Finding Free Advice For Small Businesses

If you are starting a small business or presently operating one, then you know seeking professional advice can cost you a bundle. You already have limited means to get your business going, the added the stress and expense of hiring professional help can sink your business faster than almost anything else. Well, there is good news for the business person who needs help but can’t afford to shell out the dollars to pay for it. The following information will help you uncover some nifty options to point you in the right direction.

SCORE – The Service Corp of Retired Executives (SCORE) has been established to help small business owners just like you. As a nonprofit entity recognized by the US Small Business Administration, SCORE consists of successful retired executives who have already been there and done that. Chapters are located all across the country and low cost seminars are helpful too. You can find one to one counseling with a former CEO, a VP of banking, a furniture store owners, etc. So many people volunteer to help ease the burden of business owners. Google a search for SCORE and you’ll find what you want.

Business Expos – Chambers of Commerce, business associations, and local governments will sometimes organize a business expo to attract business owners. Most people know that the U.S. was built on the backs of small businesses and it is these small businesses which help to propel our economy. The success of businesses such as yours is critical to helping new ventures get started, inventions to come to market, new ideas to be brought forward, and so much more.

Trade Associations – Depending on your field of expertise, your affiliated trade association can help you empower your business. Some associations work closely with small businesses to help them get established with their local, state, and federal government; write up a business plan; offer tax counseling; discuss the hiring and management of employees; and so much more. Whatever field that you are in, it could pay to join the association created to help you succeed at your business.

So, if you have a small business or are contemplating starting one, then any or all three of these choices can help you out. Your taxes and knowledge helps the economy and it is to the benefit of many that you succeed at what you do. Seek expert help, but do it through an established and proven entity that can deliver to you cost effective results.

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About the Author: Joseph is the proud owner of Money Matters, a website that will
explain everything you need to know about Finance. We invite you to
visit our site today and see what we have to offer.

Being Organized Equals Small Business Success

You started your own business because you have a burning passion for what you do. You are also - we hope -- good what you do and have a desire to help others. Little do you know that running a business includes, well...running a business. This little bombshell can throw many a new business owner for a loop.

I receive numerous phone calls every week asking me how to start a business as a professional organizer. The first thing I say is that the organizing part is easy because it is a natural gift (sometimes a curse); it's running the business that can trap you. This is not to scare a potential entrepreneur away, but to help them realize that it's not all fun and games doing what you do best. You have to:

Find an accountant
Buy insurance
Get legal advice on how to set up your business
File for the company name with the state
Find working capital if necessary
File all the proper tax forms
Open up a checking account
Get office supplies
Market the business
Build a network
And the list goes on and on...

In the initial start-up stage, entrepreneurs are often so excited about starting a new business that they pay little or no attention to what is happening with all the paperwork and electronic data you are generating. That is typical and expected. However, around the six to twelve month mark, entrepreneurs start calling people like me - a professional organizer - begging for help in setting up a system to help them be organized. I envision a hand protruding from mounds of papers reaching for help.

The sad news is that many small businesses have never taken the time to set up systems once they've built up paper and electronic backlogs. They just keep generating documents without stopping to assess what is being created.

I firmly believe that the healthiest small business is the one that visits and reviews their organizational systems every six to twelve months. The small business that keeps doing the "same old, same old" is losing money. So where do you stand?

Something that has really hit home in the past year or so is that you don't GET organized and have long lasting success. You have to BE organized. Getting organized is a quick fix of cleaning up and putting things away - usually a Band-aid (r) approach - that doesn't last for more than a few days.

Being organized is recognizing that organization is an ongoing journey. Life doesn't stop happening the minute you GET organized. You have to have systems in place that will help the daily flow; a lack of systems will cause clogs. These clogs come in many forms:

Piles of papers
Lost documents
Misplaced items - glasses, phone, pens, keys
Running late
Stress and frustration...

You get the picture.

When it becomes clear to you that you are running through your day feeling like you've accomplished nothing, you may need to reassess your organizational skills and systems.

Your small business must overcome many hurdles to be successful. Fortunately, being organized is one hurdle that you can learn to overcome. Or you can work with a professional organizer to set up customized systems that make you functional, productive, and more pleasant to be around.

I challenge you take a deep look at the state of your small business' organization. If you see your passion being overrun by disorganization, it's time to take some action.

Here's to simplifying your life!

(c) 2006, Kreamer Connect, Inc. Permission granted to reprint this article so long as the text and by-line are not changed and reprinted intact with all links made live.

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About the Author: Patty Kreamer, owner of Kreamer Connect, Inc., is a professional organizer, speaker, and author of the Making Life Simple... Again! e-course available at http://www.ByeByeClutter.com/MLSAHome.htm. If your business or organization is looking for a fun, dynamic, and effective speaker, you can email Patty at patty@ByeByeClutter.com or call her at 412-344-3252.

Project Management Software For Small Business

In multiple large organizations, the total number of functional areas that support the products of the mainline functional areas is huge. For each employee who goes into the field, large organizations have a rate of staff who work behind the scenes to support, guide and follow-up. But when you are running a small business, you cannot afford the luxury of different departments. Most probably, the employees you have all relate to the main line of your business activity and if you do have a miscellaneous assistant she/he doubles up as a HR Manager, a House Keeping and Maintenance Manager and your personal secretary. With small corporations, multi tasking is the way to excellence. And small business utility should have similar attributes.

It is 100% significant to have small business program that effectively manages accounting for your business. While larger businesses would generally have an army of number crunchers to take care of their book keeping, as a small business owner, you need to guarantee that your accounting is in order. And luckily for you, there is specific small business tool that will be suitable for your requirement. This kind of small business program will not just tabs your revenue and outflow, but will also evolve formats for you to draw up your profit and loss accounts, your petty cash flow etc.

Fairly similar to the above is small business application that tracks time. Next to money, time is the most pertinent aspect of your operations and you need small business program to help you keep tabs of it. Such tool typically integrates with your existing tools like the Microsoft Outlook Express, Calendar and appointments to streamline the way you conduct your business. Apart from this, it will also calculate the quantity of time you spend on meetings, the time you spend on traveling, the time you spend on the telephone and the time you spend doing other administrative duties. When all the above have been processed and figured into the overall time you spend on the business, you can get a discernable picture of what you should be charging in order to make each hour profitable.

Human resources is yet another target where small business application can help you reach efficiencies. If your business has a limited total amount of staff, (normally under 20) you can use personalized small business software to administer the human resource functions. The processes that would be covered under such program include recruitment, sourcing, hiring, pay and negotiation, attendance, conflict resolution, payroll etc. When you use small business program built specifically for such purposes, you eliminate the need to invest in a physical human resource department and can work and organize your human resource processes virtually and much more efficiently.

Other ordinary small business software include a paper organization software to streamline paper details stored with regard to your business, marketing efficiency application to track the efficacy of your social interaction processes, web management utility to own and operate your small business website and even small business program that are specifically customized to help you secure loans from financial firms.

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About the Author: Discover the right project management program for you and your career.

Brandt Stohr on using your small business marketing tools to differentiate your business

Using your small business marketing tools to differentiate your business
By Brandt Stohr


Perhaps the most important quality for your small business marketing materials is that they are different. If you do nothing else right in your small business marketing, at least be different.

Why is differentiation so important? Because, in most industries, there are hundreds – if not thousands or millions – of other businesses that claim to provide the same service or sell the same product as you do. If you don’t differentiate your business from all those others, the chances that you’ll get many customers are pretty slim.

Some common ways to differentiate your business are:
• Superior service
• Greater product availability
• Higher quality
• Better performance
• Greater durability
• Prestige
• Technology leadership
• Satisfaction guarantee
• Lower cost
• Faster delivery
• More customer support

But even if you are very different than your competitors – you offer superior service, greater durability, or a satisfaction guarantee that beats all others – it won’t matter unless your prospective customers know about it.

That’s where your small business marketing strategy comes in. Businesses have been using their small business marketing strategies to announce how they’re different from their competitors as long as they have been using small business marketing strategies. Think Maxwell House’s “Good to the last drop,” Campbell’s Soup’s “Mmm, mmm good,” or WalMart’s “Always low prices.” Those highly successful taglines not only get prospective customers to remember the company name, but also convey a message about the difference between that company and others.

To make differentiation a part of your small business marketing strategy, you first need to understand your competitors – you can only explain how you’re different from them once you know what they’re like. Learn what your competitors offer, how they differentiate themselves, and – most importantly – what your prospective customers think about them (if you know what qualities your prospective customers see as shortcomings in the other companies in the market, you’ll have a good idea of the market gap you can fill).

Once you’ve decided how you are different from your competitors, you need to tell your prospective customers about it. Building that differentiation into your tagline can be a very effective start. Then include that tagline, along with your logo, on every piece of small business marketing collateral you have. Another small business marketing way to publicize your differences is to write a press release. Explain how you’re filling a need in the market that no other company has filled.

Once you’ve differentiated your company and used your small business marketing tools to publicize your differences, you have to follow through on your promises. If you say that you’re the cheapest – or the highest quality, or the friendliest, or whatever – then you better be just that (nothing turns away a customer like a failed promise).

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About the Author: Brandt Stohr, The Small Business Marketing Genius has brought startup one man operations to billion dollar corporations by using creative marketing techniques rather then investors and capital. Brandt Stohr has been helped hundreds of entrepreneurs to get their small businesses exploding with sales without the use of expensive traditional marketing techniques. For more information and a free report on the ten deadly mistakes most small businesses are still making visit Brandt Stohr's site at http://www.smallbusinessmktng.com