One of our customers contacted us last week asking if it was true that intuit.com was using our small business web experts. I was perplexed at the question, as it turns out WinWeb.com, intuit and many other websites obviously use the same photo library for stock photos, as we are using the same photo on our home page.

What makes this situation a little more delicate is the fact that we both work in the same market segment, we also provide software for small and home business. intuit also provide accounting, invoicing, planning software for business start-ups and existing micro businesses. I like that they offer web-hosting and other services too. At last someone really competing with us.

Mind you intuit still have a way to go, no integrated businesses services and a still somewhat limited offering, but then you knew I was going to say that.

If you are an intuit user have a look at our offering, try our OnlineOffice and business services for FREE. – ST.

There are so many great home & small business blogs out there to give you inspiration and new ideas. Here are my top 10 reads for today – as usual you will find these and more good reads also on my twitter feed. I would encourage you to go and have a look at these blogs as they will give you a different perspective on some of the same issues I have covered on my blog.

• socalmom.net:- A Little Progress on the Home Front
• jep-tec.org:- Here Is A Quick Way To Start A Online Business
• 3stepads.com:- Work from home jobs for moms – Have you found your calling?
• seosnack.com:- 10 Awesome Ways to Attract More Orders
• barterforcash.com:- Business Branding and Expanding Online
• deswalsh.com:- Open Government Camp and Social Media
• thoughtsearch.com:- Sales Training For Dummies
• thebabyboomerentrepreneur.com:- What Are the Secrets of Earning Six Figures?
• positivesharing.com:- The myth of management
• blog.nicheultra.com:- Know The Secrets To Work from home

Ever seen these silly TV ads Apple and Microsoft are running currently? The ones where normal looking people proclaim to be PCs or Macs?

What really worries me is that Microsoft displays a lack of small business and home business understanding on a massive scale. Are they really saying small business should care?

For 1 to 10 person businesses nothing is more important than to focus on business aims alone to succeed. Getting sidetracked with IT issues is the last thing you should do. When will these large corporations finally understand, that home businesses and small businesses are not like mid-size or large businesses with IT departments.

IT needs to be transparent, in the background sort of speak, for micro businesses. When Steve Ballmer proclaims that micro businesses or SOHO businesses are the most under-serviced IT market sector he that there is a reason for this. His and Microsoft’s corporate approach to these businesses is not what is needed.

Joe, the plumber, is not going to instal a SQL server in is workshop. This statement is not belittling Joe, the plumber, but Microsoft, for their nearsighted and simplistic view of the small business world.

As a small business owner you should not care about PCs, MACs or Linux/Unix PCs, all you should care about is running your business. Today real cloud computing is your way forward, not some half thought through IT concept, primarily designed to support ailing software technology & concepts for a few more years.

There are a multitude of benefits of ‘real‘ cloud computing technology, that makes focusing on your business easy. Especially during these difficult economic times – business focus is essential.

You are you, and not a PC or a MAC, your business needs YOU and not a PC or a MAC. — ST.

I can not believe that I have forgotten to tell you that we launched OnlineOffice 5 last week – thank you Ashley for kicking my proverbial bu**!

So here goes, we have launched our latest version of OnlineOffice 5 last week with over 100 new features and most importantly over one hundred new business ideas. You can find those in the brand new Academy section, which is our new on-demand business development and business ideas section. With these Business Ideas we just made a start, more is to come.

We have further improved the integration of our Virtual Assistants, which we call OnlineOffice Assistants. As most of you know they a the good fairies who actually do all the work for you our clients should you choose to outsource some of your work. It is even more necessary in these times of the credit crunch.

If you are a VA and have still some space for same more work let us know, go to our website, www.winweb.com and then navigate to Partnering/Assistant. Follow the link from there if you are interested.

Since WinWeb will be 15 years old next year, we thought we start a competition on December 1st, where you can win £10,000 or $20,000 as a first prize. All you will have to do is to tell us what you would do with this money for your business. Maybe start a business? Maybe buy a new computer? Rent a bigger office, after considering the fixed cost trap of cause? You tell us, that’s it. Hopefully you will win the main or one of the many other prizes.

Anyway, I will write about all this more in the days and weeks to come.

I can not believe I forgot to ……..! What is the matter with me?! — ST.

I often refer to “bootstrapping“, when I talk about small business, you may very well be asking “What the hell is bootstrapping?” To put is simply, bootstrapping is the art of running a small business with no or very little money and/or funding.

So if you are thinking about starting, growing or running your small business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal businesses, but are worried about if you can be successful, worried about failing, worried about giving up your job, etc. than bootstrapping is for you.

Especially if your aim is to build a personal business, like contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants, working from home, creating an income and keeping it small and manageable, then bootstrapping is definitely for you. There are more than 18 million small and home businesses in the US alone, self-employed working is gathering pace in all areas of business. If you look around you you will most probably know many people working from home, or doing contract work, freelancers and so on.

One very unpleasant outcome of a small business venture is the failure thereof. Bootstrapping will mitigate any fallout from a business failure. Remember that business success often comes with experience and experience comes form making mistakes – bootstrapping will allow you to make mistakes and recover from them.

Here are a few bootstrapping facts to consider if you wonder if bootstrapping is for your:

• Bootstrapping is a fast and the best way to build a solid small business, because you are starting with sales as your priority task – that creates cash-flow and keeps your small business alive.
• Bootstrappers don’t waste their money – they make money. They understand that cash is king and should not be wasted on old style advertising and marketing – there are better and almost cost-free ways to promote your small business.
• Bootstrappers don’t waste time with long business plans they start their small business immediately. Cash-flow, SWOT, list of goals and they are in business.
• Bootstrapping is the lowest risk strategy to start a business, you can start your business with a Small Business Infrastructure for about $20 / £10 per month, get ready in peace find customers in your spare time and build your business on the side.
• Bootstarppers don’t follow the herd, they use unconventional thinking to move forward and succeed.
• Bootstrappers focus on their business goals, outsource and build networks to grow their small business.

It is never too late to start with bootstrapping even if you have been running your small business for years. So have a look at it and build a stronger, more secure small business for yourself.

When are you going to start bootstrapping? ST.

Related Items:

• How to bootstrap category.

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.

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?

As part of a bootstrapping exercise or a business start-up phase, working from home is a great way to work, so I thought of some points to consider when setting up your office, small business or personal business, like contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants at home:

1. Cost – you will save a lot of money and be very eco-friendly when you decide not to rent an office, this saving can be used in other areas of your business, like marketing, better web-site or better IT.
2. Family – I suspect that many of you work from home because of your family, it allows you to be around when your kids come home from school or look after relatives, while still earning a living.
3. Commuting – again a very eco-friendly approach and saves money and time. This time can be spend on real business activities. It certainly will enhance your work/life balance and make your small business or start-up more cost efficient form day one.
4. Freedom – this may especially appeal to you if you like to work at odd hours, it will suit your lifestyle. Dress as you like it, so you will be more comfortable.
5. Healthy – if you work in an office and one of you gets ill, soon all the others are down too – not if you work from home.
6. Teamwork – chances are you need to work with other people, use online technology to collaborate with your colleagues and other team workers – they too may work from home.
7. Domestic Life – you’ll be around when the plumber finally turns up or other trades people. You can enjoy your local life more – by having a social network in your village rather than at work – this could be the return of the local community.
8. Small Business Infrastructure – use online technology to keep your data and work safe at all times without that you have to do anything, build your own virtual Small Business Team to timeshare professionals like yourself. Outsource to make your business more professional and scalable.
9. Meetings – even bigger businesses use coffee shops to meet – they often have WiFi – so can you. Make sure you plan them well, so you can be efficient with your time.
10. Eco-Friendly – you will only heat your home, no other workplace needs to be heated or air-conditioned, your energy efficiency goes up, no travel to work – so you reduce your carbon footprint enormously just by working from home.

You will need some pretty good reasons to go to an office and work. Especially for small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal business, you need to ask yourself if you can afford to miss out on all the above opportunities for your work and for your life?

I work from home over 90% of the time and only go to the office for meetings and I love every minute of this. I use social network communities like linkedIn to build my professional network, utilizing our online office, skype and other tools to communicate and work worldwide.

More and more of my friends work from home so we have nice “pub-lunches” locally, no traveling, less stress and a much better work/life balance – how is your work/life balance?

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.

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?