Jumpstart Your Business

“Flying by the seat of your pants”, so to speak, is very exciting but is not a recommended way to run your business. Just remember that almost 90% of start ups never see a second year all because their owners never filed a “flight plan”. To prevent a small business from running sluggishly, the owner needs to invest in a business plan. Here are 10 good reasons for that stinking business plan:

photo credit: David Boyle in DC
1. Help you understand who your target market is and what customer problem you are trying to solve.

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Take the recently announced Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Initiative — a $500 million initiative that will unlock the growth and job creation potential of 10,000 small businesses across the United States through greater access to business education, mentors and networks, and financial capital.

photo credit: markwgallagher

It is based on the broadly held view of leading experts that a combination of education, capital and support services best addresses the barriers to growth for small businesses. 10,000 Small Businesses will be guided by an Advisory Council co-chaired by CEO Lloyd C. Blankfein, Warren Buffett, and Dr. Michael Porter of Harvard Business School.

In today’s social media world, we have finally realized that we need to understand our customers and part of that process involves holding conversations with the customer. Holding a conversation implies two things: talking and listening. Since we are trying to gain information about the customer’s status and needs, it would appear that we should be listening more than talking. So how do we listen effectively to a customer? Here are some keys tips to improve your listening ability:
1. Pay attention – If you really want to be a good listener, you pay attention to the person speaking. Use non-verbal cues like a smile, eye contact or a nod of the head to let the speaker know that he/she is being heard.

Blair Pleasant posted last week at Unified Communications Strategies Community Blog and I couldn’t help but notice the integration of unified communications and social media. She makes the case that many people have misconceptions about social software, assuming that it’s just about telling people what you ate for lunch, when in reality, it’s an extremely useful business tool. It’s more than just chatting with friends or letting your “followers” know what you did over the weekend. Tools such as social bookmarking, content tagging, wikis, blogs, and microblogs let workers participate in communities where they can build expertise and share knowledge.

Social networking and unified communications each have inherent value, but are even more powerful when we can blend social software nonsynchronous communication tools (such as wikis and blogs) with UC’s synchronous communications capabilities (such as click to connect). Integrating unified communications with social software lets workers better network with peers within the organization, identify and connect with experts within the company, collaborate on projects, and help workers feel connected.

The fact that IBM is seriously playing in this space is great news since they’ll most likely focus on the enterprise market and the SME/SMB marketplace will naturally follow. For the full story read IBM Integrates Unified Communications with Social Software.

Most times a small-business owner who is looking for support and financing needs to look no further than the local neighborhood. Here are six local sources of everything from training to help in securing local government contracts and also sources of loans for small companies.

1. Contact your state, county and local development departments. Among them are: statewide programs such as capital access programs; loan guarantee programs; and small business low-interest loan program that helps small companies acquire land, buildings or equipment.. There are also regional or city-based programs, such as economic development loan pools — low-interest loans for land, building acquisition, renovation or machinery and equipment purchases. Such aid is available since cities and regions are interested in promoting the economic health of their region and creating or retaining jobs in their area.

Small business owners need to be ready to identify new opportunities, react rapidly to changing market conditions and remain competitive especially in tough economic times. Because of their size, small businesses can quickly adapt to changing market conditions and implement new ways of doing business. Here are seven types of innovation that a small business may use to bring unique value to their customers.

1. Market driven innovation
A tight connection with their marketplace and close relationships with their customers help small businesses understand customer needs, identify new opportunities, and bring new products or services to the marketplace quickly.

The last several years have brought a radical change in the relationship between the customer and business as a whole. More and more customers are collaborating with businesses and technology is playing a key role in this new collaboration.

An increasing percentage of interaction with customers is coming by way of social networks and online communities. These interactions include suggestions for product improvement, requests for help, information requests and even customers assisting their counterparts directly. These customer conversations are driving the need for the business to respond in a timely fashion and to also convince potential customers of their ability to adequately take care of their needs.

Here are 4 ideas that the budding entrepreneur can use to start a small or even home based business with minimum outlay. Each of these businesses could be up and running in a matter of days.

Plant Leasing
All you need is a delivery van and a green thumb. Your target market includes corporations, hotels, home builders, health clubs and other businesses who can benefit from the decorating effects of fresh greenery. All you do is provide regular watering, pruning and fertilizing with full replacement guarantees.

In these tough financial times, small businesses need to try out new ways of cutting back on their expenses. One new trend is to follow certain feeds on Twitter. This very popular social media site contains a wealth of information on using money wisely. Here are 4 helpful feeds for you to follow:
• USATODAYmoney — Keep track of the country’s financial picture and see how you’ll have to adjust to the changing times through USA Today Money’s tweets. Their items will let you learn how to be smart with your small business cash flow.