Let’s face it nobody is going to do a study on how customer focus would benefit small business - they should - but I haven’t seen one. So let’s do the next best thing, have a look at what big business does.

Anna Farmary, on her The Engaging Brand Blog as an article “Focus on Customer Experience Delivers Profit” - being nice to customers and focus on their needs, to you and me. While she laments Amazon for failings, the facts of a study remain:

Peer Insight did a 3 year study of 40 Fortune 500 companies - the results show that companies that focused upon customer experience design outperformed the S&P 500 by a 10-1 margin from 2000 to 2005.

I guess, we do not need a brain surgeon to tell us that a similar trend would be seen for small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer- or Personal business, like professional, contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants, so be nice to your clients and service them well, go the extra mile and be rewarded with a loyal client and more revenue down the road.

Being focused on your clients pays, 10:1 margin, think about that. ST.

It is a shame, that Technorati still has not manage to get things sorted out, it is not working again, and I wonder how long they can go on like this, before everyone just walks away?

• I emailed them a few days ago about missing links - no reply!
• They have been missing links for weeks and month!
• Today my blog is not being updated at all, even after manual ping requests!

The service level is bad, and the support level not much better - technorati what is going on? ST.

UPDATE Oct. 27, 2007 - 07:35 BST: Needless to say technorati is still not working, by accident I found this on their site:

Please excuse us! We are currently experiencing a few technical difficulties. All should be back up and running very soon. Thank you!

That’s it (?) - a another great example of customer care!

U.S. Small Business Administration, the Office of Advocacy has just released the latest figures for 2004 on small business activities, and the central statement is:

Small Business has added 1.9 Million New Jobs.

Other updated profiles show that:

• In 2006, the nation had an estimated 26.8 million small businesses, of which 6.1 milion were employer firms.
• Small businesses employed 50.9 percent of the nation’s non-farm private workforce in 2004.
• America had 1.1 million Asian-owned firms, 1.2 million Black-owned firms, 1.6 million Hispanic-owned firms, 201,400 Native American-owned firms, and 28,900 Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander-owned firms in 2002 (latest data). (Note: cannot be totaled, as business owners chose multiple ethnic and racial categories).
• Women-owned firms totaled 6.5 million and generated $940.8 billion in revenues in 2002 (latest data).

“Small businesses are America’s job-creating dynamo,” said Dr. Chad Moutray, Chief Economist for the Office of Advocacy. “Clearly policy-makers need to consider their impact on small business when they are making policy decisions.”

I say - here are some civil-servance in-tune with their small business feelings. I hope our PM Gordon Brown is taking notes. ST.

While I have been quiet annoyed with the current Labour government and it’s failure to understand small and micro business, it is nice to see that some parts of the political establishment, seem to have some sort of idea what small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer- or Personal business, like professional, contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants need.

In the US, the Office of Advocacy at the SBA-Small Business Administration, is listening to the authors of the Small Business Growth: Searching for Stylized Facts - in order to get a better understanding of the right business environment for small business in the US. Hardly surprising, with almost 27 million small businesses in the US, government pays attention - good for them.

Even in the UK, some are waking up to the fact that red-tape may be a problem for small business and may prevent entrepreneurs from starting new ventures. In this case Edward Leigh, the chairman of the PCA-Public Accounts Committee said:

“It is vitally important that new businesses get the assistance and simplified requirements they need so that, right from the start, they can get their tax affairs in order and are well-placed to continue to comply as their tax affairs become more complicated. Providing each business with a unique tax reference number would be an important step towards the department being able to have an overview, for each business, of all of its tax affairs.”

This follows from the fact that the HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) operate a “ridiculous” registration process, whereby the same questions need to be answered to different parts of the HMRC.

So one both sides of the big pond, there are people still thinking about small business - good. With that in mind I will go into this weekend and hope against all hope that things could improve. Have a nice weekend. ST.

John Crickett compiled a “The Top 100 Business Blogs” list and I’m delighted to see, I made it to position 70 - he says:

“…… I’ve gathered together a list of what I believe are the Top 100 Business Blogs on the Internet. ….. The blogs are listed in order of their Technorati rankings (T), their Alexa rankings (A) are show as well. “

John defines a Business blog as “one that provides business ideas, advice, commentary or feedback on business in general.” He’s excluded sites that he feels are primarily a news based site or that is merely posting content from other sources and sites that are too new or have not been updated for over a month.

I would like to thank John for his work, here is his list - the rankings are correct at the time of posting:

1. Copy Blogger T: 36 A: 7,825
2. Seth Godin T: 47 A: 10,314
3. MicroPersuasion T: 169 A: 33,643
4. How To Change The World T: 180 A: 14,709
5. Freelance Switch T: 312 A: 10,638
6. A VC T: 1,226 A: 27,737
7. Rough Type T: 1,253 A: 69,429
8. Successful Blog T: 1,432 A: 44,935
9. Small Business Canada T: 1,517 A: N/A
10. David Allen, Getting Things Done T: 1,549 A: 53,592
11. Springwise T: 1,913 A: 23,858
12. Small Biz Trends T: 2,155 A: 63,364
13. Fast Company T: 2,310 A: 12,141
14. Instigator Blog T: 2,477 A: 58,816
15. Occam’s Razor T: 2,548 A: 45,541
16. Smart Wealthy Rich T: 2,879 A: 79,415
17. eMoms At Home T: 3,443 A: 27,125
18. Escape from Cubicle Nation T: 3,467 A: 202,751
19. The Marketing Technology Blog T: 3,496 A: 47,038
20. Business Pundit T: 3,724 A: 114,669
21. The Engaging Brand T: 4,404 A: 433,644
22. Influential Marketing Blog T: 4,779 A: 98,886
23. Drew McLellan - The Marketing Minute T: 4,820 A: 129,669
24. The Digerati Life T: 4,873 A: 53,353
25. Success From The Nest T: 4,908 A: 95,008
26. Business Blog Consulting T: 5,186 A:237,901
27. Church Of The Customer T: 5,576 A: 250,201
28. Todd And T: 5,643 A: 161, 019
29. Net Business Blog T: 5,936 A: 36,107
30. Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing T: 6,583 A: 92,784
31. Bootstrapper T: 7,497 A: 50,304
32. About.com Entrepreneurs T: 7,797 A: N/A
33. Blogtrepreneur T: 7,897 A: 53,011
34. Branding & Marketing T: 8,200 A: 710,326
35. Duct Tape Marketing T: 8,985 A: 31,714
36. Simplenomics T: 10,252 A:288,753
37. Freelance Folder T: 10,543 A: 63,590
38. Business Opportunities Weblog T: 11,018 A: 16,213
39. HELLO, My Name Is Blog T: 11,395 A: 422,218
40. Self Made Minds T: 11,704 A: 39,719
41. Sox First T: 12,894 A: 994,161
42. Young Go Getter T: 14,239 A: 45,373
43. Trust Matters T: 15,462 A: 58,403
44. Small Biz Survival T: A: 18,074 A: 875,069
45. The Personal MBA T: 19,207 A: 142,649
46. The Entrepreneurial Mind T: 21,958, A: 155,166
47. Blog Business World T: 23,025 A: 252,405
48. Working At Home On The Internet T: 23,247 A: 423,900
49. Biz Informer T: 24,631 A: 904,745
50. EmpowerWomenNow T: 25,837 A: 117,085
51. Biz Plan Hacks T: 27,048 A: 1,335,732
52. CreateBusinessGrowth T: 32,949 A:197,290
53. Business Opportunities and Ideas T: 33,205 A: 282,805
54. The KISS Business T: 35,496 A: 621,082
55. Startup Spark T: 35,747 A: 386,949
56. Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing Blog T: 41,092 A: 467,418
57. MindPetals T: 41,714 A: 128,487
58. Marketing Deviant T: 43,764 A: 281,072
59. Go Big Network T: 44,842 A: 25,303
60. Cool Business Ideas T: 49,679 A: 187,126
61. Neville’s Financial Blog T: 52,048 A: 140,296
62. Atlantic Canada’s Small Business Blog :T 52,589 A: 795,253
63. College Startup T: 53,143 A: 184,398
64. Reflections Of A Biz Driven Life T: 79,365 A: 361,398
65. Branding Blog T: 93,462 A: 1,110,518
66. Carnival Of The Capitalists T: 93,462 A: 1,897,375
67. Young Entrepreneur T: 104,933 A: 26,491
68. Marketing Genius T: 132,066 A: 2,222,119
69. Better For Business T: 137,774 A: 590,797
70. The Small Business Blog T: 140,824 A: 577,490
71. Focused Mind T: 162,356 A: 520,971
72. Small Business Tips T: 166,367 A: 74,005
73. Lifes Perspective T: 194,358 A: 179,801
74. Business Opportunities Blog T: 199,700 A: 832,678
75. The Savvy Entrepreneur T: 224,227 A: 391,147
76. Egg Marketing Blog T: 231,062 A: 740,867
77. The Franchise King Blog T: 273,240 A: 520,732
78. Small Business Entrepreneur T: 317,977 A: 883,094
79. The Great Startup Game T: 331,293 A: 421,492
80. Work At Home Start Up Guide T: 345,597 A: 1,190,178
81. Dorm Room Biz T: 360,865 A: 957,072
82. Startup Blog T: 377,609 A: 2,552,189
83. Open Inovators T: 395,824 A: 1,230,257
84. Get Entrepreneurial T: 437,475 A: 446,085
85. Bplans Blog T: 437,475 A: 1,373,525
86. Stuff4Restaurants T: 461,534 A: 298,982
87. Canadian Entrepreneur T: 484,461 A: 237,901
88. Strategize T: 487,964 A: 2,856,731
89. The Marketing Spot T: 587,893 A: 2,550,840
90. The Ravings Of A Mad Entrepreneurial Scientist T: 587,893 A: 566,836
91. More Than We Know T: 871,446 A: 2,964,420
92. Solo Entrepreneur T: 1,212,405 A: 471,491
93. Stuff4Business T: 1,391,575 A: 298,982
94. Consultant Journal T: 4,262,598 A: 667,342
95. Startup Addict Musings T: 4,446,976 A: 1,03390,690
96. Edith Yeung T: 8,911,336 A: 125,290
97. Boostrap Me T: 8,911,336 A: 550,348
98. The Selling Sherpa T: Not Listed A: 772,292
99. BizzBangBuzz T: Not Listed A: 1,484,797
100. The Freestyle Entrepreneur T: Not Listed A: 1,519,518

This little list should keep you busy over the weekend, go and have a look. I’ll be checking out the competition. ST.

Well, two things come to mind:

Often the term “staff turnover” is used in connection with fluctuation in staff levels, which means staff leaves the company - for whichever reason. How large or small staff turnover in a company typically is I do not know, but large staff fluctuations are not good for any business. It usually indicates problems during the hiring process or management problems within the company.

The other use of the term “staff turnover” could be in relation to the monetary turnover for a business a staff member will generate, versus the turnover generated by the business owner. This is assuming this staff member is employed in a sales capacity. Here it would be desirable to have a large turnover, of cause.

In both cases it is true to say, it does not matter what kind of small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer- or Personal business, like professional, contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants, you run. It may be more related to things like:

• Market segment;
• Management environment;
• Staff experience, to name but a few.

You can always speak with some other small business owners or get some market segment data from information agencies, maybe they can give you a better idea of where you should be with numbers, comparing yourself to your peers is always a good idea.

I like the question, it makes for some interesting planning exercises for bootstrappers. ST.

Disclaimer: As with any of my readers questions, I do not have all the answers and here on my blog I can only give you some ideas, since I know very little about your small business. If any of you can add anything here do so for the benefit of my reader, who asked the question and everybody else, leave a comment below - I’d be most grateful.

Again I had several questions regarding “crisis planning“, “disaster planning“, “data-security” and “data-backup“, so I will cover all of them in this post.

When I started thinking about WinWeb’s Small Business Infrastructure, we always knew we had to do something about data-security and data-backup. The truth of the matter is that most small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer- or Personal business, like professional, contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants, do not have a coherent data-security and back-up strategy. To be perfectly blunt about the subject, it is not made easier by confusing technology and more to the point terminology, that even we have difficulty understanding some time. So I believe:

We should not expect business start-ups and small business in general to be accountants, bookkeepers, IT specialist, lawyers, marketing & PR gurus and so on. We should provide small business with an infrastructure in which it can concentrate on core business tasks, while at the same time enabling the business owner to stay informed of all relevant business facts like cash flow, sales, HR issues, tax position and more. This will enable him / her to make informed decisions, maybe with the help of an external advisor.

I formulated at the beginning that one of the benefits of using WinWeb’s OnlineOffice would be:

No security problems. No business interruption problem.
Your data is continuously backed up onto multiple RAID-5 data servers in multiple physically and network secure data centres - if that is not enough you can make a copy of your data anytime onto your PC or a CD. Should your computer crash or get stolen - no problem, just log on to another computer and keep working - can your competition do that?

So that takes care of the data security and back-up problem. To give you a little example, one of our clients is a web-designer for a niche market, he lives in an area which was flooded earlier in the year. His computer equipment gone, but all his data, addresses, email and work was safely stored in our OnlineOffice. He moved to his parents for a time and was back working within a few hours - not everybody was that lucky.

A burglary or fire would do the same - and can be dealt with quiet easily. This is not so easy when you have a business that manufactures goods, even when you do it from the kitchen table, you will incur “business interruption“. You will need a plan for that too - insurance may be the first step.

But loosing customers and with that revenue is not something an insurance is going to cover you for. So you need to plan ahead, ask yourself the following questions:

• Is there somewhere else I could work from temporarily? Parents, friends, short term office hire, etc.
• How long until I can get my raw-materials again? Maybe you should require your supplier to get a certain amount in stock for you, make a contract.
• Could you hire machinery until you can replace your own? Find suppliers now.
• Could my staff work from home if necessary? Online technology will help with that.
• Could I outsource some work temporarily? Have a look at virtual assistants in your area.

There are other questions you could ask yourself, just take 30 minutes, get a piece of paper and imagine your business, office, house, kitchen just burned down - trust me - the questions will come, and so will the answers. Oh, just to mention it, a disaster plan in a burned out house is of no value to anyone, keep it online or safe elsewhere.

Answer: YES, a small business needs a disaster plan, just like any other business. ST.

Disclaimer: As with any of my readers questions, I do not have all the answers and here on my blog I can only give you some ideas, since I know very little about your small business. If any of you can add anything here do so for the benefit of my reader, who asked the question and everybody else, leave a comment below - I’d be most grateful.

I’m answering three questions here, emailed to me during last week, so excuse the long headline. I will give examples and will let you fill in the rest for yourself.

What are “Fixed Costs”?

Fixed costs are operating cost that are incurred when providing necessities for doing business and have no relation to the volume of production and sales. Examples are rent, some employee costs, property taxes, telephone, heating and interest/bank expense.

As opposed to “Variable Costs“, they only occur in proportion to activity within the business and hopefully that will lead to sales and revenue.

Why should I keep my “Fixed Costs” as low as possible?

When I talk about outsourcing, I’m talking about changing fixed cost into variable cost. Let me give you an obvious example to make my point.

Let us assume you have hired someone to answer the telephone, this person cost you $1,000 per month, and on average you get about 5 calls per day. Most of these calls are not even from clients, or you could take the calls while you are in the office. This $1,000 is a fixed cost, no matter how many calls you get, or if you are in the office or not.

So you outsource it to a virtual assistant, now you pay $100 per month and that includes 50 calls received, each extra call is $1 per call. The $100 are still fixed cost, but you have lowered your monthly fixed outgoings by $900. And depending how often you are in or out of your office, the 50 inclusive calls are probably enough to cover your needs. Combine this with online technology and you can stay in touch anywhere and anytime.

Should that not be the case, then you have “variable costs” of $1 per call, which means you are out of the office, working or enjoying life while it is quiet, for example during holiday season. You phone is professionally looked after in any case.

Outsourcing, bootstrapping (cutting costs), it all means the same for any small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer- or Personal business, like professional, contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants, more money for you, less distractions, and a more recession proof small business, that is why business planning is so important.

Answer: Keep your “Fixed Costs” down. Stay mean and lean, while enjoying your work and life. ST.

Disclaimer: As with any of my readers questions, I do not have all the answers and here on my blog I can only give you some ideas, since I know very little about your small business. If any of you can add anything here do so for the benefit of my reader, who asked the question and everybody else, leave a comment below - I’d be most grateful.

A virtual credit controller is someone you have outsourced your credit control work to for execution. Needless to say that credit control is one of the most important functions in any small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer- or Personal business, like professional, contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants, it affects your cash-flow and keeps your small business a float.

This could be a professional company which specializes in credit control all the way to court action, this service is usually used for bad debt or difficult customers. The service can be quite pricey and you may have problems getting them to deal with only a few invoices per month.

Another option is to use a virtual assistant (VA) in your area and give him/her the list of open invoices or just copies of them and have the virtual assistant follow up on your clients. You can also use online technology to keep your files up-to-date and make the work-flow more efficient for you and your VA, saving time and money.

Important, no matter how you choose to do your credit control, is to set guidelines, it’s no good getting paid and loosing the client at the same time. Keep your virtual credit controller up-to-date with payments received, clients get upset if chased for money they already paid, and it makes you look unprofessional.

Remember, the easiest way to get new business, is to offer more and new products and services to existing clients. ST.

Disclaimer: As with any of my readers questions, I do not have all the answers and here on my blog I can only give you some ideas, since I know very little about your small business. If any of you can add anything here do so for the benefit of my reader, who asked the question and everybody else, leave a comment below - I’d be most grateful.

Web Worker Daily has a piece on getting yourself off those annoying mailing lists, he uses a company called ProQuo.com, which is still in Beta and it is free, so definitely something for the regular bootstrapper.

This could be a very good service to subscribe too, not sure if it is only for the US or can be used world-wide? ST.