6 Reasons For You To Love Small Businesses |  |
- 6 Reasons For You To Love Small Businesses
- Jeremy Epstein of Sprinklr: Why Company Culture is Key in Building Customer Relationships
- Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
- 10 Ways To Kickstart Your Business Today
| 6 Reasons For You To Love Small Businesses Posted: 15 Feb 2013 11:00 AM PST
Below are six reasons for you to love small businesses and continue to support small business owners in every way possible: 1. Small Business Owners Work Tirelessly Entrepreneurs and small business owners are used to working long hours. The latest SMB Wellness Index from Manta found that small business owners are working longer hours than they have in the past. Nearly half (49%) said they worked more than 50 hours/week in 2012, compared to 40% in 2011 and 26% worked up to 60 hours a week in 2012, 14% worked up to 70 hours, and 9% admitted to working more than 70 hours a week. 2. Small Businesses are the Heart of the American Economy If you had any doubts about the importance of small businesses to our economy, take a look at the following statistics from the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). Small firms:
3. Small Businesses Spurs Job Growth It's the small business engine that's turning our economy around and putting our country back to work. The latest figures from the SBA show that small businesses create 75% of new jobs in our economy, creating more than 15 million new jobs between 1993 and 2009. Small businesses employ half of all private sector employees and hire 43% of high tech workers (scientists, engineers, computer programmers, and others). 4. Small Business Owners are Gutsy The bulk of small businesses are self-financed, with owners digging into their savings, home equity, stocks, 401k/retirement accounts, and credit cards to fund their business. The large number of bootstrapping startups is, in part, due to a tighter lending market. Most small business owners find they need to sign a personal guarantee in order to get a loan. This kind of bootstrapping makes a small business self-reliant, but it's also risky as owners may stand to lose their entire wealth if the business fails. Yet despite this fact, small business owners are ready to take the plunge because they believe in their vision and want to do whatever they can to make it happen. 5. Small Businesses Build Relationships As the founder of a small business, I enjoy doing as much business as I can with fellow small companies. Small businesses often share a uniquely genuine culture – after all, small business owners typically have a closer connection to their customers and marketplace. There are fewer bureaucratic layers and armies of consultants standing between the owner and customer. Smaller organizations take a vested interest in the needs of their customers, and build strong relationships with their customers and community. 6. Small Business Owners are Optimistic 2013 brought a flurry of small business surveys all pointing to increased optimism for the coming year. The SMB Wellness Index from Manta found that more than 75% of the small business owners polled are confident about their company's growth prospects in 2013. A Dell Think Tank poll showed that business owners in their six markets expect their finances and sales to improve this year. And the American Express OPEN Small Business Monitor found that 77% of small businesses polled are optimistic about their business prospects. While these findings are certainly indicative of positive trends in our economy, I think that by nature, small business owners are an optimistic group. It's an unfailing belief in themselves and a hope for the future that gives entrepreneurs the strength to take risks. I hope more courageous and creative individuals join the ranks of small business owners in years to come. Pastry Business Owner Photo via Shutterstock The post 6 Reasons For You To Love Small Businesses appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Jeremy Epstein of Sprinklr: Why Company Culture is Key in Building Customer Relationships Posted: 15 Feb 2013 08:00 AM PST Company culture, not technology, is key to successfully building customer relationships. At least that’s what Jeremy Epstein, Vice President of Marketing at Sprinklr, believes. Tune in as Jeremy joins Brent Leary to discuss the importance of company culture, particularly regarding global brands, when it comes to social media monitoring – and what lessons small businesses can learn from them. * * * * *
Jeremy Epstein: I spent about six years working at Microsoft, mostly working with small businesses. About four and a half years ago, I got the entrepreneurial fire lit within me and I decided that the future of marketing needed to be investigated. So I branched out and started my own company which was called Never Stop Marketing. I like to say it is not just a company, but a mantra, in the way of life. I did that for a couple of years and that was a great experience. Then I was recruited to join Sprinklr. Small Business Trends: Can you tell us what Sprinklr does? Jeremy Epstein: Sprinklr is specifically focused on helping the world's largest global brands. Help them manage, and more importantly, be social at a global scale. We provide software and a service platform and some services were necessary to help companies do exactly that. Small Business Trends: You have a small business background and a social media monitoring background at the enterprise level. What are some of the changes that small business people should know about with social media monitoring? Jeremy Epstein: First of all is the sophistication of monitoring and listening, in and of itself. I think when we first started out we were just listening for key words, or listening for mentions. That was great, but now we have the ability to not only find the conversations that are happening about us, but also to be able to understand the context in which they are happening and who is talking about you so you have an idea of who this person is. How influential are they using whatever measure you have to figure out which person do I respond to first? Then tying that back to your CRM System. The second thing is the complexity of it. Because when we first started we had a hand full of channels. Maybe you were listening to blogs, maybe you got into Twitter. But now you have Instagram, Foursquare, Tumblr and Linkedin. How many people had heard about Pinterest before 7 or 8 months ago? The third part is, how quickly do you respond when the issue comes up? Expectation now in the online world is if I Tweet you, I am expecting to hear from you pretty quick. So monitoring is only half of it. You need to have an entire workflow and process behind it to deliver the experience that people expect in a reasonable amount of time. Of course, that shrinks every day that we are involved in this. Small Business Trends: Can you judge on a scale of 1 to 10, how effective companies have been, in your estimation, with listening and responding? Jeremy Epstein: If I had to aggregate everywhere from small businesses up to large enterprises and do it globally, I would say that we are at the beginning of this whole revolution. I would say that, overall, maturity is two or three, maybe four, but probably not. Small Business Trends: Where do small businesses rank? Jeremy Epstein: Most small businesses de-prioritize it, compared to what they think are the most important things in their day. I put them a little bit higher than larger enterprises because they have less bureaucracy. Let's call them a four. Small Business Trends: So we are at a 4. What are some of the characteristics that are important to move from a 4 to an 8, 9 or 10? Jeremy Epstein: The first thing I will tell you is, it is not technology, it’s culture. It is recognizing that the most important thing is the voice of the customer. It is having an organization where people – the whole team – have the opportunity and the responsibility and the empowerment to go out and engage and build those relationships. Small Business Trends: Let's think of companies that are starting from ground zero. What are the two or three must-do things? Jeremy Epstein: In a small business you might have one person playing multiple roles. But you need to be very clear about what those roles and activities are so you will have one person who is responsible, or one role that is responsible for content. One role responsible for managing the community; one role responsible for reporting; one role responsible for setting up the various social media properties. Be very clear about what those roles are. Then operational guidelines of, “How do we set these things up?” I mean, look at what Intel and IBM have put out. Those are very good ones that you can use for small businesses. These need not be massively complicated at the small business level, but they do require some thought. Do we want to set up a Facebook page just for an event? Fine, but we need to know how to deactivate it at the end of that event so it doesn't just hang out there. Then a brand guideline. Again, a style guide to make sure we are using the right logos and the right terminology to get that consistency. I think doing those couple of steps, identify the KPIs. You really care about that kind of tie back to your core of business. We don't care about the likes and followers, that is meaningless. You have to be able to say what are we going to use as a proxy for the health of the business. How are we going to start connecting the dots between the social metrics and the business metrics that we really care about? I think if you do that planning up front and you lay down the foundation, the rest of the technology and execution will be a lot easier. Small Business Trends: Where can people learn more? Jeremy Epstein: The best place, of course, is Sprinklr. This interview is part of our One on One series of conversations with some of the most thought-provoking entrepreneurs, authors and experts in business today. This interview has been edited for publication. To hear audio of the full interview, click the right arrow on the gray player below. You can also see more interviews in our interview series. The post Jeremy Epstein of Sprinklr: Why Company Culture is Key in Building Customer Relationships appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Posted: 15 Feb 2013 05:00 AM PST
I understand the idea behind letting a sleeping dog lie, but if there’s any animal that’s identified with sleep, it’s definitely cats. I knew I wanted to play with that idea but that germ sat in my idea box, passed over week after week, until one day I heard “co-opt” on the morning news. Then this cartoon popped into my head. So my idea box is one idea lighter now, but I’m happy I got this to finally work. The post Let Sleeping Dogs Lie appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| 10 Ways To Kickstart Your Business Today Posted: 15 Feb 2013 02:30 AM PST Small businesses are finding it harder than ever to get loans either for startup or expansion. Fortunately, that hasn’t stopped entrepreneurs raising funds from less traditional sources. Products including the Pebble Smart Watch, Ouya Game Console, Safecast Geiger Counter, Luminae Multitouch Keyboard & Touchpad, and SLXtreme Waterproof Solar iPhone Case were all launched by startups in 2012 with funding collected through Kickstarter. The site is one of the funding alternatives available to small business owners unable to secure a traditional loan. Here are 10 ways, including Kickstarter, to expand your business when traditional sources fail. 2. Seek customer validation. An important component of crowdfunding and potentially other efforts to kickstart your business, is to seek customer validation of your product or service first. Gem Misa, CEO of U.K.-based Righteous, a vegan, chemical-free salad dressing, says her company made sure customers had already tasted its product and supported its brand before attempting to crowdfund for expansion. Career Fuel 3. Try bootstrapping. If you can’t find traditional funding to start your business, try bootstrapping instead. Bootrapping means launching or growing your business without outside investment, usually by using your own money or the company’s revenue for reinvestment. Serial entrepreneur Ilya Pozin has some bootstrapping suggestions including finding good partners to reduce costs, bringing in great sales people to generate revenue from day one, and hiring contractors instead of full-time employees. LinkedIn 4. Court friends and family. For years, entrepreneurs have been going to friends and family for money to start and expand businesses. When doing so, Randy Myers suggests you set the same ground rules you would for any other investor. Create a sound business plan, put your deal in writing, set clear repayment terms, explain what happens if you can’t pay back your investment, and keep the lines of communication open. Business On Main 5. Improve your cash flow. Maximizing cash flow is another way to kickstart your business, whether starting a new company or expanding an existing one. Eliminate unnecessary expenses, don’t squander your assets, make sure your method of invoicing and bringing in cash is efficient, and create a cash flow reserve, says blogger Gerwyn Wallto. Print Runner Blog 6. Tap your existing customers. Another way to raise money is to maximize revenue from your existing customer base. These are people who already love you and your business. Gary Shouldis gives some suggestions for boosting the revenue coming from your current customers, by increasing prices, offering upsells, offering a subscription model of your business and more. The Small Business Playbook 7. Serve a smaller market. It may sound counter intuitive, but the key to rapidly growing your business is not always expanding your customer base or your range of offerings. When looking at kickstarting your company’s growth, advisers Karl Stark and Bill Stewart recommend serving fewer customers and focusing on your strengths. Inc.com 8. Look for special funding opportunities. Astia, a non-profit organization working to increase the number of women at the helms of fast growing companies, recently launched a network of angel investors who will focus their resources on businesses led by women. You should always look for unique funding opportunities where you have an edge in receiving the resources you need. Bloomberg Businessweek 9. Look for government grant opportunities. The benefit of funding your business with government grants is that they do not need to be repaid and do not require company founders to give up any equity. Martin Zwilling explains how to take advantage of this lesser known funding source to kickstart your business and some of the difficulties involved. Startup Professionals Musings 10. Look to asset-based lending and other alternatives. Another approach when banks say no is to sell your invoices or receivables to a “factoring company” which will pay you 80 to 90 percent of their value up front and the rest when payments are collected. There is a cost for these and other alternatives, so you must decide whether pursuing this type of funding is worthwhile. The New York Times The post 10 Ways To Kickstart Your Business Today appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
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