Without capital, it is virtually impossible to start up your small business and to keep it running successfully.  You need funds to defray the one-time expenses so that you can open your doors and also to pay the ongoing expenses in the first months when you still are not generating enough revenue to pay for your expenses.

photo: Tax Credits

This tutorial is broken up into 15 lessons on the basics of going after capital, and putting together the requirements that lending institutions will be expecting from you.

Business Financing

Points To Ponder Before Looking For Financing

5 Must Do Steps To Grow Your Small Business

Merchant Cash Advances for Small Business Owners

4 Top Reasons Women Make Better Entrepreneurs

Women In Business

Minority Financing

Funding Sources For Women In Business

6 Places To Creatively Search For Funding For Your Small Business

Choosing the Right Lender for Your Small Business

5 Things To Make Your Start-up Successful

The 7 Major Types of Equity Financing

A Business Plan is Always Wrong

Loans Versus Grants – What You Need To Know

Do Small Businesses Really Need a Formal Business Plan?

Yelp has become a wildly popular online social media site where real people leave real reviews on local businesses. Yelp’s purpose is to assist people in finding great local businesses. In Q4 2011, they had an average of approximately 66 million unique views in each month. Users have written over 25 million reviews on local businesses on Yelp. With just these few numbers provided, you can see how Yelp can be beneficial for your small business.

photo: ewen and donabel

Connect with customers
Once you create an account, you will want to fill out information about your business and add some pictures, if applicable. Then you are ready to start connecting with customers! You will be able to reply to reviews on your business either privately or publicly, and you will also be able to join into conversations. An important tip to remember, people who had a bad experience are more likely to leave a bad review than those who had a good experience are likely to leave a good review. Keep that in mind when you are replying to your customers. Answer each of them with outstanding customer service and it will look better for your small business. This may seem like a silly tip, but you’d be surprised at the companies that respond badly back to customers.

Offer Yelp Deals
One way to attract new customers is to offer deals for Yelp visitors. Yelp has made it easy for you to create these deals under your business account. For example, you can offer a percentage off their bill for first time customers, or offer a free appetizer with purchase of a meal. One of the search options within Yelp allows viewers to search local business with a Yelp Deal going on. This will attract additional customers to your business.

Think of it as free advertising
Since Yelp is free, it’s free advertising for your local business. That is why you want to be sure to respond kindly to bad reviews and do your best to combat any negative comments on your Yelp local business page. You don’t want to focus only on the bad reviews as you will want to encourage good reviews too. When customers come into your place of business, ask them if they are on Yelp and if they had a good experience to leave a nice comment.

The Yelp website is very accessible these days and they also offer an application for many of the smart phones. That means customers will be able to write the review while they are still on your premises. It also means that while they are driving around and trying to find a local business to visit they can look you up on Yelp. That’s your business’s first chance to leave a good impression. Yelp is a powerful word of mouth occasion for real people to leave real reviews on local businesses. You want to take advantage of this opportunity for your small business.

For many small businesses, reaching the widest customer base possible is generally  a priority.  Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are useful but sometimes they do not offer the broad promotion that your business needs simply because they are based on the extent of your network.  There are alternative methods to gaining a broad audience that will get people talking and more importantly, drive sales.  Using social bookmarking sites, such as StumbleUpon, can significantly increase the amount of random hits on your website.  StumbleUpon has been credited with being far better than any other site in this regard.  Here, is why and how you can use it to promote your small business:

photo: magerleagues

2.      Allow discovery of your webpage
This bookmarking site allows an individual to use their own preferences to score websites, pictures, videos and text.  A user tells StumbleUpon whether it liked or disliked a certain website and StumbleUpon remembers this. They compile this information and then show the user websites that match their “likes”. This is the perfect way for the masses to discover your website. StumbleUpon allows internet users to surf sites they would not have come across previously, so it does not matter how small the business is or the extent of your network, this site can work for you.

3.      Obtain “likes” from individuals
Viewers of any website can decide whether or not they like it by clicking on a ‘LIKE’ icon.  This will tell multiple viewers how many people approve of the web page and the more ‘LIKES’ a page has, the more traffic it will receive.  Therefore, you want to encourage customers or potential customers to like the web pages on your small business site to drive more customers in.

4.      Create  unique content
The more unique content on your small business web page that is created, the more hits your website is likely to receive.  StumbleUpon aims to highlight original work, and by definition, articles that are pasted and copied are not unique.  It can be very exciting creating something from nothing, so put on that creative hat and get to work.

5.      Use what you have
Use other social networking sites and customers to promote your webpage on StumbleUpon, so that others will follow.  As stated previously, Facebook has its uses!  Try to engage the customers you have, to give a thumbs up for your website and plenty more will follow suit. Use your initiative to create the reality you want. After all, there is nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Any small business will profit from a site such as StumbleUpon, and your small business is no exception, as the idea is simple and, the methods are easy to apply.  It is not meant only for super technological people but for the layman who simply wishes their small business website to flourish.

If you haven’t heard by now, Pinterest is making waves through the Internet. It is now the third most popular social media site and anyone who enjoys sharing photos can register with Pinterest and share their interests through the art of pictures. Photographers, photojournalists and hobbyists alike gain a wealth of opportunity by signing up with this website. But not only these groups of individuals, but small business owners, as well can leverage this resource. While an online pinboard might seem like a strange place to grow a small business, it is very possible and makes a lot of sense. It is more about creating brand awareness than making money.

photo: AngryJulieMonday

The first order of business is to create a small business account on Pinterest. From there, start connecting with customers by creating pinboards where you pin photos or pictures that are of interest to your customers or followers.. You will be able to share your pin boards with them. Also, Pinterest users are able to post on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to get other customers or potential customers interested. Get them all involved. You might be doing them a favour.

2. Personal touch on your Small Business pinboards

Think about what your clients would like to see and pin it to a board. If you own a restaurant, pin pictures of food and recipes. If you are in the hospitality sector, then create a pinboard of travel locations, hotels, etc. Create several boards that your customers would like to see and follow. Whatever the tastes of the customer, this site has it all, from pictures of amazingly structured anthills to choreographed zebras, to good recipes, to DIY projects, and so much more.

3. Add a “Pin It” button

On your small business website, add a “pin it” button so people can pin objects or articles back to your website. It also ensures that the pin sources your website instead of taking the chance the individual didn’t source it correctly. It’s very simple to add a “Pin It” button to your website, as there are plug-ins and source code through-out the web. A “Pin it” button encourages individuals to pin easily back to your site, so they can save what they find and share it with others. Be aware that these links are no-follow links though, so they are not counted for SEO purposes. Therefore, it’s important to have an impressive landing page when potential customers click on a pin to get to your page.

4. Engage your customers

Pinterest is more than pinning pictures to pinboards, it allows you to interact with pinners. If someone comments on one of your pins, you can have a conversation right there on Pinterest. It’s a new way to engage your customers and potential customers.

Pinterest is a growing social media phenomenon and allows individuals to create virtual pinboards. Creating pinboards geared towards your customers, and potential customers, allows you to instantly connect with them. It’s a new and different way of growing your small business. Take time to connect with them by creating multiple pinboards that are unique for their interests.

LinkedIn is a social media resource that many people overlook. In the past, it was used mainly for finding a job or connecting with colleagues. But it has made changes since to allow companies to be more involved with their pages by being able to share company updates, connect with other companies, etc. It can be a powerful resource if used properly. Let’s take a look at the basics of setting up a LinkedIn Company page and see the best way to get the most out of LinkedIn.

photo: Adriano Gasparri

Set up a Profile
Setting up a LinkedIn Company Page is fairly easy. All you need to do is enter in your Company name and your email address at your company. It will ask you to confirm that you are an official representative of your company and can act on its behalf in creating the page. Once you confirm that, your page is created, but you should take the time to sit down and fill out your company’s profile. This profile page will be what most people look at when they are on your LinkedIn Page. Therefore, fill out the company’s history, information about the products and services your company offers and maybe your company’s mission statement.

The Professional Headline
Can be 120 characters and you want to use keywords and list your skills so that you can be better found in searches. If you are the CEO, it is essential to list some of the key phrases for the solutions that your company brings to the market.

Connect with others
LinkedIn is the preferred business social networking tool in a business-to-business environment. Therefore, you want to spend time connecting with other businesses. First, if you have job openings in your business, this is a great place to advertise for talent to fill those vacancies. Second, connect with your current employees. Have them create their own personal profiles and elaborate on their jobs at your company. This is beneficial in several ways. With the newer LinkedIn set-up, users can see company statistics and some of it is pulled from the employee information on LinkedIn. One example is that LinkedIn has a graph that will compare how many years your employees worked at your company to employment length of a similar company. This can demonstrate employee satisfaction if you have employees staying with you for a long time. You can also connect with suppliers or vendors to see what they are currently doing.

Be Active
Outside of connecting with other people and companies, it’s important to stay active. LinkedIn isn’t a place where you can just upload information and leave it be for awhile. You need to stay active by posting news about your company or joining in on industry discussions. Try to get involved with various groups on LinkedIn. This will allow you to connect with more people and get your company name out there. As part of the process of being active, start to build followers on your Company page. Once you have a group of followers, it’s even more important to keep updating your Company activity to let them know what your company is doing. Use LinkedIn Answers to ask questions relevant to your target customers or to share your expertise with potential clients.

LinkedIn has grown from a job search board to a business social networking site. It is another means to follow companies and people, but it’s geared towards the business and removes all the other noise that Twitter can cause. While you may think because you’re just a small business, you don’t need a LinkedIn page yet, you’re wrong. It’s a great way to grow your company by connecting with other people in your local area and in your industry.

I saw this video in Entrepreneur and had to share it with you. It details five steps for using Pinterest for your small business

Twitter is exploding and currently has over 200 million users. These users aren’t all personal accounts; many are businesses, including small businesses. Are you on Twitter yet with your small business? Twitter may seem intimidating at first with so many users and limited message length of only 140 characters. But you’d be surprised at how you can use those 140 characters to promote your business and connect with your customers. Let’s look briefly at how you can take advantage of Twitter to promote your small business.

photo: Rosaura Ochoa

• Build your brand

As a small business, you need to take advantage all these opportunities to build your brand. Twitter is a free tool, and it doesn’t take much time to get on and tweet things about your company. There are even tools that allow you to schedule your tweets ahead of time, so you don’t have to worry about it if you go on vacation or you get busy. Tweet things about your company that you think your customers would like to know about. Is your small business involved in community outreach? Let your followers know these various things to build your brand. Also, use your company logo as your profile picture and Twitter page background, so followers will get familiar with your logo.

• Connect with customers

Twitter is an easy way to connect with your customers. Follow as many as you can and then continue adding customers as they add you to their list. You can use tools like Hootsuite to follow certain Hashtags or keywords and get streams of tweets on specific subjects.  You can alos follow the tweets about your competitors. It goes beyond just following your customers though, it’s includes interacting with them. Did they say something good about your company? Retweet it and thank them. Did they say something bad about your small business? Acknowledge this immediately either privately or publicly.  Address it with them so you can satisfy them and improve your customer service.

• Promote your products

After you build a following, tweet specials or sales that you’re having and have some specials just for Twitter followers. You can also pick some of your Twitter followers to test out new products in exchange for them to tweet about it.

• Provide the latest news

Provide the latest company news to your Twitter followers. Did you just acquire a new product? Tweet about it. What about having a new employee joining the team? Tweet about it. Tweet about what is going on in your company to let your followers know.

• Network with others

Twitter allows you to network with other small businesses and cplleagues in your industry. You can exchange tips and tricks with them and see what works and doesn’t work in their business. Then apply this knowledge to your small business.

Twitter is another social networking tool that is perfect for your small business. It’s free and only takes a few minutes to write a few tweets and communicate with others. With Twitter, you can build your brand, connect with customers, promote your products, provide the latest company news and network with others. Take advantage of this tool for your small business.

If you don’t already understand that your business is customer driven and that it all starts and ends with the customer, then you need to read this. I am going into ten concepts that will help you define who your favorite customer is and what makes them tick. The fact that they all start with “C” as in customer should not be lost on you.

photo: HikingArtist.com

Remember that it all starts and ends with the customer. If you don’t understand your customer and relate to him/her you will not be in business very long.

Facebook is one of the most popular social media sites with a global user population of 845 million and still growing. While it may have started out to be just a means to connect with friends and family, it has now grown to be a huge networking tool for small businesses. You can use Facebook for your small business to build brand loyalty, establish yourself as a subject matter expert in your field, to engage with your customers and to drive qualified leads back to your small business web site.

photo: Ethan Hein

Before you even sign up for Facebook with your small business, take a few minutes to sit down and think about your main business reason for using this social media site.. Are you trying to grow your customer base? Are you out to build brand awareness? Are you trying to create an avenue to connect with existing customers? You can achieve any and all of these objectives eventually but concentrating on one main objective allows you to measure your initial success more easily. So decide on that main objective, then sign up for a Facebook account.

Building a Facebook business page is really simple. It is free and lets you connect with existing and new customers. You can include your business location, hours and other details about your business. You can claim your Place which connects your physical location to your Facebook page. Then you can promote your page and invite your prospects and customers to visit it.

Maintaining regular postings about your business to your Page is crucial to keeping loyal readers and getting them engaged. You need to actively participate in the customer discussions on your page so you fully understand not only your customers’ business problems and the pain they endure but more importantly the words and phrases they use to describe their issues and the to relate to your products and services. This understanding lets you communicate back to them in their language. Provide reasons why they would return regularly and often and give them expert advice so that they hold your expertise in high regard.

Here are some simple tricks for when you’re first starting out, since you won’t have any followers on your Page. Make sure you get the word out there – start with your family and friends and have them “like” your Page. Have them tell their friends. If you own a business that has a store front, put the fact that you’re now on Facebook on some flyers and hand them out. Somehow let your current customers know that they can now find you on Facebook. Then ensure that you’re on Facebook at least once a day, if not more, to write on your Page about things going on in the business and to respond to any customers posting on your Page.

Facebook is one of the easiest and best tools to connect with customers. First, it’s free, so it’s not going to cost your business anymore money. Second, most people are already on Facebook, so it’s just a matter of getting them over to your Facebook Page. Once you are able to get people to follow you, ensure that you interact with them and advertise specials or deals. Change the way you think about Facebook and use it to promote your small business.

Gone are the days when face to face interaction was the premier means of gaining a customer’s business. No longer is there a need for people to go door to door selling products or even via tele-marketing. This is not to say it does not happen anymore but it has significantly decreased because of the use of technology. Technology has given birth to new ways for business owners (especially small businesses) to gain and maintain customers and the most notable way is via Social Media. For that reason, Social Media is a must in today’s small business.

photo: JoselinMane

Social Media, simply put, is a means of communicating socially online. With that being said, it creates an informal and friendly interactive platform between businesses and their customers. And why is Social Media so important to the small business owner? Well, let’s examine the reasons.

Firstly, the most important aim of a small business owner is to understand who the customer is and what pain the customer is suffering from. Social Media allows small businesses to communicate with its customers on a “personal” level, and this increases the small business’ ability to satisfy the customer needs using the customer’s key word and phrases. This also enhances the level of customer service a client receives as complaints and queries are dealt with within a short period of time. Moreover, Social Media allows a small business to offer detailed information about the background of the company. Often times, a customer is more likely to transact business with a small company only after it has thorough information on it, its owners etc. That is exactly why Social Media is a must in today’s small business.

Secondly and also very important is getting the business’ name out there by effective means so as to generate income. But as the name suggests, a small business may not have sufficient capital to do so via advertisements using traditional media like newspapers, magazines or billboards. That is where Social Media comes in for the small business owner! By this medium, the business is able to receive publicity via information provided on a website, or more popularly on the profile or fan page of a social network such as Facebook and Twitter. There is no doubt that MILLIONS of people use Facebook and Twitter daily and allowing your small business to have its own profile on such a medium can only bring about benefits for your small business.

Importantly, a small business can utilize the platform of Social Media for the release and promotion of new and existing products. Additionally, it can be a great way to offer discounts and contests with prizes to customers who would love the thought of goodies from small businesses. Indeed, just think of a person visiting your swimwear profile on Facebook to see that you have a new collection and the release date of such collection. They would be more likely to visit your small business store if there is one or contact you personally for delivery of swimwear that interests them!

All in all, Social Media offers a great way to monitor the reputation of your small business’ brand. Customers today want to see authenticity and turn away from a rigid corporate stance that was the traditional way of doing business. Social Media is the answer to this as it develops trust between the small business and customer and is the stepping stone to building a strong relationship between buyer and seller.