This lecture, by Joseph L. Bower, Professor, Harvard Business School, is one of the 10 videos Inc. Magazine recommends for every entrepreneur. Check the full list here. How many have you seen already? Any not on the list that you’d add? Tell us!
Jake Winebaum is a serial entrepreneur. He is the founder of FamilyFun magazine, Business.com, Brighter.com and co-founder of eCompanies and Blue Waters Research.
How do you know if your idea is any good?
The real test for me is if the idea builds momentum the more time you spend with it. I’m a big believer that you have to spend a lot of time with an idea. Good ideas get stronger the more you work on them. You begin to lose interest in weak ideas.I’ve also gotten to the point where I view that ideas are relatively cheap. Having an idea alone is not what makes a successful company. You need to have a great idea, great timing, and the most important piece: sufficient capital. The idea will need multiple iterations, and that takes time and money.
Read the rest of Jake Winbaum’s advice on becoming a serial entrepreneur at Inc.
At the WomenEntrepreneur blog, Sunshine Suites’ co-founder Cheni Yerushalmi has a huge, vital piece of advice for stay-at-home startups:
“When you’re in a home, your networking opportunities are limited,” Yerushalmi says. “How much feedback and advice will you get?”
Cheni gives WomenEntrepreneur some valuable insight into the Sunshine office community, its network of small businesses and entrepreneurs, and provides 6 tips for small businesses in 2011. Read the entire article here!
The big controversy at the moment with unpaid internships is companies taking advantage of this opportunity to obtain free labor. Moreover, the stereotype of interns being brought in to conduct menial tasks such as getting people coffee and washing windows, is an all too common practice. What is so frustrating to most small business owners is that most small businesses are not looking to engage in these unfortunate practices. Instead, they are looking to be a mentor for the student and be there to answer questions about the relevant industry and provide hands-on experience. For small business owners, this source of affordable labor can really help to take pressure off of the owner.
Now that we’ve established what NOT to have your interns doing, let’s look at some reasonable jobs that they should be able to handle. Consider the simple, yet redundant tasks that can be delegated. If this task directly relates to your industry, it can become a solid candidate to be handled by an intern. However, keep in mind that interns are not machines. If they are doing the same repetitive task over and over, day in and day out it will begin to take a toll on their level of motivation. Consider switching it up every so often to keep them feeling fresh and motivated. Another great tactic is to play to your interns strengths. Consider starting them with a variety of different tasks. A week or so in, discuss with them which they felt most comfortable doing and let them run with what they are feeling they excel at. When they are honestly enjoying what they do, and feel they are learning something beneficial in the process, chances are they will do much higher quality work since they will be driven to perform the tasks.
Keep in mind that at the end of the day, an internship is designed to be an educational experience for the student. Don’t delegate tasks to the student if you don’t feel they will be taking something worthwhile out of the experience.
In terms of compensation, most schools will provide the student credit as if the experience is a class. While payment really isn’t required for these types of internships, be considerate as possible for the students situation. If they have to shell out money to work for you on things like transit expenses and things along those lines, this can potentially be seen as a losing situation. Chances are that the value of the labor they will provide you can justify helping the student with some expenses. Simple gestures like providing compensation for their transportation to and from the workplace and even a daily meal can make a world of difference to the student.
Another thing to consider is the basic motivation factor. A few weeks into a successful internship, if you feel the student is really doing fantastic work, reward them for it! An envelope with an explanation and letter of gratitude can go a very long way. As an added bonus, putting something additional into the envelope can really leave an impact.
One final factor to keep in mind is to encourage open communication with the student. If they aren’t comfortable with a task, try to change it to something they feel better outfitted to handle. Also communicate to them what you like or dislike about their work to date. Simply communicating some of these things can often resolve the issue.
Final thoughts: be fair. You know what you have to offer the student and you also know how that labor can impact your company. That being said, do what you can to be as fair as possible and chances are that your intern will really be pleased with how the experience turned out.
As a small business, you obviously need to bank on the fact that you will be judged based on the quality of work you produce for your clients. Whether good or bad, people will be talking about your business. Do good work, deliver on time, be consistent, and your customers will be sure to tell their friends about how great your services are. However, always keep in mind that the same holds true for delivering low quality work. People will then be saying all the negatives about your company and your offering. While this will always remain true, you can always try other ways of incentivizing referral business. Let’s look at some of your options to ensure you never are short on work because of all the referrals people have sent you.
Heads up, if you contact the AMC Movie Theaters corporate buying department, you can get a VERY deep discount if you buy their passes in bulk. A pack of 50 passes backs out to under $8 a pass. While these are valued at over $10.50, this can leave a great impact while saving you some money in the process. Certainly, other deals like this exist out there if you look hard enough.
All in all, generating new referrals isn’t too hard if you’re putting the effort in.
We want to hear from YOU! What method has your business used to drum up new business? A referral contest? Offering something along the lines of “a month of free service for each referral?” Tell us in the comments!
Ever since Facebook Status’ and Twitter became popular, the world of “microblogging” started to gain traction. People were updating and tweeting about their personal lives, and companies started observing what people were writing about, and even interacting with their client base. More recently, a wave of internal microblogging platforms have entered into the space allowing companies to start their own twitter-like communities. Let’s explore creative ways internal microblogging systems can be used to benefit small businesses.
One example use of a microblogging community is what we do here at Sunshine Suites. We utilize microblogging platform Present.ly to maintain a sense of community throughout the building. Even though each of us work at our own company, we can interact with other members of the building through the platform. The beauty of this is that it brings together a niche group of small business owners who can all networks with each other in real time, or throughout the day. Moreover, what makes this concept unique is that the individuals on the platform are likely in the building work space if they are interacting. In the event you find someone on the system who you would like to have lunch with, or bounce ideas off of, they probably aren’t too far.
While this idea works well for our office community, there are countless other applications. For example, small business owners can use microblogging to keep their remote and in-house workers on the same page. This is a powerful concept that is going heavily underutilized. As a small business owner, when you pay out remote contractors, you have certain expectations that need to be met. These include consistent progress on your project, and a rough idea of how long each sub-task of the assignment is taking. Keeping track of which remote contractor is working on what, and how long they are taking can be a painstaking task. However, if you require each of the remote contractors to log into your company microblogging system and leave an update about how your project is progressing can keep everyone on the same page. It’s a simple, non-invasive way to ensure that consistent progress is being made. Additionally, if you feel a certain task took longer than projected based on the updates, it can be promptly addressed with that individual. This can save countless hours of mismanaged time because it keeps you in the know about how long each task is taking to complete.
Microblogging platforms aren’t only good for management, but also interaction between yourself, your remote contractors, and even remote contractors collaborating amongst themselves. Sure, there are elegant solutions for collaboration like BaseCamp, but sometimes minimalist simplicity can work wonders.
While microblogging is fantastic for things like office communities and small business interaction, there are still more uses for them. These types of platforms can be used to create private communities to bounce ideas around. Think something along the line of a “mastermind group.” This is effective for small business owners because they may be willing to discuss some ideas with a group of their trusted friends in the industry, but don’t want their discussions made private. The sky is truly the limit.
Freelancing, regardless of the niche, can be a somewhat hard industry to break into initially but once you get situated and a steady clientele base it can literally become the dream profession. You get to decide your hours, you get to decide your pay, and you get to decide pretty much everything involved in your particular job. If you don’t like to work on Wednesdays-it’s no problem. Do you like working in your pajamas- Why not? Basically, all of the little quirks of working for someone else that annoy you can be eradicated at your whim. But the biggest advantage of being a freelance can easily also become its biggest flaw as the corporate world’s idiosyncrasies are set up that way for a strategic reason and leaning away from certain ones can literally be bad for business.
Case in point-when you are a freelancer you usually start off with your home being your business. That comfy couch replaces your ergonomic office chair, the coffee machine is your literal coffee pot and the TV is never out of reach. These luxuries can be good in moderation but can also turn your freelancing career into a disaster, which is why it is imperative that all freelancers keep an office whether it is a second bedroom retrofitted into a home office or an actual office space within a rented out building. I know you are probably thinking to yourself “why would I quit my job to get rid of the corporate atmosphere only to re-embrace it?” Well, the answer is quite simple actually-efficiency.
Since you already set your own hours of operation, frequency of work load as well as general location of work, you are set up to have a higher propensity for slacking off. Any experienced freelancer can shoot off an anecdotal story about how a TV show marathon kept them from completing an order for a client or how “a few more hours of sleep” can turn into an entire day in bed with you adamantly defending your actions to…yourself. Having an office space gets your brain out of leisure mode and into work mode which is what you need when you don’t have a boss who can fire you for being lazy. By making an office space you can effectively separate work and play within your mind which will undoubtedly lead to more efficient and productive working time.
That’s right, creating an office space will help you keep your work load balanced and keep you productive which is your only means of procuring money as a freelancer. Furthermore, freelancing inherently involves more than just doing the work. You have to file documents, keep a ledger, bill clients, etc…all of which need their very own organized home and the coffee table surely isn’t the best fit. Keeping an office allows you to also keep office space to store all of these vital documents that keep your freelancing job afloat. You have to remember that becoming a freelancer doesn’t mean you don’t have a business or boss to report to because this isn’t true. As a freelancer you become your boss and you become your business so it is necessary to treat yourself as your business since at the end of the day you literally are.
While creating a home office space is an option, another is investing in renting a shared office. Shared office space will vary in price, but it is often designed with a freelancers budget in mind. While many freelancers believe that working from home is an ideal scenario, others acknowledge the truth that it doesn’t always work out as planned. For many, it pays to get out of the house an in to a formal place of business.
In summary, keeping an office space is a vital choice for any freelancer for a plethora of reasons. It allows you to effectively separate work from play, increases productivity, and creates an efficiently run business that any professional would be proud of.
Owning a small business is far from easy, especially when you are a one-man-show. The cost of taking on a new hire is often the prohibiting factor. However, this does not mean that you have to disregard the idea of expansion altogether. There are numerous other options to take on hired help that is more affordable. Let’s look over some of your options.
Looking for more sales?
There are a few different ways to take on people that will generate sales for your company. One of the easiest, and most obvious ways to do this is to hire people on a commission-only basis. However, keep in mind that people who will have the ability to close sales for your company are going to demand two things: high commission and a product that can be sold. While the latter sounds obvious, if your product has a limited target audience, even the best sales person won’t be sticking around for too long if they can’t keep selling it.
Another way to help you generate more sales is with an affiliate (or referral) program. This is where you pay affiliates to advertise your site and you only have to pay them a small percentage of every sale they send. You can also use this type of payment structure to generate sales leads that you can have your sales person close.
Looking for an Assistant?
Paying a full time assistant can be expensive, but there are numerous options that can get your cost down lower than you can expect. One option is to recruit an intern from a college in your area. Offer it to students who are studying business management. You can sometimes get students who need to complete internships for class credit. These interns do not need to be paid, but must be working on something relevant to their field of study. If this is something that your business can implement, it is often well worth it.
Another option is to work with virtual assistants. Virtual assistants can be domestic, or overseas, and exist to help you manage your business tasks. Obviously, hiring one from the US will be more expensive, but if your business needs someone who will be able to communicate well it is worth it. Note that while US virtual assistants may not come cheap, they are using all of their own resources. You won’t need office space for them, supplies, a computer, etc.
Looking for Skilled Labor?
As small business owners, sometimes we need a skilled worker to help with tasks like graphic design. You can get very talented labor using outsourcing sites such as Elance, Guru, and Freelancer. The trick is to do the best you can to determine the quality of the labor as quickly as possible. Ideally, always start a new freelancer out with a small chunk of work to gauge the quality before letting them handle anything larger. This helps ensure you are not out an abundance of money and left with low quality work.
This post is a continuation of a series about how to utilize various internet advertising platforms to generate leads for your business.
Sure, working with pay per click advertising engines are phenomenal ways to generate high quality, relevant traffic to your lead form but what if you’re not familiar with the process? Don’t sweat, you still have an option! Did you know you can outsource lead generation and pay just for the leads that were sourced for you? It’s pretty simple with what are known as “CPA Networks.” CPA, in this case, doesn’t stand for “certified public account,” but rather “cost per action.” Working with CPA networks allows you to specify what “action” you want taken (for example, submission of a new lead) and the most you can pay for that action.
When you believe you have a reasonable price in mind that you can pay per lead, reach out to reputable CPA networks to discuss having their affiliates promote your offer. How it works is pretty simple:
Create your lead generation page.
Determine your ideal cost per acquisition.
Approach CPA networks about running your offer.
Pre-pay the network for the target amount of leads you are looking to have generated.
From that point on, your primary objective is to monitor the quality of your leads. Keep track of if the leads are converting into sales. If the cost of the leads is not being justified on the back end, work with the network to adjust the CPA and better manage the affiliates promoting the offer.
A the end of the day, working with networks come down to quality. Most networks will let you start with a small, $1,00 test.
Some of the most reliable networks in the industry are:
Small business grants can help people fund the startup and expansion of their company. Successfully receiving grants is not an easy process due to the high volume of applicants and limited number of grants available. Let’s explore where to start hunting for grant opportunities and how to maximize your success when applying for them.
Locating small business grants is a time consuming process. There are a lot of grants out there to sort through to determine which you best qualify for. The first resource to locate small business grants is the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance, which can be accessed online at http://CFDA.gov. Look for grants from your city, state and the federal government that are as relevant as possible to your small business and what you are looking to accomplish. Create a shortlist of grants you are looking to apply for. Keeping organized is a key part of the grant application process. Remember that part of your success is based on the fact that receiving grants is partially a numbers game. The more grants you apply for, the more likely you will be awarded one. However, also keep in mind that applying for a grant can be a time consuming process and you should waste time and resources applying for grants that you do not qualify for.
When it comes time to apply for grants, your best bet is often to bring on a consultant, or a grant writer to help you maximize your chances of receiving the grants you are applying for. If possible, try to work with someone who has a proven track record for getting grants approved. It can also help to add some credibility to your application. While this may seem unnecessary, when you consider the number of applicants to the limited number of grants, you really need all the help you can get. Another very helpful tool to have available is a strong business plan. If you do not already have one, or think yours could use some fine tuning, this would be another good time to bring on the help of an expert. Your business plan should include a description of how your new company or expansion efforts are going to benefit a certain demographic of consumers or business owners.
Once you have started the grant application process with your consultant, be sure to maintain an open and ongoing dialog with the grant officer. Discuss if there are any particular details that they are looking for from an application that may not have been clearly listed. Some beneficial outcomes include learning more details to add to your application that will make yours stand out from the rest, or realizing that although you seem to qualify, your business is not what they are looking for. Communication and clarity can be the winning factor in this incredibly competitive process, use them to your advantage!
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I am unable to wrap my head around the fact as to why any entrepreneur in NYC would not be in this building considering the price and networking opportunities.
We will certainly never find a better price and I would be surprised if we will ever find the same service we get at Sunshine.
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