Targeted Cyber Attacks Against Small Biz: Chat Recap |  |
- Targeted Cyber Attacks Against Small Biz: Chat Recap
- Speak My Language: Getting Customers to Listen
- Xero Makes Changes to Improve Cloud-Based Accounting Software
- Chick-Fil-A Comments Put Brand in Jeopardy
- Small Business Ain’t Employing Like it Used to
| Targeted Cyber Attacks Against Small Biz: Chat Recap Posted: 30 Jul 2012 02:00 PM PDT Last week on July 19th we held a Twitter chat — and achieved a “personal best” for the Small Business Trends community. Our #SMBchat made it as the top trending topic on Twitter. And we’ve got the screenshot to prove it! Thanks to all who participated and made it a huge success.
The topic was “Targeted Cyber Attacks, No Longer a Big Biz Problem” and we were fortunate to have two world-class security experts from Symantec join us:
Many thanks to Symantec for making the experts available and for sponsoring this chat! As usual, we bring you a sampling of some of the interesting and insightful tweets. Yours truly, Anita Campbell (@Smallbiztrends) was asking the questions of our expert guests and the community: Q1: How likely is it that a small business will face a malicious cyber attack?
Q2: What are the most common types of malicious cyber attacks that small businesses face?
Q3: If small businesses use Macs, instead of PCs, do they need to worry about cyber attacks and malware? Why or why not?
Q4: What are the top steps SMBs can take to stay safe from Internet-based threats?
Q5: What is a "Comprehensive Security Plan" and how does a small biz create one?
Q6: What if despite prevention efforts, your business gets hit with a malware attack. What steps should you take to recover?
Q7: Passwords are a problem, especially as cloud apps grow all requiring passwords. What are some best practices?
Q8: If you don't have internal IT or have limited staff, how do you get help for your biz?
Wrap up:
See also the recap on the Symantec blog. Note: to make the recap easier to read, tweets above have been edited to remove redundant information, such as hashtags and answer numbers, and fix obvious misspellings. The above represents only a small portion of the tweets — it is intended to cover key highlights for reader convenience. From Small Business Trends |
| Speak My Language: Getting Customers to Listen Posted: 30 Jul 2012 11:00 AM PDT How do you get and keep the attention of people who do not have to listen to you? I mean, life and marketing is not like grade school and your audience doesn't have to be in the room so to speak. From tutoring teenagers in voluntary summer programs to building a following online or a loyal client base, the process of communication is fascinating to me.
How do you captivate an audience enough to get them to listen to you and buy from you? Kristen Zhivago at RevenueJournal has a simple take on it. In ‘Why Do They Love You,” she suggests that you "have someone you trust to interview your customers." Isn't it funny how simple solutions keep rising to the surface. So What Is The Right Way To Say It? How many times have you run around in circles with your marketing copy, new product development ideas, and other processes inside your small business, trying to find the "right" way to do things? Who wants to put energy into things that your staff won't use and that you clients won't buy? What if you could speak their language? What if you knew the magic words? What if you knew how to talk to potential clients? According to Zhivago, author of Roadmap to Revenue, you learn how to talk to future clients by interviewing and listening to your current ones. The goal is to learn from successful relationships and then repeat that behavior. There is nothing like a well-placed conversation and honest feedback. It’s Hard To Serve People You Don’t Understand It's even harder to understand people that you don't listen to. Feedback gets you beyond guessing and assuming, it gets you to a place of knowing. The more you know, the better decisions you can make. Personally, when it comes to public speaking and training, I learned that it's not my clever acronyms, credentials or catch phrases (though they do help start a conversation) that gets and keeps my audiences' attention. In their own words it's the personal stories, authentic enthusiasm and simple and clear way of breaking things down that keeps them listening. Before I talked to them, I assumed it was something else. What assumptions have you made about your customers and what actions are you taking to verify your hunch? Capturing Attention Photo via Shutterstock From Small Business Trends |
| Xero Makes Changes to Improve Cloud-Based Accounting Software Posted: 30 Jul 2012 08:00 AM PDT Online accounting software company Xero has made some changes in the past few months to better help business owners manage their finances. These changes aim to improve the company's online accounting services so that small business owners can spend less time managing their finances and more time growing their business.
Earlier this month, Xero integrated with ADP's online payroll platform, allowing the more than 150,000 small business owners who use RUN Powered by ADP to easily and securely transfer financial data between ADP's payroll solution and Xero's cloud-based software. RUN Powered by ADP is a popular tool that offers improved compliance tools for payroll, tax administration and employee management. This change aims to allow both business owners and accounting professionals to manage payroll and other HR tasks more efficiently. Xero also recently acquired WorkflowMax, a full-practice management suite that has allowed Xero to strengthen its cloud-based offerings. Since many businesses and accountants have begun switching over to online financial management systems, Xero wanted to make it easier for accounting professionals to not only manage their clients and finances, but also to deal with all of their other business functions within the same software. WorkflowMax helps those businesses with important management functions such as tracking time, filtering job leads, generating reports, and creating invoices. With all of the added functions offered by WorkflowMax, accounting professionals can cut back on using different services for each management task, and just use one cloud-based service to run their business while easily collaborating with clients and colleagues. Founded in 2006, Xero aims to help both business owners who want direct, real-time access to their finances, as well as accounting professionals who serve business clients. With software for everything from invoicing to online accounting, plus a wide range of available add-ons, Xero claims to be the world's easiest accounting software, and also to have everything business owners need to run a business. Pricing for monthly plans ranges from $19 to $39 with different features for small businesses with different accounting needs. To learn more about Xero, visit Xero. From Small Business Trends |
| Chick-Fil-A Comments Put Brand in Jeopardy Posted: 30 Jul 2012 02:30 AM PDT Chick-Fil-A president Dan Cathy has discovered what some business owners already know, that what you say and do may have an impact on your brand not only in positive but also in negative ways. Cathy’s recent comments on gay marriage have landed his business in the middle of a contentious debate. The situation can be a cautionary tale for other business owners contemplating stands on controversial issues: A Poor Choice of WordsPlaying chicken with public opinion. Cathy’s comments about supporting the “biblical definition of the family unit” have angered gay rights activists, some customers, some political leaders and, yes, even the Muppets. Of course, business owners, like everyone else, have the right to free speech, but exercising this freedom may affect your business. CBS News Having your waffle fries and eating them too. After Cathy’s remarks to a religious news site and over the radio angered customers and political leaders, some of whom are now threatening to block the company’s expansion plans, Chick-Fil-A is trying to disengage from the debate. But the question is whether or not it’s too late. The Los Angeles Times The Seeds of DiscontentBrand runs afoul with customers too. Lest anyone think activists, political leaders, and business partners were the only ones offended by Cathy’s remarks, a marketing research company says the Chick-Fil-A brand has taken a hit with American consumers too, since Cathy’s remarks became public. YouGov Trouble in the hen house. What’s worse, the Chick-Fil-A controversy has even encouraged a bit of brand co-opting. Witness YouTube chef and comedian Hilah Johnson’s creation, the Chick-Fil-Gay, a do-it-yourself home version of the chicken franchise’s popular sandwich, made for home consumption to show opposition against the company’s stand. The Stir The Eye of the StormChick-Fil-A appreciation day. Meanwhile, not everyone is on Cathy’s back, and some leaders are even urging support for the values he espoused during two controversial interviews that have angered some and energized others to defend the company. Former U.S. Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is advocating support for Cathy’s remarks and his business in a nationwide show of solidarity Wednesday. Facebook Don’t mix business with religion. Of course, franchise expert Joel Libava points out in a recent post that the Chick-Fil-A president’s real mistake was not simply espousing a politically incorrect opinion. It’s that he made the mistake of mixing business with religion. Some say it’s unwise to discuss politics or religion with others. Maybe business owners should take the hint, too. The Franchise King Amazon chief wades into debate. While controversy over Chick-Fil-A’s stand on gay marriage still rages, another business leader, Jeff Bezos, CEO at Amazon, has donated $2.5 million in support of a same-sex marriage referendum in Washington state. Some will question whether his stand also invites criticism from those on the other side of the debate. The Washington Post From Small Business Trends |
| Small Business Ain’t Employing Like it Used to Posted: 30 Jul 2012 02:06 AM PDT It's paradoxical. While everyone from politicians to the media extol the value of small business to job creation, its share of U.S. employment has been on a long-term decline. The majority of the private sector labor force now works in big companies, with that fraction at 51 percent in 2009, up from 43 percent in 1946. The share in medium-sized businesses is down slightly from 34 to 31 percent, while the fraction in the smallest businesses – those with less than 20 employees – has declined from 23 percent to 18 percent. These employment changes result from a subtle, but long-term trend toward more big businesses. While big companies have never been a large fraction of U.S. businesses, and almost certainly never will, they make up a bigger fraction of companies than they did back at the end of World War II. Data from the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis reveals that in 2009, companies with more than 500 employees accounted for 0.3 percent of U.S. companies. Back in 1946, that fraction stood at 0.2 percent. The growth in big businesses comes at the expense of small companies. Businesses with fewer than 20 workers made up 94.4 percent of U.S. firms back in 1946. In 2009, that share was down to 89.7 percent. Small business won't disappear as a major source of employment for Americans. Small scale operations are effective in too many industries for that to ever happen. But, at the same time, I doubt we will ever return to the days when small business accounted for a clear majority of private sector employment. From Small Business Trends |
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Over the past few years business strategy has been revolutionized by the use of analytics and business intelligence. So it is understandable that successful decision making would receive an equivalent reset.