With all the new mobile gadgets, with Wi-Fi and free data service, it is obvious that more and more people will consume their news and information electronically. This has been happening for some time now. Local news is still harder to come by, but you could change that with this little business start-up idea.

You could get some pre-designed portal software, blogging software or a forum to set up your portal and then write about local events, with things like this:

• Live events - like Live Jazz in the local pub,
• New Business launch - write about the company, people and products;
• Evening Classes - anything from cooking to phontography;
• Club News - what time they meet, run a prifile.
• For Sale Section - from paperclips to houses and cars

You get the idea, there are many more events you could report about. Take leaflets around to get it started and then get revenue from ad’s of local businesses, clubs, for sale ad’s, and get paid for event announcements. Have a look at your local paper that will give you some idea, what people want.

It will get you involved in many areas of your community you didn’t even know existed, get you out of the house, make new friends and earn you some money - what else can you want. One day Google may pay you some money to supply local news to them, who knows?

There is money to be made in each locality, be the first and hog the niche first. Work from home, keep it cost effective, then the set-up should be about $150/£75 and the monthly cost no more than $20/£10, assuming you have a phone, computer and broadband. ST.

NOTE: If you have any problems with setting something like this up, give our 24/7 live support a “click“, they can help you.

Carl Lyons, marketing director of lastminute.com, said in 2000:

Marketing is marketing - it is easy to drape new media in magic, but it comes down to whether it’s a good business or not.

This is a very insightful statement and a good guide when you think about new media, technology and so on for your small business, if it does not move you forward - why do it?

A few more on marketing:

• Marketing takes a day to learn. Unfortunately it takes a lifetime to master. - Philip Kotler, US marketing guru.
• Anyone can build market share and, if you set your prices low enough, you can get the whole damn market. - David Packard, US entrepreneur.
• Music is spiritual. The music business is not. - Van Morrision, Irish musician.

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.

I get regular questions about what we really mean by WinWeb’s Small Business Infrastructure?

On-demand Small Business Infrastructure™ centers around the idea that business start-ups and growing small businesses need help with numerous administrative tasks that are not core to the business success - such as bookkeeping, it services, internet services, call handling and other such services.

These services - if performed by the business owner - cause a great deal of time wasting - while the fixed cost of a business is still accumulating. This is in our minds a fatally floored business model and can easily be remedied with our infrastructure approach.

We should not expect business start-ups and small business in general to be accountants, bookkeepers, 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.

Based on these facts, we have devised a six point on-demand Small Business Infrastructure™ concept, which consist of:

1. WinWeb On-Demand Software Solutions - Anywhere At Anytime.

AccountsOffice and OnlineOffice are our two software offerings, which are based on the SaaS - Software as a Services model, to allow for the following key business benefits:

• tight inclusion of business advisors from the start,
• cultivating outsourcing techniques at the outset, i.e. virtual assistants,
• no IT knowledge needed and hassle free operation,
• real-time multi-user access from anywhere, increasing mobility.

2. WinWeb 24/7 Live Support - We Are Here For You Always.

Providing customer care and support only during business hours is not acceptable to our clients. Experience has shown us that most admin work gets done by small business before nine in the morning or after five in the evening. This practice is essential if the business is to survive it’s early years.

This is why we have provided our much acclaimed customer support for 24 hours a day, seven days a week from the outset. Saving our clients wasted time and money - while setting new standards in customer support. No manuals need to be read - all problems can be solved in real-time online.

3. WinWeb Live - Networking Community for Small Business Only.

To foster collaboration and outsourcing we have expanded our WinWeb Live™ offering to allow for small business community networking - thus enabling the business owner to make decisions about his / her current needs, with the following benefits:

• timeshare virtual assistants for professional results,
• offer contracts of work to contractors on a case-by-case basis,
• promote the business to a large audience or even locally,
• find new work and contracts online

4. Business Advice

Our On-Demand Small Business Infrastructure™ enables business advisors, accountants, bookkeepers and other advisors to have a “Up Close and Personal” relationship with the small business owner, providing key elements for the success of a small business:

• timely and up-to-date advice from anywhere at anytime,
• more efficient advisor function due to SaaS technology, less travel,
• easily expandable advisor network.

5. Solution Partners

Third parties provide external services to complement our services, such as parcel service, office supply services, printing services. These and other services are provided on a bulk buy arrangements by leading businesses in their respective sectors - to provide the most reliable and up-to date service possible - with the effect of enhancing the professional appearance of our clients.

6. ClimateByte™ Technology - For A Cleaner Future.

Our clients are among the biggest demographics concerned with climate change and carbon footprint neutrality. It is a fact that employing remote working and collaboration techniques drastically reduces the damaging business side affects on our environment. We enable our clients to be more eco-friendly and aware, by providing them with our green technology - an ongoing development commitment of WinWeb.

WinWeb welcomes any suggestion that will further enhance our On-Demand Small Business Infrastructure™ concept - especially the development of even more eco-friendly business processes - to serve our small business and business start-up client-base.

There are two ways to get better payment terms from your suppliers - make sure you know what the pricing is and negotiate the payment terms last, without warning. Most businesses do not expect small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal businesses to negotiate payment terms, so you have the element of surprise on your side - and it makes you look more professional.

Firstly there is the extended payment term, of 60, 90 and 180 days - see if your supplier will allow any of those terms. Even if they only give you 60 days, you can always go back after 3-4 month using this payment terms in which you have shown to be trustworthy. If it is declined and only 30 days are offered - because you have no history - then this is the perfect scenario of our second method.

Early payment discounts of 2% if you pay within 7 days. This is like a 24% p.a. discount on the invoice value, not a bad way to compensate for the overdraft interest charges from your bank.

Surly you supplier is interested in your business, and is not going to decline both offers - you win either way - if they decline, then look for a new supplier. Because you are not only helping yourself with your cash-flow, but theirs too.

Small may be beautiful - but often you will have to appear bigger than your really are, to get that next contract. Here are some pointers to help you to look bigger, more professional and efficient:

1. Business address - “19, Rose Gardens” may not be the best small business address, a PO Box number is not really the way to instill confidence either - use a business address service, which will forward all mail to you.
2. Phone answering - have your phone answered, no matter what, use a virtual assistant or an answering service. Not answering your phone will cost you business - big time, trust me - probably the biggest mistake small business make in terms of appearance.
3. Conference rooms - use good meeting rooms in high quality business centers. They may be able to offer some of the other services for you as well, like an business address and call answering.
4. Online presence - absolute minimum is a good website, best with a blog and if appropriate online-shop. If you are not online you are not in business. Have your own domain, to use for your email, don’t use hotmail or gmail, etc. that is what your kids do.
5. Outsource - use timesharing techniques for professionals, there are virtual assistants which offer hundreds of services at an professional level, hire them as you need them. If you work with one virtual assistant they have usually a network of expertise around them, that creates a one stop shop for professional skills for you.
6. Be proactive - use Key Account Management Techniques to deal with your customers, remember the 80/20 rule.
7. Branding - even if you outsource insist on your own branding, it builds your brand and is less confusing for your customers.
8. Share technology and facilities - see if you can find other businesses that let you share equipment, storage, office and anything else you can think of.
9. Think big - the way you talk about your business, products and services will tell others a lot about you and your business. Remember, anything is possible if you want it bad enough.
10. Say “YES” - work out how to do it later. Your small business is probably more efficient and flexible that your big competitors - use that to your advantage.

Remember your new slogan - “Whatever they can do, I can do better!” or my slogan “What the hell, let’s do it.”

For more of my checklists see the Small Business Checklists category and as always please add to my list with your comments, tell us what works for you.

Small businesses, like home-, micro-, lifestyle-, mobile-, SME-, SMB-, SOHO-businesses, can benefit tremendously by using online IT effectively. Not only can it make daily tasks in a business easier but also create a potential market with an online shop and cater to an audience the business may not have reached out to in the past by traditional means, resulting in more successful businesses.

To create an online shop and strengthen e-commerce it is first important to understand how business is done over the internet. You would have to select the domain name and the website addresses thoughtfully and would need to ensure that the design and content of the website reflects your business style. Content should be appealing and should motivate visitors to come back to your website time and again.

It is also crucial to analyze the internet service provider that your business uses so that you are in touch with your online clients in an efficient manner. An online office and on-demand small business infrastructure can integrate the many processes that are crucial to a business and this is especially true for small businesses having less than six employees.

Your e-commerce should be secure and assure your clients that their crucial financial information is safe on your website. It is important to manage your IT requirements for e-commerce on a daily basis so that your business doesn’t suffer because of any slip ups or technical failures.

When you think about starting up your business, e-commerce should be high on your list of priorities, even if you are starting a personal business, like Contractors, Freelancer, Free-Agent, Self-employed and Virtual Assistants.

Remember, there is always a nice “market - niche” to be had, products to be sold the big boys will not touch, because the turnover is not high enough for them - but it may be the nice little earner you’ve been looking for.

Here's a new piece of regulation that will have passed most small business owners by.

Having come in on the 1st January 2007, The E-commerce Regulations applies to limited companies with websites and those that use e-mail as a means of communications.

The regulations say that every company now has to list its vat registration number, company registration number, place of registration and registered office address in legible characters on its website. This information must also appear in e-mails and online order forms.

For those who want to read the regulation for themselves please click here.

New Year, new more regulation!

Tags: Small Business, SMB, OMB, Micro Business, Self Employed, Limited Company, Working for yourself, Regulation

Haggle, I like this site, this is a website that encourages us all to ‘Join the wealth preservation society’.

From a Business Advisers view point this is a great business idea, Steve Dixon the founder of Haggle had one of those Eureka moments, after spending his valuable time searching the Internet for family and friends, as so many of us do, looking for those bargains he thought:

"You should make them do it for themselves or charge them"

Well like all good entrepreneurs Steve had a Eureka moment and acted on it.

Then came the reality, the idea is simple, but still none the less fantastic, but next came the implementation, now here we are not talking about worrying has he registered with the Revenue etc, we are talking the thought his idea could cost millions to implement, and this is what forced Steve, reluctantly, to shelf his Eureka moment, but only for a short time.

Again, it was another realisation that brought Haggle4me.com in to being, Steve realised he didn’t need premises and staff to fulfil his dream, what he needed to do was to provide a venue for people to meet and haggle, and now you have Haggle4me.com.

Go on, take a look at the site, read Steve’s own account of how Haggle came into being, and meet the people behind this venture, and if you get bitten by the bug, Haggle.

Tags: OMB, SME, Haggle4me.com, Institute of Business Advisers, Entrepreneur, Business Start Up, Internet Trading, IT

This recent article from Cobweb Information Ltd caught my eye so I thought I would reproduce it for everyone. The one that interested me most was Cameron Johnson, I wonder if there are any accountants out there advising nine year olds on how to run their business?

A US journalist-turned-author reckons there are just eight traits essential to entrepreneurship:

• Seizing opportunities that nobody else has noticed.
• The desire to run your own show.
• Innovative behaviour since childhood.
• Flexibility.
• Doggedness.
• Self-confidence.
• Pragmatism.
• The ability to 'fail upwards'.

The final one, apparently, means that you should be prepared to go under - as long as you take away the lesson of why you failed, and what you can do better next time.

That's according to Brent Bowers, who says: "Some entrepreneurs brag about their bloopers. As one of the experts I talked to told me, they consider making a mess of things practically a badge of honour so long as they take stock of what went wrong and learn from it."

Some of the examples he gives of entrepreneurs showing the eight traits include:

• James Poss, who spent his childhood pulling apart, mending and creating gadgets. He later founded the Seahorse Power Company, which makes solar-powered rubbish compactors.
• Cameron Johnson started in business at nine, selling greetings cards online, then made $1,000 auctioning his sister's toys on eBay, before earning up to $150,000 a day while still at school by selling Internet adverts.

Find out more from Brent's book If At First You Don't Succeed: The Eight Patterns of Highly Effective Entrepreneurs.

You can also check out some of Cobweb Information Ltd factsheets, which will help you to assess your own personality traits to discover if you could run your own business.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: This small business news article has been written by Cobweb Information Ltd, the UK's leading publisher of information for small businesses and their advisers. To get more regular, fresh, practical information and news about starting up and running a small business, go to www.enterprisequest.com.