It is not a black art, you need to be clear about it’s purpose:

Advertising is about getting a response, nothing more and nothing less.

So when you think about advertising start in a way that does not cost any money, talk to people, work online in forums, this will help you to get your message right. Once you have done that you can start to think about putting money into your advertising. Always ask yourself:

• How effective is my advertising?
• Is there a better way to advertise?

Like with so many other things, you need to fine tune your messaging and your advertising campaign. You will not be surprised to hear that I prefer the internet and it’s many way of telling people about yourself and your small business:

• Your Website with a little search engine optimization.
• Start a blog, a great way to get people to hear about you.
• Use RSS feeds to distribute your news.
• Use online PR tools to tell more people about your business.

Best of all, these tools are all free to use once you set them up, which should not cost you more then $20/£10 a month maximum. Traditional advertising is often very ineffective, since it is not very targeted.

Ask yourself this, would you know about me or WinWeb without my blog or our website? Probably not. ST.

When ever I meet new business people I’m curious to find out what they are doing, what is their business all about, so I ask. But too often I walk away and I’m still wondering what it is my new contact does, that is not good.

So here is something I think you should do, get a piece of paper - or even better use my comment form below - and create a little 10 - 15 second marketing and PR speech for your small business products and service. Here is what I tell people who ask - and some who don’t ask actually:

WinWeb provides an on-demand online small business infrastructure, including an OnlineOffice and LiveNet, a social networking community and online marketplace for small business and business startups in the US, Europe and Australia.

Every meeting is a opportunity for you and your business, so don not let it pass. Rehearse you speech until you can say it in your dreams, it will also help you to focus on your core business better. Your new contact can then work out if there is anything interesting for him/her in your portfolio. They may also remember you in month and years from now - so 10 to 15 seconds well spent.

So what do you tell others about your business, your products and services? Tell us about it, in a comment. ST.

My last post got me thinking about the relationship I have with current customers and with customers in other companies I’ve owned. A good personal relationship with your customers, in my case at least some of them, is vitally important to understand your(my) own business.

But as always in live, not every relationship is going to work. I’ve had people tell me that my business idea of a Small Business Infrastructure would never work, in-fact some are downright hostile about the idea.

Those are some of the best personal relationships you can forge, because here is the thing, what are you going to learn from someone who will tell you all day your services and products are the greatest? Not a lot!

I once meet with an accountant to try and convince him that he should be offering our free accounting and business planning software to his clients for free, this to help him to get more small business clients and became the local small business accountant guru.

This guy was having none of it, he told me that my idea was silly, because nobody was going to put their data online, and anyway his clients would not do that, because it was too difficult for them.

I said, that we offered free 24/7 support and our product was accredited, so perfectly safe to use and people use online banking all the time. This all did not help at all, he was not having any of it. In fact he went as far as to suggest I had wasted a lot of money for nothing.

I left the meeting and you would probably expect me to be demoralized or feeling personally attacked, he was quite rude after all. But then I asked myself, why the hell did he even see me?

Well as it turned out he had just invested in a very expensive hosted accounting application, he needed to charge a vast amount of money for per seat to make it pay. I was invited so he could find out what we were doing, how it worked and how it would affect him - he obviously did not like what he heard. The moral of this story is, sometimes it’s true:

It’s not personal, it’s just business!

When ever you or your products are criticized, stay cool, take notes and then work out if any of it has any relevance to you. You can learn the best lessons about you products this way.

Your customers are THE best sounding board for your products and services, but don’t take everything personal. ST

I have discussed before that it is important 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, to do a minimum of business planning, but does it stop there?

Not really, you need to keep up to date with your bookkeeping, to complete the business planning process. You may ask why, if you have done the planning, why not get your bookkeeping done once a year for your tax return?

The answer to this question is the business planning process never ends. Remember I have been talking about going back to your plan at least once a month. In order to fine-tune your small business planning you need to actual information how your business performed in the last month. The only way to do that is to do your bookkeeping or accounting.

By doing that you will be able to compare your predicted numbers in your cash-flow with the actual number your business has generated. This in turn will help you to update or modify your cash-flow plan for the future. More important than that, you will learn new things about your business:

• You may have higher (good) or lower (bad) sales, than you expected?
• Your cost in your business may be higher (bad) or lower (better) than you expected?
• Your cash-flow may be better or worse do to the above two points?
• You may need to outsource some business processes to lower your fixed cost structure, to make your business more recession proof or just more profitable?
• You may need to ramp up your sales and marketing activities for your small business products or services?
• You may also have to adjust your SWOT analysis and your business goals?

You will be surprised how creative you can be, once you know about and understand a problem in your business plan. It may not even be a problem at that time, you may just need to adjust the way you do things, and you may have avoided a small or big problem in the future.

In my opinion strict cost control and bootstrapping are not like nice to have features, they are essential for your small business survival. Often the difference between failure and success is just a little planning and checking the “plan” - doing a reality check. There is no excuse not to do it, all the tools are available for free, for anyone.

If you feel the initial process of business planning is too much for you, than get your accountant or bookkeeper to help you to set your cash-flow fore-casting, SWOT analysis with you, doing it online will give you strategic advantages, like you can work with your accountant or bookkeeper in real time in different places, this lowers your cost, no time wasted and is good for the environment.

I would like to make one more point here, the aim of all this planning is not to get it spot on - no, the aim is to understand what is happening in your business, that is why you should be doing it.

Among other things, it will give you a measure of certainty, security and confidence, if you understand what is happening in your business. So, how confident are you about the future of your business? Why not take the weekend and have a planning session, it is like playing monopoly, only this game will secure your future. ST.

Shirley Jaffrey wrote me an email today, telling me her story how she started her business on a kitchen table and is now supplying the stars.

But she started her email like this:

A story on the BBC website yesterday “When did normal people fall so in love
with Tattoos” see link http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7034500.stm

There is no mention of her product in this BBC article, but she has associated herself with this article, more importantly the BBC. She got me to read her story based on this BBC link, since I’m not really into tattoos.

Here is some of what she emailed me:

“… I was a nurse of 13 years experience in all areas of nursing and a practicing aroma therapist, so using my extensive knowledge in health care and natural essential oils and emollients I created my blend, Tattoo Aftercare®, (Scots are also famous for blending skills!)

I was not working, my youngest child was a year old, my daughters were 11 and 13 and my husband was unemployed due to ill health. We had no spare money and were living on social security benefits, yet I saw the gap in the market and had a vision of seeing my product in tattoo studios around the world.

With a borrowed £400 and home PC a lot of determination and hard work and testing the blend on willing testers we began putting samples out to studios in the UK . From that we got our first few customers. We worked from home for the first two years blending hundreds and hundreds of jars of aftercare every day. We would then label and package them, with the help of my daughters, and sell them to tattoo studios. In the early days we lived off soup, (I now make great soup), so we could post out samples, turning back all money made into the company. Two years on we moved into premises but were still hand blending using a small stainless steel pot and kettle for pouring. Finally after hand blending over 70,000 jars we were able to have the product made at a manufacturer in Laurencekirk , Scotland , where it is still made toady.

We moved home from Balmedie in Scotland to Chester , England in 2003 so we could visit more customers and attend more tattoo conventions to raise awareness about my product.

Now seven years on we supply tattoo studios all over the UK and Europe, and use a number of distributors selling into Canada , Sweden , Czech Rep, and Indonesia and are in the process of securing a deal with an American distributor. To date over 400,000 people have used my product as an aftercare for their tattoo, many of them stars. www.tattooaftercare.co.uk

My company has had several magazine reviews and newspaper articles written about my success and personal achievement as a woman in business. In 2005 I was surprised to find myself as one of three finalists in the North West of England Business Awards 2005, Women in Business Category. My product recipe also won the BUAV first ever Gold Bunny Award in 2006 for not being tested on animals. My blend is made using the finest natural ingredients; It is 100% Natural contains no chemicals and is paraben preservative free and is the only aftercare in the world approved under the Humane Cosmetics Standard. ”

THIS is what I’m talking about when I talk about bootstrapping, work-life balance and all that. I love this story and I’m proud to be used for advertising, in this quint-essential bootstrapping marketing drive. Her last paragraph reads like this:

As we move our company forward and set up business links with companies across the world I believe my story can be seen as an inspiration to others who have the get up and go to begin in business and shows that hard work and determination can cross boundaries and countries.

I could not agree more, I hope Shirley is well on her way to business and private life success. A lot can be learned here and if you have similar stories, why not tell us about them? ST.

PS. Before I retire for the day with a nice glass of my favorite malt, I wonder what she means about the Scots and blending skills? Any idea anyone?

SmallFuel Marketing is a great site which introduces a marketing system for small business and I must say I like their approach:

“Welcome to the SmallFuel Marketing store. You’ll find that every product here will serve one purpose: to grow your small business. With that as our goal, we created a coherent marketing system that combines everything you need to grow your business into a simple and extremely effective package. In short, we created what we believe is the best possible way to grow a small business: the SmallFuel Marketing System.”

Marketing is still a kind of “black art” for 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, but these guys give you a marketing plan layout for free in three steps:

• Step 1: Position and Plan
• Step 2: Create an Identity
• Step 3: Spread the Word

This system will not break the bank, but will fast-track your small business marketing, even if you are not going to spend the money read their pages, most informative.

Hat-tip to Small Business Trends. ST.

Shama has a great post “3 Creative (and Legal) Ways to Fund Your Service Business” about how to find funding for your small business - I can recommend you read this. But what I liked especially, is this:

“Bonus-Smart Marketing! Please please (pretty please with sugar on top?), leverage the internet to market yourself. I don’t care how small of a company you are-you can use this technique. If you optimize your internet marketing, there is no need to invest in other marketing channels and this is a huge cost cutting mechanism!”

Even without the sugar on top, she is absolutely right, forget the old marketing channels, because:

• they do not work anymore;
• they are too expensive;
• they are a waste of time.

There are great books out there on this topic here is one I was given lately: Buzzmarketing by Mark Hughes, there are many more.

Don’t waste your money - make money! ST.

I was recently told this marketing idea and I must admit I had to smile - so I thought I share it with you.

We all had the odd pen or tea bag attached to a letter to get our attention, but in this idea you sent out say a 1$ coin, attached smack, bang in the middle of the page and write something like this:

Do you earn $249 600 per year? Because that is how much I would like to pay you to read this letter. It will take you 30 seconds to read this letter, I’m paying you $1 to do so. That is equivalent to $120 per hour, $4800 per week and $249 600 per year, can you earn more than that in a year?

Now that you’re on the payroll, I would like to tell you about my widget…….

I can see some problems with this, especially if you plan a mass mailing, but it might just work in certain situations and local areas. I believe you would certainly stand out from the usual junk mail.

If you plan a campaign like that, I might be interested in your product!
ST.

Funding issues are really only a problem if you do not use “bootstrapping techniques” - so I’m not that comfortable talking about this issue, since I believe everyone should start their small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal business on a shoestring.

Anyway here are the small business health check questions you need to ask yourself:

• What do I need the money for? Can’t you find a customer how will buy the product or service, before you even have it? It can be done you know!
• Do I have enough securities for a bank loan or overdraft? I always like the analogy of a bank will give you an umbrella (money) and when it rains (problems) they need the umbrella themselves - what than is the umbrella good for!
• Should I be looking for an external investor? You could find external investors who will tell you how to run your business, but know even less about your small business than you do?
• Do I have the detailed business plan needed to find investors? You will need a detailed business plan - which frankly may not be worth the paper it’s written on - which will be used against you when things don’t work out.
• Do I have the time to wait until a decision is made? You could be looking a 12 - 18 month before you have funding, do you have that time? Why not deal with customers today and get started on a shoestring.
• What if they say NO? This is my favorite one - are you happy to give up on your business idea if everyone things is bad or worse (?)…. if you are don’t start a business, because you are not ready and whatever you do do not borrow any money from anyone.

If you read this and think this is all b*** s*** - and you may be right, of course - let me know why you think you need to borrow money? Maybe we could come up with an idea that would allow you to start your small business, without having to borrow money and loosing some of the control in your small business.

You can see other reasons for small business and personal business, like contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants failures in my Health Check Category, if you can add to this list please do so, I would welcome your comments.

Starting and running a small business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal business today, is all about staying focused on the small business and not on running your office. WinWeb’s Software as a Service applications allow you to do exactly that. Below you will find some of the benefits detailed to help you make up your mind if this kind of technology is for you.

1. No More Software Installation.

Since our software comes to you via your internet browser, there is no need to install anything. Your printer will also work with our software without installation or any modifications. Our software works with any web browser, Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox etc.

2. Our software is always up to date.

This really is one of the main benefits of SaaS. We make all the software updates on our servers, so you don’t have to do anything. No update hassle and worry anymore. There are no “Update available - Please download” messages and no CDs / DVDs updates arriving in the mail.

3. Never pay for software “updates” again!

No matter if we update or bug-fix, you will never have to pay for them again, it is all part and parcel of our service. Artificially accelerated software cycles are a thing of your past.

4. Fully Compatible with any Operating System.

Our software runs on any Operating System (OS) with Linux, Mac, Windows and some others - you login and use it.

5. Work and collaborate with anyone, anytime and anywhere.

Our software allows you to work with your accountant, colleagues, virtual assistants and others in real-time at anytime - whatever your business needs.

6. No commuting. No time wasting.

With online technology you can work from anywhere, so no need to travel to an office. Run your small business from home and benefit in terms of time, money and investment.

7. 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 centers - 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?

8. 24/7 Live Support 365 days a year.

We believe that you will be busy during the day with your clients and with working on new projects and so you should - after the phone stops ringing you get down to your admin work. So we thought we better be around in case you need some support for any of our products. It would be no good if we weren’t around now, would it?

9. No contract needed.

No minimum term, cancel anytime, no contract needed and you can test drive any software for a minimum of 30 days free of charge. This puts you in control. Unlike the boxed software you buy, once you paid for it, it’s yours including the problems. Not so with our software.

10. ClimateByte™ Technology

Our environment is in trouble - by using our on-demand Small Business Infrastructure™, you can help to reduce your carbon footprint and help our environment - we are dedicated to develop our future products and services with this in mind.

Our Software as a Service products provide your small business with a on-demand Small Business Infrastructure™ helping you to concentrate on your business, while we run your office and IT. This makes your business more mobile and competitive while saving you time, money and helping the environment.

When you run a small business and personal business, like contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants you probably benefit even more from using SaaS technology - program your business for success.