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.

The typical scenario is you work hard all week, have no live and at the end of it all little money to show for it. This is often a sure sign of loss of management control in a small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal businesses.

The small business health-check questions for this episode are:

• Do I know what is going on in my business in all areas or have I abdicated some responsibility to staff? You can pick and choose what you do work-wise everyday, you can not pick and choose what you should know about and make decisions about - this is your business, not your staffs business - act like it.
• Am I running my business or is it running “itself”? No business is running itself, other than into the ground!
• Do you know how your cash-flow is doing? Done this one before, yet it always comes back to this, check it out.
• Do you have an overview of your small business fixed costs and sales, are you happy with the situation? I guess you could always do better, but if you do not know the details you can not improve your situation.
• Is your vision in line with your small business targets? You need a vision for your business, that will allow you to develop your small business strategy and plan, so you know where you are going - don’t just drift along.
• Have you asked your staff lately? Have a power-meeting with your staff once a week, to see how they are feeling about your small business, last week or the next few weeks. It will motivate them and give you a new insight in how others see your small business.

The central message here is to be involved in ALL areas of your business ALL of the time - in a management capacity. When I hire people I always hire people who do something better than I, but you have to stay involved.

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.

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?

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.

You may have heard about the 80% - 20% rule? It basically means something like you make about 80% of your turnover with 20% of your clients. I guess you would also agree with e that these 20% of your clients are very important to your small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal business, so what are you doing about that? You should do about it is learn about Key Account Management.

What is a key account? They are the customers that keep your small business revenue growing, look at some of the attributes of an key account:

1. Provides your business with consistent and high value business
2. Is looking for a long-term partnership with your small business
3. Is of “strategic” importance to you or your business sector
4. Offers you increasing sales for the future
5. Is one of your most important customers.

You need to develop and maintain an value adding relationship with your key accounts, because they offer you a constant revenue stream of high quality and reliability - best of all a growing revenue stream. This in turn allows you to plan your business better (cash-flow) for the future, while reducing your sales cost.

Get the picture - these customers are among the most valuable assets to your growing small business or business start-up.

Online sales is a fast-growing area for businesses of all types, yet so many small businesses are missing the boat, why?

Well those helpful people over at bytestart have done it again for the start up and small business, they have arranged a live Webchat with the head of merchant services at PayPal, Carl Olav. Go and join in and get some answers to those questions that have stopped you making the internet your shop front for the world.

The live Webchat takes place on Wednesday 15 November at 1pm, don’t forget, put it in your diary.

Tags: Shop, Retail, Consumer spending, Christmas shopping, Small Business, Self Employed, PayPal, Internet Shopping, Entrepreneur, SME, OMB

I took my Honda car to a local dealer in Southport on Friday for its annual service. I phoned them well in advance and booked it in and at that same time went through with this firms representative what service was required.

I explained the car was not my main car and therefore had limit use so a full service was not required this year, only a minor service.

Then on Friday I took my car in at 8.30am as agreed signed for the work to be done and left my keys after arranging to pick the car up at 4pm. All this was so very easy and without stress.

However, when I went back at 4pm to collect my car I was duly informed that it was serviced and everything was fine with it and the bill for a full service is ……….

Now this is were everything went south for customer service, I explained when I booked it in, it was for a minor, and not a major service, to which I was told ‘you didn’t say anything this morning’!

I explained that I was not aware after confirming everything over the phone originally that I then have to go through it all again when dropping the car off.

In the end the reception I was given went decidedly cold, I was told to sit down and they would take all the parts off that shouldn’t be on, once this was done I was given my invoice, still experiencing an arctic type reception.

Result, this is one dealership I will never use again come hell or high water. Not a very good way of pleasing your customers, especially when you are in the wrong.

How would I have handled it, or how would I advise my clients to handle it, well firstly, it’s not the customers fault you have screwed up, so don’t blame them, apologize for the error, and in my case tell them you will only charge for the minor service and leave all the parts on and tell them they have done well, a major service for the price of a minor one, good PR.

Then I would find out what went wrong internally, find out why the person taking the booking didn’t make a note of the service agreed, explain to this member of staff that this can never happen again, as this has resulted in the company losing money, and if this keeps going the long term prospect would be no pay rises for anyone and worse case scenario job loses!

At least this way, the customer will come back again the following year (hoping no doubt for the same mistake to be made) and you will have identified a chink in your company’s armour which you can now fix.

Remember, the customer is not always right, but he/she is the customer and you need them!

Tags:  Customer relations, Car dealers, Customer service, Service levels

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

I am sure you have all heard the expression CASH IS KING; well this has never been truer than in business.  The lifeblood of any business is its ability to collect its debts and pay its bills, employees and ultimately you as the owner.

There are many small businesses that are profitable, but they can find that they do not have enough operating capital to meet their immediate needs, this can result in them being forced to sell out to a competitor, seek outside investors and thereby giving away more of the business than they would like or even worse, closing the doors for good. Not exactly something you intend to happen when you start a business.

This is where forecasting comes in. You need to forecast cash resources so you know where the peeks and troughs are, when you will be swamped with money and when you won’t have any.  You have to remember that forecasting is an art; it’s by no means a science, after all none of us have a crystal ball.

When forecasting you have to bear in mind you are guessing as to when customers will pay and when you will have to pay others, you are also guessing at what the sales figures will be and how much your expenses will cost you.

Some hints on forecasting:

You need to be able to make a guess/estimate at the level of sales you will generate for the period of the forecast, this figure needs to be as realistic as possible, after all there is no point in saying your sales will be in the millions if no one in your industry has ever achieve anything past £250,000.

Forecasting sales like this is harder for a new business than an existing one; after all if you have been in business for a few years you already have historic data that can be used as the basis for the forecast.  If you’re new to business it maybe worth trying to get the historic details of a similar business operated by a competitor.

Other areas you might want to address in the forecast are what if scenarios; what if you add a new product line, cease unprofitable products, increase the workforce, or reduce the workforce for those who are not productive enough when compared to everyone else (be careful though, employees have rights).

Also, consider other areas that may impact on your forecast, is your industry subject to seasonal variations, what state is the economy in now and for the rest of your forecast.

Once you have achieved the above, you know your target sales figures and you have accounted for the numerous outside factors that will impact on your sales you now need to consider the CASH side of the forecast, what percentage of your sales will be on credit and over what period, 30 days, 60 or even 90 days, what percentage will you receive in cash, what about discounts for early payment or if a customer pays on credit card you get your money quicker than waiting 60 days, but the credit card company will charge you a percentage, all these factors must be factored into the forecast to determine what your inward cash flow will be.

It maybe you will at some point need to invest in machinery, or a new car, for this you will need money, will you take a loan out or put the money in yourself, of take on an outside investor, again this needs considering for the forecast.

Once you have dealt with the inward flow of money for the forecast you can move onto dealing with paying money out. This will operate pretty much the same as above, you need to deal with how you will pay for goods and services, over what period you are allowed credit, what and who is paid and when and how much.

Important to remember:  Once you and/or your accountant/business advisor have prepared your forecast for a given period of time don’t just put it in a draw and forget about it, your business is fluid and always changing and it is for this very reason you should do the same with your forecast, revisit it on a regular basis, update the figures for changes that are occurring, this way you will have a forecast that is worth the paper its printed on.

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.