Get your legal ducks in a row

No matter how busy things with your startup get, set aside some time to address these matters and take your legal obligations seriously. Getting your legal ducks in a row right from the start will help you avoid any pitfalls down the road, and will help you scale your business successfully as you grow.

Image: Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

by Cindy Bates

Original Article from SCORE Small Business Success Blog

When you’re in need of a new doctor, mechanic, hair dresser, etcetera, do you just flip open the phone book or conduct a quick Internet search and go with the first name you find? Perhaps you do take this approach if you’re in a rush, but it likely won’t net very good results. In the end, you’re usually better off doing more thorough research before making a selection.

The same goes for choosing a cloud solutions provider. Prudence will reap better results than just signing on with the first cloud service you come across in your search. Whether you receive a referral or decide to conduct research on your own, consider composing a list of questions to ask your new service provider to guarantee you’ll receive the best service possible.

When developing your questions for a potential cloud services provider, I recommend focusing on the following three areas of consideration:

1. Cost and Value:  Yes, cloud solutions can save your business money, but many come with cost-cutting promises that don’t apply to every business. Carefully evaluate how much the solution will cost you in the long run and whether you’ll have access to all of the features you might need. Keep in mind that you still can benefit from the cloud when using it in tandem with traditional software, so don’t feel pressured to move everything to the cloud all at once.

2. Security:  The safe storage of sensitive data arises as a key concern whenever I talk with customers about cloud computing. Since the cloud is still relatively new territory in the computing industry, this is a legitimate concern. The good news is that your sensitive data can reside securely in the cloud when you’re using cloud-based technologies that have robust security measures in place.

Ensure any cloud solution you select offers comprehensive security features. Also, do some digging into your provider’s track record when it comes to security and determine if it has a history of providing high levels of security to customers and a deep understanding of the latest security threats and measures for protection.

3. Reliability:  I often compare investing in a cloud computing solution to renting an apartment, in that you become dependent on someone else should issues arise. Therefore, choose a well-staffed provider that can easily manage any potential problems. Look for 24/7 support, a high-availability guarantee in the service-level agreement and a demonstration of the provider’s ability to respond quickly in emergency situations. Microsoft, for example, promises 99.9 percent uptime and will provide a reimbursement for anything short of that promise.

You’ll likely have additional questions for a potential cloud services provider, and rightfully so. The issues just mentioned, though, should be at the top of your list and not go undiscussed. For more information about cloud computing and how it can help your business succeed, visit www.microsoftbusinesshub.com.

Image: scottchan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

From American Express OPEN Forum

Julie Rains, Wise Bread, Wise Bread 

Original Post

Getaround, a peer-to-peer car-sharing company, uses Facebook as an authentication checkpoint to verify the identity of each new member and promote community safety. Energy provider SDG&E taps into Twitter to advise customers and troubleshoot technical problems.

But you don’t have to be a two-year-old tech-heavy company or a large corporation to use social media for customer service. In fact, if your business has a Twitter account and Facebook page, you’re probably already using these tools for such purposes. When you link to expert advice on Twitter or answer questions posed on your Facebook wall, you’re helping customers by responding to or anticipating their needs.

By ramping up your social media engagement, you can reduce your customer service expenses or hold them steady as you reach more people. Your staff and phone lines may be taxed less and the hours you dedicate to customer service may decline, as service levels improve.

Here’s how to use Twitter and Facebook to provide great service at minimal cost.

Interact with multiple customers at the same time

Social media lets customer service reps converse with multiple customers in the same amount of time that it takes to talk with one customer on the phone, in live chat or face-to-face. Getaround uses social media to serve hundreds of customers each week. Team members on Twitter and Facebook explain policies and procedures, assist customers with specific concerns, respond to complaints and compliments, and follow up with customers.

Customers want personalized conversations in their interactions with your company, whether they are visiting a brick-and-mortar store or interacting online, according to Richard Shapiro, founder and president of The Center for Client Retention. Because these social media discussions are public, however, they can also help other customers who are lurking, hesitant to ask a question or unable to articulate their needs.

Keep conversations brief

With a limit of 140 characters, tweets must be short. Facebook posts can be longer but are usually shorter than an e-mail with similar information, because niceties such as introductions are unnecessary.

As a result, customers tend to distill key points rather than provide lengthy explanations. Responses can follow a similar pattern with brief conversations delivering the same value as longer, time-consuming ones.

Reach multiple customers with relevant information

Facilitating personalized interaction is a strength of social media, but Twitter and Facebook can be excellent vehicles for announcements to a broad audience.

Power company SDG&E communicated with customers on Twitter during a widespread power outage in Southern California. The company advised customers about the sequence of power restoration. It dispensed tips on keeping refrigerated foods safe during power outages. And it linked to school websites for information on school closings.

A store selling running apparel in my area posted an alert on its Facebook page about registration for a popular race that was still open. This status update didn’t tie up phone lines and it allowed retail associates to spend more time with customers in the store.

Let customers help each other

“The best way for customer service to scale online” is to enable customers to help each other through Facebook, Twitter or a similar community forum, according to Becky Carroll, and author of The Hidden Power of Your Customers.

Reps do not have to serve customers directly but can monitor interactions to make sure that they are accurate and useful, so reps use time more efficiently. Even the customers who are helping others are happier, Carroll says, because they get to be evangelists and feel a stronger connection to your business.

However you approach customer service using social media, assign a knowledgeable, polite, friendly and helpful person who understands your brand message to represent your company. They can take discussions to a private area when they need to address account-specific or sensitive information.

Julie Rains is a senior writer at Wise Bread, a personal-finance community dedicated to helping people get the most out of their money. Get daily money tips by following Wise Bread on Facebook or Twitter.

Image: basketman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Veteran Fast Launch is a new SCORE initiative to benefit veterans wanting to start a business. In 2009, First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden jumpstarted Joining Forces, an initiative spearheaded to give our service members and their families support in the areas of employment, education and wellness. Veteran Fast Launch is one program that hatched from the original Joining Forces initiative.

This new SCORE program is funded through the Wal-Mart Foundation, which has made a five-year, $10 million commitment to support veterans, active duty personnel and their families who wish to start a business. Other well-known companies have signed on as technology and business partners, including AICPA, Constant Contact, HP, Microsoft, Salesforce.com and others. SCORE’s educational partner, the SBA’s Office of Veterans Business Development, provides business training, counseling and assistance through its Veterans Business Outreach Centers.

“It is my hope that as many Lancaster County veterans and active duty personnel as possible take advantage of the many resources being provided to them at low or no cost by SCORE and its partner organizations to start a business,” says Rhonda Kleiman, VP of Advocacy for SCORE Lancaster. “This is a wonderful opportunity for veterans wanting to embark on the road to self-employment.”

Some of this program’s benefits include

• Free software and online services;
• Scholarships for veterans and their family members to attend SCORE’s Simple Steps for Starting Your Business workshops for free. The five, three-hour sessions cover Start-up Basics, Business & Concept Development; Marketing Your Product, Service & Company; Creating Financial Forecasts & Reports; Funding Your Business.
• SCORE Lancaster will also make available its First Step FastTrac® 12-week workshop series at the reduced cost of $75. This workshop series is based on the Kauffman Foundation’s adult peer-learning model, an interactive program where series participants work in small groups with assigned coaches; and
• Web-based workshops, tools, templates and white papers for starting a business and free business advice from SCORE mentors.

SCORE Lancaster, located at 313 Liberty Street in Lancaster, will offer Veteran Fast Launch as an ongoing initiative. All that is necessary to register is to click on the Special Offers link on the Veteran Fast Launch website and a link to a coupon will be sent via email. The coupon must be presented to the local SCORE Chapter for discounts on their workshops.

Image: akeeris / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

From American Express OPEN Forum

Tom Harnish Writer, Aerodite, Inc. / Kate Lister Recent Posts

Original Post

The past several years haven’t been much fun—the poor economy has taken a toll on business psyches. But the latest surveys show small business optimism continues to rise. It’s time to get out of that downtrodden rut and start enjoying what you do again. Here are 14 tips to help you turn up the fun-o-meter in the coming year.

1. Eliminate stresses, especially the little ones

Like the proverbial frog in a saucepan, you adjust to irritations without realizing you may be getting into hot water. Fortunately, little stresses are usually easy to fix once you recognize them. Are expense reports a pain? There’s an app for that. Do you work at home and neighbors intrude? Put a sign on the door: “I work at home and pass gas.” Maybe they’ll take the hint—or at least understand you do less driving.

2. Break the rules

Rules (not to be confused with laws) are made to guide us, not control us. Creative solutions come from finding ways to break the rules. Besides being profitable, breaking rules can be fun.

3. Focus your time and energy

Yogi Berra understood the problem: “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll wind up somewhere else.” Set goals, make a decision, control your destiny, but don’t just watch life happen. In Yogi’s words, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” The best way to get organized is to make lists.

4. Don’t chase hare-brained schemes

Just because you can think of something doesn’t mean you should do it. Bright ideas are overrated—execution is what counts. Chasing all those ideas will distract you from what you should be doing. If an idea is a truly good one, find a place for it in your plan based on logic rather than impulse. Don’t believe everything you think—common sense is a notoriously bad measure of reality.

5. Stop working with people you don’t like

You don’t have to work with jerks. I had a job I really liked, but my boss made my life miserable. So I called a few recruiters, raved about his knowledge and experience (genuinely extraordinary), and he ended up with a job at a new company. You don’t have to use such an extreme solution, but you do have choices.

6. Drop high-maintenance customers

Life is too short, and some people (and companies) are more trouble than they’re worth —emotionally and financially. With a little encouragement they’ll go elsewhere. You don’t have to offend them to get rid of them.

6. Do something nice

It’s not all about you, and it’s not all about your company. Take time to do something good for someone else, for a charity, even for another company. It will make you feel all warm inside.

8. Don’t sweat the small stuff

Life is full of little aggravations—the customer service representative who is worse than dealing with a robot, the idiot who cut in front of you in traffic, the over easy eggs when you asked for sunny side up. Chill. In the great scheme of things, does it really matter?

9. Take responsibility

Don’t be a victim. If you are harmed, do something about it, but don’t blame others for your situation. Take control, eliminate blame, eliminate excuses.

10. Delegate

You’re not indispensable. Let other people help you. Share the work, better yet, share your knowledge. An entrepreneur, according the Virgin Airways CEO Richard Branson, “…is not a manager. An entrepreneur is someone who is great at conceiving ideas, starting ideas, building ideas, but then handing over to good managers to handle the business.”

11. Think

It’s easy to let the hustle and bustle keep you from investing a little time just to think. Why do great ideas come to you in the shower? That may be the only time in a day when you have time to just think. Make time to ponder, your subconscious will continue to work long after you’ve gone on to other things.

12. Use triage on daily time wasters

Ask yourself, “Is this the most valuable thing I could be doing right now?” During a disaster, first responders are trained to treat victims based on the seriousness of their condition. Each day you have more problems than you can handle. Choose the ones that are important, not just urgent, not just the one that happens to be in front of you.

13. Lighten up

Which of these items is actionable, fits with best practices, and will help secure buy-in by addressing core competencies? If you actually understood the question buried in the gobbledygook, the answer is all of them. Business jargon is a waste of time, counterproductive, and it makes you sound pompous. Just say what you mean.

14. Stop doing too much

The harried butcher who backed into a meat slicer got more than a little behind in his work. A cut in productivity (and health) is inevitable when you work too hard. Worse, you also miss out on a lot of life. No one ever died wishing they spent more time at the office.

A good friend of mine lives by the phrase, “life may be short, but it’s wide.” The road you take is the one you choose. Why not enjoy the journey?

Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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via SCORE Volunteer Dawn Mentzer – The Insatiable Solopreneur blog

When starting out as a freelancer, quoting your services to clients can cause you to question yourself.

“Will they think it’s too much?”

“Am I charging enough?”

Finding balance between the opposite ends of the spectrum isn’t easy – and it’s something that requires thought, research and usually a degree from the “school of hard knocks” via pricing mistakes that you make along the way.

To price your freelance services effectively, there are several things to consider:

• How much time will you spend on non-billable work? A good bit of your time will be spent doing business-related tasks that you won’t be invoicing a client for. Your time on your business Facebook Page, tweeting, prospecting on LinkedIn, writing proposals, preparing invoices…all are necessary for building and managing your business. And all of them take away from the amount of time you have to spend on billable projects.

• How many billable client hours do you expect to invoice? When you start out as a solopreneur, it’s not likely that all your available hours will be filled with client projects. Before you set your prices, realistically estimate how many billable hours you’ll be invoicing.

• What are your business expenses? Even solopreneurs offering professional services are faced with direct costs for starting and running their businesses. Software, office supplies, fuel, the coffee tab from a client meeting, taxes…your pricing needs to take those expenses and more into account.

• How much income do I need to make? In your specific situation, how much net income will you need to make each week, month and annually? Your pricing needs to allow you to generate enough revenue to support your professional and personal living needs.

• What’s acceptable for your industry and geographic location? If you live in Schoeneck, PA, your local clients won’t have the same rate tolerance as those in New York City. Likewise, if you’re providing a commodity service vs. one that’s specialized, you won’t be at liberty to charge a premium. And of course, you’ll need to take a look at what your competition is charging for very similar services. In a nutshell, you’ll need to consider the price points that your market will bear.

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There are also resources out there that provide tools and templates online – and offline – that can help you with pricing your services. Here are few:

Freelance Service Rate Calculator – Although this was developed with writers in mind, it works just as well for other types of freelance professionals. It’s a nice tool for determining your billable rate per hour based on the revenue you’d like to make. It also factors in the amount of billable hours you expect to work and the vacation time you intend to take. Even if you quote by project vs. hourly rate (as “The Wealthy Freelancer” advises), the rate per hour that the tool computes can be used to calculate what you should be charging per project to meet your income goals.

SCORE – The non-profit organization maintains a library of business financial templates that can help you figure out how to price your services. Plus, SCORE chapters nationally provide free face-to-face and online mentoring, so you can run your numbers past a trusted and experienced advisor.

Accountants and Business Consultants can provide you with templates to do Break Even Analyses and other forecasting exercises that can help guide you to the right price points for your services.

Your local library might also have some business resources available to help entrepreneurs with setting prices. The local library near me, the Duke Street Business Center in Lancaster, PA, gives entrepreneurs free access to special business intelligence databases that contain valuable information about competitors as well as industry pricing and practices. If you’re fortunate to have a library that offers services specific to businesses, schedule an appointment with the business reference librarian there to really dig into the available data.

Pricing freelance services can be especially challenging for solopreneurs who have always worked in an environment with a steady paycheck. It’s tempting to base your billing rate on the hourly rate you were paid by your employer because you think it will sound more reasonable to clients. Remember, it’s not “apples to apples”. As a freelancer, you’re running a business – one with costs in non-billable time and operating expenses that you’ll need to factor into the equation.

What have been your greatest pricing challenges?

Image: jscreationzs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Written by Adam Barkafski, Dream Seed Multimedia

(View original post  from January 1, 2011)

For most of us, our websites are an important way to find new business or activity. We create them hoping that people looking for the solutions that we provide will find us on the internet and then buy from us or contact us for more. However, this may be one of the greatest challenges we face—getting found by these web surfers. But there is one thing that you can do, more than anything else, that will help your site find its right audience.

Back to basics

More and more websites in the last few years have been employing smart SEOstrategies to help propel them to the top of the search listings. Years ago, only the few websites who knew how to do this saw dramatic rises in their listings. Now, the competition is much more fierce. So what should you do?

It’s time to get back to basics. How do you handle your existing competition offline? More than likely, you focus on your unique selling proposition, or what sets you apart. You use that as part of your marketing message to attract your target audience to you.

The same applies online. If you figure out what sets you apart from your online competition, you have a better chance of finding just the people you’re looking for…and who are looking for you. This will help you gain a healthier audience.

The most important thing

We’ve been seeing trends in search engines that the previous “silver bullets” of SEO that you may have heard pushed by some SEO experts, like using just the right keywords or getting the most inbound links, just don’t work as well as they used to. It’s not that these are unimportant; it’s simply that the competition is tougher.

If you want to have your website perform well in search results time after time, the most important thing you can do is create a website that is useful for your target audience and provides unique information. Matt Cutts, a Google employee and SEO blogger, said, “Most of the right choices in SEO come from asking, ‘What’s the best thing for the user?’” This is consistent with what the top SEO experts have said: Make a useful website for your audience, and you will begin to see positive results.

A useful and unique website succeeds on two fronts. First, it provides value and use to your potential customers, and that makes them want to become paying customers. Second, it also makes your site easier to find. Providing great value gives other websites a reason to link to your site, and that, plus your unique content, helps raise your site in search engine rankings.

Focusing on your uniqueness and giving your customers what they want will ultimately help you succeed online. Not only will you stand out from the competition, but you will also convert your online visitors into customers more easily.

(View original post  from September 1, 2011)

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From American Express OPEN Forum

Susan Payton, President, Egg Marketing & Communications

Original Post

Even if you don’t believe that New Year’s resolutions work, having goals for 2012 might help you achieve them. Goals and resolutions are essentially the same thing. You want to get a fresh start on a new year, so set some goals and call them resolutions.

I make resolutions in both my personal and professional life. And, I make them achievable so that I can feel good about reaching them at the end of the year. (I don’t try to grow 2,000 percent in 12 months!)

I can’t expect goals to happen magically so I include action items to help me reach my goals. Here are some resolutions you can tailor to fit your own business goals, with suggested action items to help you achieve them.

1. Increase sales in 2012 by X percent

When you make resolutions, set concrete goals. If you simply say you want to increase sales, even a $5 increase over the year would qualify you as having achieved the goal. But you really want to increase sales, right? Set a number that’s feasible. Look at the last few years of sales and aim for just a bit more growth (The economy will likely allow for a little extra reach in your numbers this year).

Sample action items:

• Increase marketing budget in social media by X.
• Book X more speaking engagements in 2012.
• Increase prices by Y.

2. Market my business better through social media and content

I suspect this should be on many business’ list this year. If you’ve seen a little success with social media and content marketing, it’s time to step it up.

Sample action items:

• Write three blog posts a week on the company blog.
• Increase Twitter activity to daily.
• Add 50 new social media contacts per week.

3. Become known as the expert in my field

If you work on personal branding, people have to know your name for it to be successful. The more places you appear, the more people get to know you through your knowledge. Dedicate 2012 to becoming the expert in your industry.

Sample action items:

• Book one speaking engagement per month.
• Guest post on two other blogs each month.
• Ramp up social media interaction to X times daily.

4. Be more productive

You can tailor this one completely. Last year, I resolved to move to Google Docs. I did, and that has meant exponential productivity for me. Look at tools that help you share documents, monitor time spent on social sites and in general, operate more efficiently. Pick a few and resolve to fully implement them in 2012.

Sample action items:

• Get staff to use Google Docs 100 percent.
• Use Dropbox to share files with clients.
• Track time spent on client projects with Basecamp.

5. Delegate X percent of my work

If you’re like me, you have trouble delegating. Sometimes it just seems easier to do it yourself, right? I recently offloaded a large project onto the shoulders of a very competent employee. It has made a huge difference. If you’re bogged down in tasks rather than working on the bigger picture for your business, you’ll never achieve growth.

Sample action items:

• Create guidelines to train staff on one project a month.
• Hold training sessions each quarter on one skill set.
• Hire an assistant to take on tasks like e-mail and phone.

I encourage you to keep your list of resolutions handy so you can look at them throughout the year. And as soon as you create your list of action items, assign them to yourself or an employee. Put them on your calendar so you actually remember to do them. Happy New Year!

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