Owning and maintaining a very successful small business can have its challenges but if you know what you are doing, everything can really work out great for you. There are many helpful tips that you should learn, if you are the owner of a small business and then by learning about these tips you should have the ability to have a very secure and profitable future. Knowing how to operate a small business properly will give you and your employees much relief in knowing that their positions are stable and secured. Your employees will be much happier, as will you, if you do all of the right things and play your cards right. In this article I am hoping to teach you a little bit more about managing a small business so that you will be a success. Having a small business definitely has its own advantages and some of those will be included throughout this article.

It is very important for you to learn more about what it takes to run a small business successfully so that if you or someone you know becomes interested in opening your own small business, you will be much more knowledgeable about all aspects of it. Another great thing about owning your own small business is that usually this means you will for sure have many more awesome customers that will tell others about it and continue coming back themselves. You will have a reputation for owning and managing a very reputable, friendly and affordable, yet small business. A small business would typically go over very well because there will be enough customers to continue keeping you with plenty of customers and when people are on vacation in your area, they too have probably already heard about your small business and many of them will choose to come into your small business and will be quite pleased by the friendly employees and the great prices. Check out the other small businesses in your area to see what it is they are doing to draw in more new customers, do not copy them but definitely kind of take a few little suggestions and ideas from watching others with more experience.

Advertising is something that most businesses do, which you as a small business owner will as well at some point in time, however, even without the professional advertising, your small business will still be successful due to all of your loyal customers that absolutely adore coming into your wonderful store. All it takes to have a very successful small business is friendliness, determination, customers that count on you and a good knowledge about business management will always make for a better chance at success. A small business could typically go over very successfully, as long as you first do some homework over managing your own business, as well as talking with other small business owners because the more experienced people could really provide you with a great deal of helpful information and some tips that can almost guarantee your small businesses success and longevity.

In my 25 + years working with professionals in Business Development, universally I’ve discovered that they have learned to think like entrepreneurs. This is what has allowed them to rise to the top of their profession. Each would tell you that along the way they have learned how to think differently.

True entrepreneurs struggle with their business opportunities for a variety of reasons. Among the most obvious are a lack of capital, lack of understanding about marketing, and personnel issues. However, from my own entrepreneurial experience and knowledge of others, there are three major reasons individuals fail in entrepreneurial ventures.

They tie the success of their business with their own self worth.
They neglect to set realistic goals and plans for themselves and their business.
They are not prepared to pay the price of success.

True entrepreneurs with the right thinking prevail over a period of time. They have learned to understand the axiom Roles, Goals, and Tolls.

Roles
Successful entrepreneurs, in contrast to those who struggle, have learned to separate their roles in life from their self worth or self-identity. They understand that role performance or failure with their own venture is not a judgment of them as an individual. People who tend to equate their self-worth to their composite role identity are inherently risk-adverse and look to maintain the status quo. Being able to differentiate these two identities allows them to be risk prone vs. risk adverse, a key ingredient to success as an entrepreneur. Individuals who have risked failure, experienced it, and learned from it, have not only learned how to differentiate their role identity from their self-identity, they have learned the lessons of risking and failing. They understand that early failure in ventures is a natural part of successful startups. They are able to embrace those experiences, learn from them quickly and move on. This is critical to success as an entrepreneur. They must be willing to face and deal with early failures in order to prevail over time.

Goals
Even though much is said and written about goals and plans being necessary for success as an entrepreneur, few people learn the mechanics of successful goal setting and planning. Its not the plan but the planning that is important, and the goal setting process allows them to develop the confidence to take risks and fail. Successful entrepreneurs are not only goal driven and goal oriented; they have learned to execute the process of strategic and tactical goal setting and planning. Visualizing goals, writing them down and putting together a detailed plan for achievement provides the confidence and motivation to prevail. More than just business or operational plans, they have goals and plans for all the important roles in their life. They have learned early that if they arent working their own plan they are probably part of someone elses goals or plans. They chart their own destiny, embrace risk-taking leadership positions, make adjustments as required and prevail over a course of time.

Tolls
Finally, entrepreneurs understand that there is a toll to pay. To be successful in any role in life you must be prepared to pay full price one time. There are really no overnight successes as an entrepreneur. In fact, Ive heard it said that overnight success generally takes 15-20 years. One of the early tolls that entrepreneurs are quite often forced to face is the re-making of themselves that can include growing beyond their current circle of contacts. Since most people tend to stay within their own psychological comfort zone, they begin to lose identity with the risk taker. They are comfortable with the type of person who is more like them. Quite often the entrepreneur moves on to a different circle of associates who understand the journey. Stepping out, being your own person and venturing into the risk prone unknown is lonely by itself. Consequently, there can be a newfound stress in old relationships. Its been said before that pioneers get shot in the front and the back, and only through a process of differentiating role performance from self-worth, being risk prone, prevailing through adversity, sticking to your goals, and adjusting your plans will you be prepared to pay the daily toll.

An entrepreneur has much to learn in order to be successful, including the day-to-day mechanics of running a business, producing products, delivering services, making money and dealing with people. The biggest challenge of all is developing an understanding of themselves. They come to grips with what they want and what motivates them; this sustains their willingness to prevail over the long term against adversity. Successful entrepreneurs have learned to transform their thinking, allowing them to prevail where others fail along the way.

Bill Scheessele is the President, Founder and CEO of Mastering Business Development, Inc., a 25-year Business Development consulting and training company. MBDi consults with firms in the energy, nuclear, engineering, pharmaceutical, IT, and other highly technical service industries helping them build proactive Business Development teams. He can be reached at or .

A web site is a crucial ingredient of your marketing strategy because it can widen your target market to include anyone who has access to a computer and the internet. Almost 60% of Canadians had access to the internet at home in 2003, and around 8 million had regular access to the internet from somewhere, either at home, at work or at school.

And thats just in Canada. Ecommerce sales from Canada were 7.2 billion, and we only captured 4% of the global ecommerce market! So, how can you reach some of those internet surfers, and how can you capture some of that 7.2 billion spent in ecommerce?

First, you build it
The first step is designing your website. If your company already has business cards and letterhead, its best to design your website around them. A matching corporate identity and website helps with branding.

I like uncomplicated websites, with a simple layout and easy navigation. A nice, simple layout, with good graphics, balanced look and good color combinations is my #1 goal when designing a small business web site. Remember to use graphics sparingly and to optimize them for your website because internet surfers are impatient. If your page loads too slowly, theyll leave.

Navigation should be easy to find and to use, and it should be consistent from page to page. Ive left more than one site frustrated because I couldnt easily find their navigation.

Small business web sites arent static. They evolve. You need to start somewhere, and starting with an introductory web site is probably easiest. All you really need to start is five pages. You can always add pages later. The important thing is to just do ittake the plunge and get it out there.

Your five pages could include an index, or home page, about us, services, contact and a sitemap. The index page is your landing page. Typically its design is a little more detailed than the others, but it doesnt have to be that way.

I like to use CSS (cascading style sheets) for designing because its simply easier to build a web site and to edit its layout with CSS rather than just HTML (hypertext markup language) alone. A change on a CSS sheet changes all the pages on your site at once.

Content is king
Once your site is designed, youll want to start thinking about content. Design is very important, but it does little good to have a beautiful site without high-quality content.

Your small business home page introduces you and your companywho you are and what you do. The about us page is usually used to give more detail than the home page about who you are, and your services page gives more detail about what you do. You might wonder why youd waste a page on a sitemap since you only have 5 pages, but sitemaps help search engines find all the pages in your site.

As far as content goes, more is better, up to a point. Your pages should be content rich and informative, but they also need to be relevant to your small business. If your visitor cant figure out what your web site is about in just a few seconds, they may leave.

The internet was at first strictly informational, and thats how it remains today. Several times people have tried experiments using copywriting similar to direct mail sales letters, but theyve all failed. It seems as if people surf the internet more for information than anything else. Knowing this will help you write pages people will want to read.

Attracting visitors
You could follow your instinct and just start writing, but wait. Theres research you must do first, or your web site simply wont be high enough in searches to be found. Search engine optimization is far too big a subject to cover in this short article, but among other things, search engines find your pages based on keywords.

So, pretend for a moment that youre on the other side of the desk. If you were a customer of your own business, what words or phrases would you use to search for your product or service? Ask friends and neighbors how theyd search for your product or services.

When youve come up with a few, check them out on a keyword suggestions tool. You can also use that tool to suggest similar words and phrases. Then find out how many results there would be if you searched for that term. What you want to do next is narrow down your choices to the words or phrases that are searched for the most, but have the fewest results.

Remember that people generally dont look beyond the first three pages for any search term, so if youre not in the top three pages, your business is not likely to be found at all. If there are millions of results for your phrase, you might simply need to make it more specific.

For example, lets say you have a small business consulting company that specializes in communication for small business. Using communication as a search term is nearly pointless because there are almost 2 billion results for that word. But, there are only 974 results for small business communication.

Much better, but how often is that searched for? According to WordTracker, its searched for 10 times a day. Not bad, but I think we can do better. How about small business consulting? Thats searched for 261 times a day, and there are 373,000 results. That could be the best primary phrase for a small business communication consulting company.

What you want to do, is write your content around those words and phrases. You dont want or need very manythree or four are plenty.

Getting them to come back again and again
Getting visitors to come back to your site again and again is relatively simple. Keep your content fresh and lively, make sure its informative, and add to it often.

I hope you decide your small business needs a web site. Its the best way I know how to reach a wider target audience with a relatively small investment.

In discussing entrepreneurship and writing articles on the subject, I have found that it aids understanding when we begin by agreeing on exactly what the word means to us.

Entrepreneurship is the process of creating or seizing an opportunity, and pursuing it regardless of the resources currently controlled. The American Heritage Dictionary defines an entrepreneur to be a person who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for business ventures.

These are rather abstract concepts for a person just beginning to consider whether they ought to start a business rather than take a job, or leave a secure job for a chance at greater self-fulfillment. Let us try to refine our understanding of entrepreneurship by asking some more specific questions.

Is everyone who runs a business an entrepreneur? Many would not consider the newspaper carrier, shoeshine person, and grass cutter entrepreneurs, though these are often the youthful pursuits of those with an entrepreneurial bent.

Does it matter whether the business is merely part-time? Whereas some part-time activities are basically hobbies, or undertaken to supplement income, some entrepreneurial ventures can be tested in the marketplace on a part-time basis.

The path to an entrepreneurial venture might begin by earning a salary in the business one expects to enter, while learning more about it, and waiting for the opportune time to go out on one’s own. This time can be used to develop a support network, professional and personal, and generating ideas to bounce off people whose opinion one respects.

At what scope does self-employment become a venture? The primary objective of many self-employed people is merely to employ themselves (and others if necessary) at a moderate to good salary; some are even willing to eke out a living to do what they enjoy. This approach is often referred to as a lifestyle business, and is generally accompanied by little, if any, plan for growth.

These questions are intended, not to develop a precise definition of

entrepreneurship, but to help us understand our attitude toward its many forms of expression. We may each answer these questions differently, yet all answer appropriately within our own frame of reference.

Entrepreneurship is more an attitude than a skill or a profession. Some of us may prefer a corporate or public service career path, but many would choose an entrepreneurial opportunity that feels right.

Would you consider a person who inherits a business an entrepreneur? From the point of inheritance on, it is their own money and financial security at risk. They could possibly sell the business, invest the proceeds in blue-chip stocks, and live off dividends. Some might consider managing a personal stock portfolio for a living as an entrepreneurial venture.

Would a person who inherited a small or marginal business, then took it to new dimensions be considered an entrepreneur? The inheritor could have tried merely to keep it going, or even to pace the business decline to just carry them to retirement. In a family-held business, long-term success is often a central goal.

Are franchise owners entrepreneurs? Many feel that, for those who have access to the large up-front investment, franchises are sure things. For many, operating a franchise is similar to investing in blue chips, a relatively sure thing with generally unexciting returns.

 

2006Simple questions are often the most difficult to answer. Or so it seems when dealing with the government. Small businesses have enough to worry about around tax time without having to struggle to find the information they desperately need. So, we have done much of the work for you.Below you’ll find a list of valuable online tax resources every small business should bookmark. You’ll find they put a world of information right at your fingertips. They also offer contact information for agencies you may need to deal with directly.New York State Department of Taxation and Finance – http:www.tax.state.ny.uspromptdefault.htm – New York state residents can easily pay their taxes online via this secure site. By clicking the links at the top of the page, you can also print forms and find contact information for customer service. If you don’t live in New York State, you can find out if your state offers the same type of program by typing “pay [name of your state] state tax online” (without quote marks or brackets) into your favorite search engine. Electronic Federal Tax Payment System – http:www.eftps.com – Tired of having to take your federal tax deposits to the bank? You can save yourself a lot of time by signing up for an online payment account. It only takes a few minutes to arrange, and then you will be able to remit federal tax payments online instead of at your local bank branch.Social Security Administration – http:ssa.gov – Definitely a site to bookmark! Here you can get detailed information about the Social Security program, calculate your estimated retirement or disability benefits, access great info about the Social Security Administration which allows you to calculate your social security benefits, apply for benefits, print forms and publications and more. Employers can verify a worker’s SSN, contact the Administration directly and get other types of help.University of the State of New York, State Education Department – http:usny.nysed.govprofessionals – Did you know the state of New York requires acupuncturists, landscapers and midwives to be licensed? They do! Those, along with many other professionals, are required to apply for and receive a license prior to performing work. On this site you can find out which professions should be licensed and which specific businesses hold valid licenses. Tax Almanac – http:www.taxalmanac.orgindex.phpMain_Page – This free online tax resource consists of an open community, including a discussion forum, a current-events page and updates on recent tax changes. An excellent resource for small businesses.When you know where to find the information you’re seeking, staying up to date with your payroll, quarterly, annual and other taxes is much easier. These sites will give you a wonderful start to finding answers to your questions, plus forms and resources to help ensure your tax liabilities are met with the least amount of frustration possible.

If you run a small business, advertising costs must be figured in as part of your overall expenses. If you have received quotes for phone directory ads, business association block ads, and mostly any other print media, these costs are quite high. So, what if your budget is small, perhaps negligible? Will you be left outside of the advertising arena or are there other avenues to help you get the word out? The answer in one word is: yes. Lets explore ways you can get the word out through online meansyes, via the internet!

The rise of the internet has spawned an entire industry with it. You may remember in the late 1990s stories of dot.com companies who made a fortune and then went bust. The irrational exuberance of that era has, thankfully, passed by and in its place is a much more rational, but very lively market.

Todays biggest players online are search engine providers led by Google, Yahoo!, and MSN. Between them, these three search engines dominate the market. Mostly everyone today searches the internet for products sold by small businesses to large corporations and these are the people you want to target. Indeed, while Christmas season sales typically increase around 4% year over year for brick and mortar retailers, the internet has been seeing year over year increases of 30% and higher! No small business operator should exclude the internet when crafting a marketing plan.

Speaking of the search engines, both Google and Yahoo! have their own advertising networks. Google has its AdWords program while the Yahoo! Publisher Network is a comparable, though newer program. This is where you, as a small business owner, can do some of your advertising. By selecting the advertising plan that works for you, you can have your ads appear on web sites in your local area or across the world and be charged a small amount per click. In other words, you dont pay for advertising unless someone clicks on your ad and goes through to your site. To keep clicks from getting out of control you determine the price per click and the amount per day, week, or month you are willing to pay. No busting of your small business budget!

Banner or text ads on select sites can also be helpful for your small business. If there is a web site you like and you suspect that a lot of your customers would frequent that site, contact the webmaster to learn what his advertising charges would be. Perhaps in exchange for submitting a few helpful articles, the webmaster would waive your advertising fee altogether. Or, at the very least, accept any other help you could provide [moderating a forum, answering questions, etc.].

Another way of getting the word out is through your own web site. No, you dont need a web professional to establish your site, but it does help to have someone who can guide you through the set up process. At the very least a few pages is what you will need, so set up costs shouldnt be terribly expensive. In addition, figure on paying monthly hosting and domain name fees but these expenses should be no more than 100-125 per year. Pay a little extra for a web professional who can help you optimize your site [make it search engine friendly] and youll get your money back much quicker. Finally, check with your accountant for small business tax deductions.

You can also generate plenty of attention by writing articles, just like the one you are reading now. No, you dont need to be a professional writer, but if you can clearly convey your thoughts and present a plan of action for your readers [such as: buy my product] you can get what amounts to be free advertising. How so? By submitting what you write to article submission sites for wider dissemination. By including helpful links in the author resource box you can cause search engines to make your web site much more visible as your article gets reprinted on other web sites. Furthermore, readers will perceive that you are an expert and will likely inquire to find out just what you are all about. You can call this, small business advertising on the cheap!

No, as a small business owner you dont have to be strapped by high advertising costs — who has the cash to spare? Instead, the internet offers to you several cost effective ways of informing people about who you are, what you do, and where they can find you.

Select the marketing plan that works best for your small business. A mixture of all four points is a great plan of attack for many small business ownersjust like you!

I recently updated the phone system for my business. We’re a small company with just a handful of employees in an office about the size of a two car garage. We do a lot of business over the phone and although we could handle the call volume with our old system, I still felt (and was informed many times) that it was antiquated and hard to use. I knew it needed to be brought up to speed so I consulted my employees and asked them to list the features that they felt would improve productivity and make their jobs easier. I then looked for phones and equipment that would meet our needs. I was somewhat in shock over the price of a new phone system.

I didn’t realize it could cost so much. Disheartened but not defeated, I kept searching until I found a vendor who offered the phone system we were looking for at a great price. It was substantially cheaper than the next closest competitor, which made me look a little closer. As it turns out, these phones were used. They weren’t refurbished phones, and came with the same warranty as a new phone, but there was something in my psyche that turned me away from the idea of buying used electronics. Still, money is money and if they were going to give me the same warranty as a new phone system had, what did I have to lose. After talking to the vendor and voicing my concerns, I purchased nine phones and the line equipment we needed for a lot less than what it would have been brand new.

The new system has been in place for several months now and everyone is quite happy with the improvement. The phones are reliable and we have never had a problem with them. If you decide at some point to update your business phone system but don’t think you can afford what you really need, look into buying used phones. You can save quite a bit of money and, as I’ve found out, they are a product that holds up well to daily use. I’m afraid that if I hadn’t stumbled onto them in my search for the best deal, I might have never found the system I have now, and never even considered purchasing used equipment. If you find a reputable company to deal with that will back up their products, new or used, you can make a little money go a long way.

I recently updated the phone system for my business. We’re a small company with just a handful of employees in an office about the size of a two car garage. We do a lot of business over the phone and although we could handle the call volume with our old system, I still felt (and was informed many times) that it was antiquated and hard to use. I knew it needed to be brought up to speed so I consulted my employees and asked them to list the features that they felt would improve productivity and make their jobs easier. I then looked for phones and equipment that would meet our needs. I was somewhat in shock over the price of a new phone system.

I didn’t realize it could cost so much. Disheartened but not defeated, I kept searching until I found a vendor who offered the phone system we were looking for at a great price. It was substantially cheaper than the next closest competitor, which made me look a little closer. As it turns out, these phones were used. They weren’t refurbished phones, and came with the same warranty as a new phone, but there was something in my psyche that turned me away from the idea of buying used electronics. Still, money is money and if they were going to give me the same warranty as a new phone system had, what did I have to lose. After talking to the vendor and voicing my concerns, I purchased nine phones and the line equipment we needed for a lot less than what it would have been brand new.

The new system has been in place for several months now and everyone is quite happy with the improvement. The phones are reliable and we have never had a problem with them. If you decide at some point to update your business phone system but don’t think you can afford what you really need, look into buying used phones. You can save quite a bit of money and, as I’ve found out, they are a product that holds up well to daily use. I’m afraid that if I hadn’t stumbled onto them in my search for the best deal, I might have never found the system I have now, and never even considered purchasing used equipment. If you find a reputable company to deal with that will back up their products, new or used, you can make a little money go a long way.

1) Intuit QuickBooks Accounting Software
Quickbooks is a popular full featured accounting and payroll program designed for small businesses – or, I should say, a small business accounting software series. QuickBooks is available in Basic, Online, Pro, and Premier editions; the Pro Edition of this accounting program includes management tools such as a Vehicle Mileage Tracker and a Cash Flow Projector
2) Simply Accounting Accounting Software
Full featured accounting and payroll package with all the features and reports any small business needs, including Internet and e-commerce features. This small business accounting software’s data entry screens resemble their paper counterparts, and the screen tips and drag and drop functionality make the accounting program easy to learn. Professional versions include a time and billing module. Comes multi-user ready.
3) MYOB Plus Accounting Software
A double entry small business accounting software system with a user-friendly interface and over 100 financial and management reports. Includes a Professional Time Billing Module that is ideal for service businesses and the Officelink feature allows direct one click access to MS Word and Excel. Comes multi-user ready; just purchase an additional workstation license for each additional accounting program user.
4) Peachtree Complete Accounting Software
The Complete version of this small business accounting software program includes over 125 reports and features such as in-depth inventory, time and billing and job costing. The accounting program comes multi-user ready and “value packs” for 3 or more users are available. Peachtree accounting software is also available in Premium and First Accounting versions
5) Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting
The big selling feature of this small business accounting software is integration and thats a pretty big selling feature if youre already using Microsoft Office. Being able to reuse data already entered into Excel or Outlook is a really useful feature and the integration with the Business Contact Manager makes it easy to stay on top of accounts. A slate of add-
on services ranges from online payroll through PayPal invoicing

My biggest problem in becoming self-employed was me.

In order to BE a self-employed person I had to start thinking like one. I found myself reverting to that nine-to-five mentality. If I wasnt accomplishing a task every hour, then I must not really be working.

Sometimes a self-employed person has to make decisions about her business. Sometimes she is just thinking about a solution to a problem. Sometimes she just has to quiet her mind so new ideas can come. Just because youre not pounding away at the typewriter every minute doesnt mean youre not working.

Ive also learned that its okay NOT to answer the phone every time it rings. Thats what voicemail is for, and the same goes for email. At my nine-to-five job I would leave the email program open all day and answer each one as it arrived. It took me a while to realize its okay to only check email several times a day instead of constantly being interrupted. Its actually more productive than having to stop your thought process every time you have mail. At my other job, I was able to let a phone call roll over into voice mail, but it took me a while to be able to shut down the email too.

Youre going to have days where you feel you didnt accomplish much. Then again, youll have days where youll feel you can conquer the world and youll be amazed at how much you got done. Some days you may not finish many tasks, but youll make a decision on a problem that needed to be addressed. Or, you will have learned a valuable lesson about yourself.

And, I had to learn to stop breaking down all my tasks into pounds and cents. I tended to worry about how much I was or was not earning every day. The truth is, some days youre going to make more than other days. If I spent my day on marketing issues, even though I didnt earn any money from it that day, I would benefit from it some time in the future.

Rather than worry about what benefits I do or dont have, I realized the benefit I have in my business is that I answer only to me. Everything I do will benefit me sooner or later. Instead of my income being dependent on somebody elses budget, I can go as far as I dream.

And because Im now doing what I truly love and not what someone else tells me to, Im much happier and more content. I learned if you start THINKING like an entrepreneur, then youll actually be one.