The Small Business Blog

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

Small Business World News Round-up – 2009/11/03 by Stefan Töpfer on Nov 03, 2009 Here is this week’s news round-up for home business, micro business, sole-traders, freelancers, self-employed and any one who is interested in small business news from around the world.

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The Small Business Blog

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

Small Business World News Round-up – 2009/11/10 by Stefan Töpfer on Nov 10, 2009 Here is this week’s news round-up for home business, micro business, sole-traders, freelancers, self-employed and any one who is interested in small business news from around the world. Organizations are working to help them size up.

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NOVEMBER 30, 2009

Small Business World News Round-up – 2009/12/01 by Stefan Töpfer on Dec 01, 2009 Here is this week’s news round-up for home business, micro business, sole-traders, freelancers, self-employed and any one who is interested in small business news from around the world. Plenty of Indianapolis-area companies are for sale.

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APRIL 1, 2008

Small Business Start-Up Idea – T-Shirt Design by Stefan Töpfer on Apr 02, 2008 There is always a great demand for custom-made T-shirts, ranging from sports teams in need of new kit to event organisers wanting promotional shirts to give away. The estimated cost to start this business varies from £5000 up to around £15,000.

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The Small Business Blog

NOVEMBER 17, 2009

If the supplier knows you are ready to buy for the right price they will cut you a deal. Promise to buy from one supplier for better payment terms, like 60 or 90 days. Thank you very much for your comment – if you try any of my tips and learn something new come back and tell us about it! – ST.

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AUGUST 8, 2010

They all have to do their part by providing excellent customer service. Without exception, all of your staff need an in-depth knowledge of the product or service that you provide. Explaining it to potential customers should become second nature to them. Everyone in a small business is part of the selling team.

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MAY 18, 2010

by Stefan Töpfer on May 19, 2010 While we all hope to make our customers 100% happy all of the time, and this must of course be what we strive for, there will be occasions where a customer is less than happy with the service you have provided. That and the pay check that I can’t afford to give up!

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MAY 13, 2010

It is difficult to say but in small business we can learn a lot abut the importance of public relations through this story. WinWeb Pitch of the Week – Digistar Solutions » « Previous Entries This entry was posted on Friday, May 14th, 2010 at 7:30 am and is filed under Customer Service , Development , How to.

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JUNE 20, 2010

Try to learn a bit about the industry that your prospective business customer works in so you don’t look out of your depth. Make sure they know exactly how your products and services can help their business succeed. Keep following-up over a period of time. Listen carefully to what your B2B clients require.

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The Small Business Blog

JUNE 29, 2010

The money that leaves a small business is often taken up with overheads that are necessary for the day to day running of the business. Shop around : Make sure you are getting the best deals from all you suppliers- right down to your electricity, broadband and gas bills. lower overheads. Tools like Basecamp, WebEx, Skype, etc.

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JULY 27, 2010

If you haven’t been immediately struck with inspiration, then coming up with a concept for your small business can be difficult and frustrating. However, there are some tried and tested methods you could use to come up with an idea that suits you. Firstly, you could try doing some research into current start-up trends.

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The Small Business Blog

JULY 13, 2010

A large amount of start-ups fail due to lack of research about the marketplace they are about to enter. It might take time, but you will learn a great deal about how to, and how not to, do things! The aim of this initiative is to help business start-ups to find their feet and make their own path in their business journey.

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The Small Business Blog

JANUARY 31, 2010

Learn about how your company structure affects pay. « Keeping Track and Keeping Up: Are You Focused? Bruce Said on February 6th, 2010 at 7:27 pm Many small busineeses in today’s economy it ends up where the owner either takes no or very little pay just to keep the business afloat. Some very good points here.

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The Small Business Blog

FEBRUARY 21, 2010

Offer signing-on bonuses as an incentive if you are desperate to secure the services of your best applicant. « Getting Fired Up! If you have additional tips, please share them in the comments section. SEO Tips That the Experts Don’t Always Tell You! Digg Furl Netscape Yahoo! Digg Furl Netscape Yahoo!

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JANUARY 21, 2008

The fact that there are plenty of highly profitable companies, with for instance bad customer service, does not mean they are not loosing customers. With my focus on micro business, it is imperative to get customer service right since it is often the main differentiator to bigger and/or cheaper competition.

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JANUARY 13, 2010

Brian Scudamore dropped out of high school in 1989 with $700 (£400) and a beat-up old pick-up truck to start his company 1-800-GOT-JUNK? Although he never finished high school, Scudamore loves nothing more than learning. Today they have 95 franchise partners across North America and are in 47 of North America’s top 50 cities.

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JULY 20, 2010

People often say to me that their small business doesn’t have a website as it’s too complicated, takes up too much time or is too expensive. As I have mentioned previously , I am looking to help small businesses to hold conversations, engage with each other and learn from what is happening in the big business world.

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The Small Business Blog

MARCH 16, 2010

If an area such as accounting is your weakness, rather than wasting time learning the skill it may be more cost-effective and time efficient to outsource the service. Work out if these weaknesses will truly impact your business, and if there are ways to improve in these areas. Digg Furl Netscape Yahoo! Digg Furl Netscape Yahoo!

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MARCH 14, 2010

Learn everything you can about your competition, their products and how they advertise. do cost cutting do credit control do customer service export find funding grow your business handle problems keep data safe lower overheads manage your time market and sell motivate your staff not to do it! Digg Furl Netscape Yahoo!

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NOVEMBER 8, 2009

Not only that, you have someone that is learning the latest and greatest tech practices. A lot of sign up time and advertsing to wade through but worthwhile in the end. On the tech side, you can hire graduate level students that are looking for teaching experience. Thanks for the list! Digg Furl Netscape Yahoo!

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DECEMBER 20, 2009

If you are no longer personally growing and learning in your role it can cause your business to stagnate. do cost cutting do credit control do customer service export find funding grow your business handle problems keep data safe lower overheads manage your time market and sell motivate your staff not to do it!

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The Small Business Blog

AUGUST 15, 2007

If you have then you must keep up-dating your costing every few month, as they will change as the business grow and changes. Bad debts – look at your past performance, come up with an average monthly figure and mark your products and services up accordingly. Digg Furl Netscape Yahoo! Digg Furl Netscape Yahoo!

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MAY 20, 2010

When you begin employing staff you need to quickly learn how to not only manage them, but also how to help them achieve their best. Allow your staff time to come to you with ideas or questions; you’ll learn a lot about your business and might even discover an avenue you’d never thought of taking. Digg Furl Netscape Yahoo!

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FEBRUARY 23, 2010

by Stefan Töpfer on Feb 24, 2010 Many Search Engine Optimization (SEO) consultants and companies have theories about the best SEO tactics, but they don’t always back them up with proven experiments. Nicholas Kemp Said on February 25th, 2010 at 2:59 pm Other SEO tactics include article writing, setting up a Google Knol and on-page factors.

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The Small Business Blog

NOVEMBER 13, 2007

You could offer your services for a particular country and become their Virtual Export Assistant for that country. You use your language and local knowledge skills and open up a new market for this small business. So now I had my supplier with whom by this stage I had built up a good base for a trustworthy supplier by way of emails.

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APRIL 27, 2010

I look forward to reading your pitches, and learning more about your small businesses! If you are new to facebook send it to me here and I’ll put it up – you still need to get your friends to vote for you. The WinWeb Facebook page can be found here , you really have got nothing to lose! Thanks for the comment.

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AUGUST 3, 2010

Quit the day job and take the plunge, or build up steadily until you have the security you need to enter fully in to the world of the self-employed? That is why I will always say there is no iron-clad correct way for a business start-up to progress. SOHO/SMB/SME/Micro , start-up in business. These people are the 5-9ers.

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MARCH 20, 2008

What have I learned yesterday? So here are my favorite small business start-up ideas: Natalie Douglas is going to continue in a good family tradition and open a child care nursery , keeping it small and personal for parents and children. Quality, customer service and a niche market, what could possibly go wrong.

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FEBRUARY 2, 2008

Now you can learn what went wrong and understand your business better, it will force you to rethink and face facts. I knew starting up company is not a peace of cafe but did not realize I would have needed so much money. this is where you base your starting point in putting it up together. I guess you are right.

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JANUARY 13, 2008

This finding is not entirely surprising, since I believed for a long time, that getting too hung up about business plans can be a great waste of time, especially if you are not in a position to evaluate all variables that make up small business success. But saying that, we are still learning and growing.

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FEBRUARY 2, 2009

This limited co-operation served us all well, something some of the new start-ups should not forget. But seriously, we should establish a standard of service, security and co-operation, for the sake of our customers and for our own sake. Do I think Sage has great products? Absolutely not! — ST. Digg Furl Netscape Yahoo!

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MARCH 2, 2010

If a start-up funds the development of their company through internal cash flow and are cautious with expenses, the company can grow with low-risk to all those involved. Simple ideas on how to bootstrap your small business start up are: - Work from home. Jp14 Said on March 5th, 2010 at 10:36 pm Another common thing is to keep learning.

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APRIL 16, 2008

If you consider the skills potential of parents, if each parent would only contribute one hour on average per week to their learned professions. They could show a almost uninterrupted work history, stay in touch with their profession and would therefor find it much easier to get back into full-time employment after the kids have grown up.

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MARCH 30, 2010

Another tip I have is to learn to say ‘no’ Too many people especially in this economic downturn are too afraid to say no to tasks or turn down work if they are a freelancer. Being working in the full time job, studying and also working in the start up. You can leave a response , or trackback from your own site.

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NOVEMBER 19, 2007

We tend to get so caught up in the features, that translating that into how a product/service contributes personally to myself is overlooked. Its can be a bit hard for some people to understand this concept A Coffey Said on January 13th, 2009 at 10:37 pm Great post. Thanks for the reminder. -AC Digg Furl Netscape Yahoo!

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NOVEMBER 7, 2007

Apple – a customer support nightmare! by Stefan Töpfer on Nov 07, 2007 A few years ago I decided to change over to Apple computers from Windows based computers and up until now it seemed the right decision. I asked if there was a way to speed up my new order, they will try – code for no.

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NOVEMBER 19, 2007

This development was by popular demand, as a number of customers requested this functionality. What a great team.keep up the great work. WinWeb’s Free Online Accounting Software Now With Cost Centre Functionality. Medisoft Software Said on June 13th, 2009 at 8:07 am It seems that Winweb is a great way to go.

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