Jumpstart Your Business

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.

Steve Strauss posted this in his column in USA Today and I couldn’t help but notice the emphasis on social media and its applicability to small business. He makes the case that small business needs to pay attention to using Twitter and the other social media sites. In his words, “Social media is busting out right now for a reason — it’s working. If you still think Twitter is hogwash and that it is nothing more than a tool for Ashton Kutcher to build buzz, you are wrong. Twitter has become a valuable business tool that is allowing small business owners to connect with people in ways they otherwise could not.”
See Ask an Expert: 5 powerful recession-busting ideas for the full article

Business worldwide has gone through a transformation in the last several decades because of the search for excellence. To be the best you can be, simple demands that you need to specialize. You can’t be everything to all and still be the best. Companies that build complex products are being forced to intentionally outsource the manufacturing of most of their components to get better quality at less price. This has led to the fracturing of American business or one company manufacturing a better product through reliance on others to perform functions the business did before.

Part 1 got us to the conclusion that the highly centralized model of the early years of CRM systems is causing a push to web-based technology which is nothing more than allowing the applications to execute where they make the best-business sense – close to the customer.

There are certain drawbacks to this among which is the need to move more and more data around the organization. This puts pressure on the enterprise to invest in networking technology and to keep pace with the demand for broader bandwidth to move the increasing quantities of random information around the organization. It also places strict requirements for data network security.

The typical enterprise of today was built several decades ago using organization and management theory of that era. The entire focus of management was on product and all the business processes which were put in place were designed to gather data and information to move product through the sales channels. Customer Relationship Management was born out of the need for tools to gather customer data so we could manage sales and marketing campaigns. No one was interested in gathering information that would help us understand target markets and build an optimum marketing message.

All of your life you have been told to learn to think outside the box. All through school you have been taught to think outside the box and now comes this idiot who says the time has come to think inside the box. When did he arrive from Pluto or was it Uranus?

The Wikipedia definition of the term “Thinking outside the box is to think differently, unconventionally or from a new perspective. This phrase often refers to novel, creative and smart thinking.” Thinking outside the box inspires our creative juices and gets us looking at all the different possibilities that lay around us. It makes us look at all the options and then some, before we choose the strategic path upon which to tread.

Small business executives have to wear multiple hats and generally have little time and very limited budgets to devote to marketing activities. Nevertheless, they need to understand their target markets and favorite customers even moreso than their larger counterparts because of the very little room they have for mistakes. So how does Social Media come into play in this environment?

Interestingly enough, social media gives the small business the unique opportunity of gathering marketing data and encouraging customer loyalty with very minimal outlay. Creating a Facebook page for your business or a Twitter account and getting your customers to join a select group can get you valuable information if you encourage them to tweet or post, and collect and analyze their tweets or their Facebook comments.