Recently I ordered services and was very happy to have found a supplier. We had agreed prices, scope and timescale of the project. Later I received the contract by email and started reading it. Everything seemed to be as agreed, until I got to the payment terms. There I found an unusual insertion:

We will charge 2% extra for PayPal payments.

Te motivation is quiet understandable, Paypal will charge you 2% to process your inward payment. But should you really charge your client extra for this? I would think not, since this is a great business turn-off. More business is lost through little charges here and there, it generates the feeling in the buyers mind of hidden charges. While at the same time the buyer will wonder why he/she should pay for the suppliers bank charges.

I was given options to send a cheque or pay by bank-transfer. This makes the whole situation even worse, since you would be inclined to send a cheque, which would take weeks to clear through the banking system – this was a international transaction. You would certainly not use the bank transfer option since it would cost even more. The whole problem was no made easier by demanding stage-payments.

It seems to me the solution here is to increase your prices by 2% and don’t talk about it, or enquire before hand which payment method should be used. One needs to remember that getting payed is of the utmost importance for any small business, so PayPal seems a good way to go in this instance.

Look at your payment terms and do not create unnecessary business barriers. — ST.

The Silicon-Valley based Institute for the Future is telling us what small business or micros business is going to look like within a decade, older, younger, more feminine and above all far more global. What I have been proclaiming as Globalization 3.0, has received validation in this new report out in the last few weeks.

The U.S. has now over 26 million micro businesses, like home businesses, sole-traders, freelancers and other forms of self-employment, the growth is explosive and with good reason as this report details the way into the next decade.

Some key findings make for great reading, if you are a budding entrepreneur, that is:

• Small business will be better positioned than large corporations to provide customers with highly targeted, customized, and relevant products.
• Outsourced innovation from big business will increase opportunities for small business.
• Small business will reclaim manufacturing, fueling small-scale and specialized production.
• Plug and Play infrastructures will make small business more competitive and successful.
• The shift to variable cost structures for core business operations will reduce risk and increase opportunities for small business.
• Almost half of U.S. small business will be involved in global trade by 2018.
• Social networks will fuel border-less commerce.
• Globelization will increase small business diversity and amplify economic value.

This report makes for some great reading and I have to agree with it’s findings. There was never a better time to start your own business and be successful, and the times are getting better and better, as far as we can tell this trend of rapid growth in the number of small business and business start-ups shows no signs of slowing.

Some good news in these economic difficult times for small business, great work. — ST.

Jeff Cornwell has an article about the failure of US small business to export. A Study by UPS reveals:

“…..that most of America’s small and mid-sized businesses have failed to explore the significant growth opportunities offered by an increasingly global economy. Specifically, 67 percent of the nation’s small-to-mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) are still relying solely on the U.S. economy. This figure is surprisingly low given the increasing ease of importing and exporting in today’s economy.”

These numbers do not surprise me at all, in a survey we did in 2004 we found that the hurdles have been considerable:

• 36% finding local partners;
• 21% understanding local markets;
• 16% Financing export activities;
• 11% defining local customer profile;
• 11% language barriers;
• 5% other.

You can read more about our findings here. Having spent many hours in trade commissions around Europe, it is also clear to me that each country is interested in exporting activities of their own small businesses, but less helpful when it comes to importing. In fact the red-tape barriers are considerable.

My personal impression has always been, that many of the “advisors” still have a pre-internet mentality to export/import, which makes it even more difficult for small business to export. This coupled with a less than basic understanding of small business, makes for a poor export/import advisory infrastructure.

With the help of online technology we should see this changing, at least in the services industries. Even very 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, will find it less difficult to export their services, using services like LiveNet.

With LiveNet it is no longer important where on the planet you live, I call this Globelization 3.0. ST.

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.

A few years back we used to have a product called GlobalOffice – it was targeted at foreign small businesses who wanted to export product or just support their customers in local markets. We learned that our customers just used our OnlineOffice and made arrangements for the “Live” services themselves – and this has been the way ever since we withdrew GlobalOffice to focus on our “core” business to provide a Small Business Infrastructure – SBI.

Small Biz Labs have a post today about Laurel Delaneey’s Global Small Business Blog and one of her recent posts, some of the data is quite interesting:

• Only about 4% of US companies are exporters and the US has the lowest level of exports as a % of GNP of the G7 countries – roughly 10%. The highest is Germany at almost 45% and the 2nd lowest is Japan at a bit over 15%
• SME’s (defined as less than 500 employees) accounted for 29% of US export value in 2005.
• While the number of exporting businesses in the US grew rapidly in 90’s, it has stayed relatively flat since 2000. In 2005 there were roughly 239,000 exporting companies, 97% of which are SMEs.
• 58% of exporting companies traded in only one export market.

Localization, local red-tape and the often horrendous cost associated with exporting make it difficult for small business to work in foreign markets. I believe these barriers are slowly disappearing, not only with the help of technology, but with the understanding of technology.

Globelization 3.0 as I call it – I have written about it before – will enable very small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal business, to take full advantage of global markets for products and services. Even personal business, like contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants can now use social networking communities to develop international virtual project teams or at least be part of at least one or more.

In ten years time these numbers will be very different – as it will no longer matter, if your customer is next door or half way around the globe. For some this is a reality already – have you thought about this when planning your start-up business?

If you have a group of people working with you – in your office or from home, employed or outsourced – does that mean you have a team? Well that depends how you work together.

Small Businesses need to be build a team, a Small Business Team. A team is defined as a group of people who co-operate in such a manner that it achieves more than the sum total of the individuals achieve each, they are united around a common goal and are accountable to the team for their actions.

Examples of teams are:

• Work Teams
• Sales Teams
• Customer Service Teams
• Virtual Teams

I would suggest that small business owners need to form teams around their small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal businesses, too. This will achieve scalability, higher efficiency, more professionalism, in other words to grow your business with less growing pains, like struggling cash-flow, excessive financial and administrative overheads and much more.

In fact keeping business failure at bay, may very well depend on your ability to form these teams, in your office or virtually.

In a modern business context we also call these teams Small Business Communities or Small Business Networks. Even a small business may have different types of networks – as indicated above – you can have your office team, while your small office team member for sales may also belong to a external sales network (team).

As you can see we live not only technologically in a networked world – we live in a world of teams, communities and people networks. The benefits especially for small business and even more business start-up, can not be over emphasized – teams perform functions so important for small business success:

• achieve better work results than individuals,
• are ultimately more scalable and flexible than larger organisations,
• offer a wider range of services and products than individuals,
• offer the opportunity of “brain-storming”,
• motivate each other,
• develop more skills and confidence
• show more commitment to each other.

Whatever you do, employ new staff, hire a consultant, work with an accountant, think my-team, think my-community and think my-network – because you are building your Small Business Team. Do it even before you open your door for business, during the business start-up phase.

So, back to my question for you: Do you work with a Group of people or do you have your own Small Business Team?

I have been writing about virtual assistants and virtual workers for quite some time, explaining the benefits of outsourcing to virtual assistants and workers for small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal businesses.

But I never really wrote something about what it means to have a virtual small business team, which is part of WinWeb’s Small Business Infrastructure approach – so here it goes, a virtual small business team is:

1. a collection of people working together in different locations, countries and time-zones
2. a “network” of people working together using advanced online technology
3. some teams my be project specific and/or limited in duration(time)

Not always do people only work virtually together, some times the meet – even if it is only socially. Under 1. many combinations are possible:

• different time in different locations
• same time in different locations
• same time in same location
• different time in the same location

This all really means one thing – anywhere at anytime! How virtual is your team or in other words how mobile and flexible is your small business. You should think about these issues in the planning phase of your business start-up.

Have you thought through all the possibilities for your small business outsourcing and bootstrapping or how much more green and eco-friendly your small business or start-up would be?

If you ever wondered what a virtual business for small or personal business, like contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants is, then here is an example: MrExcel.com – they are truly virtual and global:

• Bill Jelen in Akron Ohio
• Lora White manages the office in Uniontown, Ohio.
• Linda Delonais is technical editor of our books.
• Ivana Taylor is our virtual VP of marketing.
• Wei Jiang is a full time programmer and project manager in Shiyan City. He is proficient in Visual Basic, Excel and Access.
• Tracy Syrstad project manages all of the consulting projects at MrExcel. She is editor of all of the Holy Macro! Books and co-author of our newest book on Excel VBA.
• Suat Ozgur is a full time Excel, Access, VB and php developer in Istanbul.
• Anne Troy is author of a book on Microsoft Word that we are publishing this fall.
• Barb Jelen works in Tucson and processes all of the orders placed through the MrExcel store.
• Scott Pierson does all of our flash design from Philadelphia.
• Mala Singh runs the MrExcel Graphics & Engineering Division in India.
• Richard Kranesis in Chicago runs the MrExcel-branded training around the country, offering on-site Advanced Excel to companies.
• We have a number of part time programmers who moonlight while still working at their day job. Lest their bosses find out, let’s thank Al, Angelita, Anhtuan, Audrey, Brian, Colo, Cory, Cort, David, Dawn, Duane, Harry, Ian, Ivan, James, Jake, Jay, Juan Pablo, Marcel, Marie, Mark, Mark, Nate, Nick, Richie, Robert, Russell, Scott, Skip, Suat, Tom, Tom, Tracy, Wendy, and Zack for their expertise in various Office products.
• There are 3 dozen incredible volunteer MVP’s and 100’s of Excel Gurus who answer questions tirelessly at the message board. Thanks to all of them for making what I believe is the best Excel resource available anywhere.

This is an excellent example of what working online can mean, the more tailored your software/IT infrastructure is to working online, the less will it matter where people work and when. I wrote about Globeliszation 3.0 some time back this is an example of that too, small business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer businesses can benefit just as much from globelization as big firms. Think about the implications for your business, lower cost and less hassle recruiting is just the start.

Hat-tip to Anita Campbell, she has an interesting blog post on Google Hiring Local Contractors, too.