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)

Image: Idea go / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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!

Image: supakitmod / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Original Article from SCORE Small Business Success Blog
Writing a business plan is like eating broccoli. I used to make faces and say that it’s not for me.  When business owners seek funding to start or grow their business, lenders first ask for a business plan. Their main focus is to review the Executive Summary and Financial Projections in the business plan. So start crunching those numbers and finish up your broccoli because later you will be glad you did.

But then why is it that bankers, financial institutions, Venture Capitalists and Angel Investors all want to see a written business plan? Not only that even potential partners and major suppliers request for a copy of the business plan prior to signing any major agreements. Why is the business plan so important?

Business plan consists of topics that help potential investors, banks and other parties of interest determine the feasibility and success rate of their return of investment. So lets break down the ingredients in broccoli to understand what makes it so important.

Note that the topics and items I have written below are explained very briefly. I strongly recommend owners use free business planning templates offered by SCORE, purchase business planning software or sign up with a qualified business planning website portal to prepare a business plan. A good business plan product describes each item listed below and more in greater details.

1. Executive Summary:
This section in the business plan is more like a compressed version of your complete business plan. It gives a quick glance of each section of your business plan and helps the party of interest to understand your objectives such as need of finances, partnership, affiliation or other interest. Its important to keep this section concise, clear and to the point with adequate content. Define business opportunity, description of products/services, current business status, financial potential and description of your request.

2. Company Background
Write description of your company or business, how it came to be, where it is today and where do you see it heading. Share how you came up with the idea, your vision to form, grow and success you foresee based on your vision, knowledge and experience. Include business description, company history, current business position, objectives and ownership.

3. Products
Specify description of your products so that the party of interest can clearly understand what you will deliver in a simple and easy to understand description. Include competitive analysis, research and development, suppliers and inventory.

4. Services
Specify description of services with clear detail. Include service descriptions, competitive comparison, service delivery, research and development.

5. Industry, Competition and Market
Specify the industry, competition and your business niche, and why you feel that your products or services can attract customers. Include industry definition, primary competitors, market size, market growth and customer profile.

6. Marketing Plan
This is one of the most challenging part of operating a business. Selling is hard to do and this helps you understand, assess and plan to connect with your target market. It also helps you implement your marketing strategy. Describe Management, Organization and Ownership Including management/principals, board, organizational structure and professional consultants.

7. Goals and Strategies
Specify long term goals, highlights and strategies you will apply to achieve those goals. Include business goals, future plans and key to success.

8. Financial Assumptions and Projections
This section contains a long list of items and this is the first section that most investors, banks and financial institutions review after reading the executive summary. Include items such as income, operating expenses, taxes, assets, liabilities, equity, payment terms, debts, line of credit, balance sheet, profit and loss, cash plan and more.

Every business plan consists of the topics that you as a business owner might feel does not apply to your business. You will not know until you start executing each item. Every step of the way you will realize the importance of each topic. Every execution will help you prepare for the next topic.

The beginning of a marathon is always a psychological battle and you ask yourself, “Am I going to be able to finish it? This seems too much for me.”  As you continue running, you gradually cover more miles and start to feel better. It might feel challenging at times but the mind reenergizes when you realize how far you have gone and that you are getting closer to your destination. Then you complete the run.

Your business plan is your roadmap that, after every step of execution, will take you one step closer to validating and enhancing your vision. The thought of having your own business is one of the greatest compliments to the mind only if the idea is incubated and nourished carefully with research and planning, because proper incubation is the true “first step” toward success.

Image: Toa55 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

If you’ve been thinking about becoming a solopreneur in 2012, here are some direct questions you should ask yourself before taking the leap:

Why do I want to be a solopreneur?

Ability to set your own schedule, getting paid for doing what you love… It’s critical to your success to think about what’s driving your decision to start a business. There really aren’t any wholly right or wrong answers to this one, but I caution anyone whose motivation stems from frustration about dealing with the personalities and temperaments of their superiors and coworkers. As a solopreneur, you’ll need people skills to a higher degree than ever before. You’ll be representing your brand everywhere you go – online and offline. Being able to foster a positive reputation and create good will is essential. Burning bridges is not an option; it can ruin you before you get off the ground.

Do those who matter support my decision?

Anyone who depends on you emotionally, physically or financially should be on-board with your decision before you jump in. That means you have to be realistic with them about the risks and sacrifices that come with business ownership. You might need to cut back (or completely eliminate) weekend dinners out on the town and buying full-price Abercrombie might become a thing of the past. Not only that, but you might also find yourself working weekends or taking business calls during the dinner hour. Prepare those around you for the lifestyle changes that will come with the territory – and gain their acceptance.

Can I accept criticism – and being 100% accountable?

It’s all you, baby! That can be both a blessing and a curse for solopreneurs. It’s a terrific position to be in when all things are running smoothly, but when they’re not, you’ll be faced with placating anyone who questions your pricing, policies, and products or services. Hopefully the punches will be few and far between, but as a solopreneur, you’ll be the one who needs to roll with them.

What if this doesn’t work?

The power of positive thinking goes a long way, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong to have a back-up plan. Put some thought into what your options are if being in business for yourself doesn’t quite work out. Luckily, being a solopreneur gives you the capacity to become well-connected in the community. Be sure to network (both face-to-face and online) to build a strong base of connections who know you and your professional strengths. Fortunately, that also gives you clout as a business owner – so if you do it well, you may never need to move to “Plan B”.

Do I need help?

When you’re starting a solo business, there are lots of i’s to dot and t’s to cross. Do you really have a firm grasp on all that’s involved? As a solopreneur, you need to realize and acknowledge your business smarts and skills deficits before you serve your first client or customer. There are organizations out there that can help. My personal favorite is SCORE, an organization with over 360 chapters nationwide. They provide free mentoring and low-cost business workshops to start-up entrepreneurs and those with existing businesses. If you’ve got unanswered questions, registering to meet with one of their mentors would be a wise decision. Expert advice and feedback from a third party can give you new insight and a fresh perspective – and increase your likelihood of succeeding.

What other questions should solopreneurs ask before declaring themselves “open for business”?

Image: Master isolated images / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Original Article from SCORE Small Business Success Blog
A common thought process that many small business owners possess is how to stay ahead of their competition and help grow their market share. Reducing the cost of products and services is usually the most common strategy they implement with the assumption that it will help their objectives. At times this works until their competitors initiate a similar strategy. They spend more time in strategizing on how to profit in the present and stay ahead of their competition, and they get distracted from planning long term business sustainability.

When the economy goes through it’s ups and downs, small businesses often ride the unpleasant roller coaster. The only way to hang on to that rough ride is by adapting to the economical movements. Write your business plan if you have not written one or rewrite it if you wrote one a long time ago because things are different today. The objective is to restructure the state of your business based on the current economic conditions.

I often meet with existing business owners who indicate that they need more money to keep operating their existing business. Unfortunately, I see that many of the small business owners who suffer losses never had or never maintained a written business plan, which only decreases their chances of survival during rough economic times. The sad part is that those who have been reporting losses are unlikely to get approved for a bank loan because lenders foresee more risk in lending money to businesses that show recent losses. Sometimes just to keep the business floating, some small business owners borrow money from their personal accounts, which at times leads to higher risk if they do not recover the losses quickly.

In today’s economic conditions, small business owners should maintain or update their business plan including their financial projections at least once every six months. Consistently maintaining  a business plan helps identify the roadblocks more frequently, and warn them of potential hazards. A well-written business plan with very good market planning helps increase the possibilities of a long-term business retainability, which is often the smart business medicine. There is no guarantee of 100% recovery in the unstable economy but it can prolong the life of a business during rough economic times or at least give the business owners a more realistic view into the future of the business, and help them plan accordingly.

During my business mentoring and counseling sessions with existing small business owners, I assess the business operation, management, personnel, experience, product-line, service, marketing strategies, and more. As part of replanning and restructuring the operation, I suggest the owners redo the expense budget for the next few months based on the most recent financial data and seasonal earnings. Reassess every function of the operation. Reanalyze the market. Reevaluate personnel and administrative services. Consolidate areas of operation and services. Modify service and product-line based on the products and services of demand. Revisit lease, vendor, distribution, supplier, sales and service agreements. Although every business is different, the goal is leaner overhead and a refreshed line of products and services based upon the ongoing and seasonal demands. Enhance customer outreach programs and track customer-returning strategies based upon the service, products and marketing strategies.

If you know what worked for you at times to grow your revenue, strategies that helped you establish a more effective operation, and at times steps you implemented to overcome various business challenges then take all of those results and experiences under consideration to help assess and create a better business road map. Synchronize your plans and strategies by writing, rewriting or updating your business plan.

Consistent maintenance of a business plan will refresh an entreprenuer’s business vision, and help improve the success rate. Give your business a longer lifeline with up-spiral projections. A business that can make it through the rough economy with proper planning has only one way to go when the economy revives, and that is to grow.

Image: jscreationzs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

View Original Post

If you run a local business that’s focused on generating customers locally, then you may think you don’t really need to pay much attention to social media tools.

While it’s true many social media tools offer the opportunity to connect with global audiences, they’re also great for driving local business when used in a targeted fashion.

Look, if your customers and prospects are using social media tools, and a little research will likely prove they are, then it just stands to reason that if you can find ways to meet them where and when they choose to interact, you’ll get more chances to be their go-to provider.

Social CRM

If you have a list of local customers that contains email addresses, then your first local, social play is to update those records with public social media data. Using a browser add-in like Rapportive, you can see the social media profiles and participation of your customers right in your inbox.

True CRM tools, like ACT! and BatchBook also make it very easy to append your existing customer or prospect data with social media activity. This is a great way to measure how active your customers are, discover some of the most active and influential for referral purposes and learn much more about what makes them tick – all great ways to learn how to become even more important to them.

Start a Group

Most social networks allow you to start groups. Smart local businesses should look for way to create a local group around a topic that is not about their business, but related somehow. A camera shop could start a local photography hobby group. An insurance salesperson could start a local small business networking group. A chiropractor could run a local group focused on people who want to learn more about wellness and alternative health practices.

The key is to create a group that can build, network and share based on a common interest and not to set up something that is blatantly about promoting your business.

Community Blog

Another great tactic is to start a blog run by a number of local businesses. The idea here is to have a blog with the sole intention of creating useful content around a broad topic such as home maintenance, wellness and business building.

Of course, whatever the topic, you want to make sure your business can provide content in one specific area, such as plumbing in the case of the home maintenance blog. Then simply fill out the authors based on all of the other expertise needed to make this a great local resource.

If all of the participants also link to the content and point to it in their marketing and social media efforts, the community blog will become a local search engine magnet for all of the participants.

Location Matters

Location-based services such as Foursquare have created a check-in behavior driving mobile consumers to use their phones to check in to locations in a game-like manner. Local businesses can explore ways to take advantage of this social behavior by claiming and enhancing business pages in Foursquare, Gowalla and Yelp.

Then you can explore ways to make offers through these tools using one or more of the various built-in features. You can also tap this behavior by creating your own games using Foursquare or Scvngr, a tool that helps you take advantage of mobile technology to create scavenger hunts.

Social Landing

On final way to enhance the local aspect of social media is to landing pages that are specific to a social network. In other words, create a Facebook page, LinkedIn page, Google+ page and Twitter page on your own website and link to them from your profile on the respective network.

The key is to make this your “local” Facebook page, for example, and make sure that there is a connection to both Facebook and your local presence. The power behind this tactic is two-fold. First, you enhance the connection to the social network – if someone visits your LinkedIn profile and clicks on your website link, they are taken to your LinkedIn landing page first. This personalization can help create engagement.

In addition, you create content on your website that’s both local and social that has a great chance of getting picked up in search engines and further helping you build a stronger presence in all of your social networks.

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