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Small Business Success Index 5

Index Score*   Grade
SBSI INDEX 73 C- marginal
Capital Access 67 D+
Marketing & Innovation 65 D
Workforce 76 C
Customer Service 88 B+
Computer Technology 75 C
Compliance 92 A-
*Index score is calculated on a 1-100 scale.
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Can a Business Trip Make You Healthier?

August 26th, 2011 ::

By Rieva Lesonsky

Are you a frequent business traveler (like I am)? If you’re also health-conscious (and what small business owner can afford not to be?) you’ll be happy to learn that today’s hotels are paying attention to business travelers’ needs and becoming healthier places to stay. Going beyond the now-standard in-hotel gym or offering oatmeal at breakfast, here are seven ways hotels are getting healthier as reported by MarketWatch.

  1. Group wellness: If you’re holding an offsite meeting for your team or an annual conference at a hotel, you can now take advantage of healthy options like light meals and exercise breaks during the event. (Forget the rubber chicken!) At some Hyatt resort properties, for instance, meeting groups can enjoy wellness activities like chair yoga or 15-minute neck massages during sessions.
  2. Breathing easy: Smoking rooms are fewer and far between (about 10 percent of all hotel rooms), which is good news for those of us bothered by smoke. But if it’s really crowded, you might get stuck in a smokers’ room anyway. To avoid that, visit FreshStay.com, which lists more than 5,000 hotels that are totally smoke-free.
  3. Get PURE: If a nonsmoking room’s not enough, go one step beyond nonsmoking with PURE rooms, designed for guests with allergies or asthma. These rooms use air purifiers, hypoallergenic mattress covers, and special cleaning treatments to ensure there are no allergens; they are offered by about 250 hotels in North America.
  4. It’s organic: Remember the days when a club sandwich was about as healthy as room service got? No more. A growing number of hotels are adding locally sourced and/or organic food to their room service and restaurant menus.
  5. In-room fitness: If you’ve ever tried to motivate yourself to get dressed in workout gear and head 30 flights down to the hotel gym at 5:30 in the morning, you’ll appreciate this increasingly popular amenity that lets you roll out of bed and work out in privacy. MarketWatch cites a 2010 American Hotel & Lodging Association survey that found about 21 percent of luxury hotels, 17 percent of upscale hotels, 15 percent of midprice hotels, 7 percent of economy and 4 percent of budget hotels have in-room exercise equipment. Hilton Garden Inns and Omni Hotels Resort are two that provide in-room fitness kits; many hotels also have on-demand exercise shows for viewing on the room TV.
  6. Get smart: Concierges have long provided guests with suggested running routes, etc., to work out on the road. Now you can forget trying to remember directions or carrying a paper map on your run. Concierge suggestions are going digital with smartphone apps that let travelers find routes or calculate their distance.
  7. Professional help: Some locations (often resorts) have personal trainers, nutritionists and wellness coaches on staff. Got some extra time between meetings? Book a session and instead of going back to your business feeling flabby, you can be better than ever.

Who knew going on a business trip could actually improve your health? These days, it just might.

Image by Flickr user Jennifer Woodard Maderazo (Creative Commons)

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Posted in Entrepreneurs, Health and Wellness, Small Business, small business, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Is Cause-Based Marketing Helping—or Hurting—Your Small Business?

August 3rd, 2011 ::

By Rieva Lesonsky

Cause-based or socially responsible marketing has been a hot trend for some time now. The practice of affiliating your business or your products with a “cause,” such as fighting breast cancer or helping hungry children in Africa, can garner attention, customers and sales…or it can backfire.

How? According to the 2011 MSLGROUP Social  Purpose Index, a growing “disconnect” between the causes that businesses support and what they sell is leading consumers to become more skeptical about cause marketing in general—and less likely to buy.

Seventy-four percent of respondents in the survey said there is often too much of a disconnect between the causes companies support and the brands and products they sell. And almost as many (67 percent) were skeptical of companies’ motives, saying that companies only support causes to sell products.

Perhaps that’s the reason why, although the majority of Americans (96 percent) say they can identify two to three causes that are important to them personally, the survey found that just 37 percent of Americans have actually purchased a product associated with a cause in the past year.

What can you do to ensure that your cause marketing efforts make sense for your business?

  1. Consider what causes you and your employees care about. Ask your staff if there are organizations they personally would like to see your business support.
  2. Find out what causes matter to your customers. You can conduct a survey online or using social media tools like Facebook or Twitter to see if customers respond to issues like hunger, homelessness, health or other areas of concern.
  3. Decide what ties into your business mission. Your cause should flow naturally from your business’s goals. You might care passionately about raising funds for Alzheimer’s, for instance, but if your company sells gourmet pet treats, focusing your cause efforts on Alzheimer’s research isn’t the best fit. Supporting the ASPCA, spay and neuter efforts, or guide dog training is a better match with your business and lends itself to publicity and marketing efforts.
  4. Decide if you want to go local, national or global. You could support a local charity, a national organization or even a global group. Again, you’ll want to match this to your business and to where the bulk of your customers come from. A small local sporting goods shop would probably want to support a local charity; a national chain could support a nationwide charity; and for an ecommerce company with substantial overseas customers, it makes more sense to focus on a global organization that all of your customers have an interest in supporting.
  5. Narrow down your options. Once you’ve selected some top contenders, be sure to investigate each organization. Contact the Better Business Bureau, do an Internet search and visit CharityNavigator to make sure the funds are used for their intended purpose.

Done right, cause marketing can benefit both your cause, and your business. Take the right steps to get your cause marketing effort off on the right foot.

Image by Flickr user GrowWear (Creative Commons)

 

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Posted in Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Small Business, small business, Uncategorized | No Comments »

How to Take a Vacation (When You’re a Small Business Owner)

July 29th, 2011 ::

By Rieva Lesonsky

It’s Friday, and if you’re planning to still be working tomorrow… and the day after…maybe you need some a vacation. But when you’re a small business owner, taking time off can be easier said than done.

Or maybe you’re not convinced that you do need a break. In that case, consider some interesting research Intuit compiled about why small business owners need vacations:

Health reasons: Women who don’t take vacations are 8 times more likely to suffer from heart disease. Men who take vacations are 32 percent less likely to die of heart attacks.

Productivity: 82 percent of people report they are more productive after a vacation. However, long weekends didn’t have the same effect on productivity as a more extended vacation.

Innovation: As you probably know from experience, you’re less likely to come up with creative solutions when you’re stressed out and on overload. Mental downtime, on the other hand, helps you be more innovative.

If you’re not taking vacations, you’re not alone. More than half (55 percent) of small business owners work on “most” or “all” holidays! But with mobile devices and cloud computing making it easier to stay in touch as needed, taking a vacation really shouldn’t be the end of the world for your business.

Here are some tips Intuit offers to help you relax while your business runs smoothly:

  1. Delegate. Trust employees to handle tasks without you.
  2. Plan ahead. Get big projects out of the way before you go. Have any data you’ll need to access on vacation available, either by taking it with you (such as on a USB drive) or using a cloud solution so you can access it anytime.
  3. Spread the word. Let clients and customers know when you’ll be out of town. You’ll find most are understanding and happy to work with your schedule.

Once you’re on vacation, of course, the key is to really be on vacation. Limit how often you check your email or voicemail. You might want to check it first thing in the morning and in the evening. Focus on urgent problems if any arise, but don’t worry about smaller issues. (You’ve got someone back at the office handling those, remember?)

You may want to set up a system with your team so they only contact you in an emergency, or they contact you in a certain way if there’s an urgent matter. That means you won’t have to jump every time your BlackBerry pings.

Truly unwinding on vacation can bring you back refreshed and full of new ideas for growing your business. You’ll be rested and ready to serve your customers and clients better…and that benefits everyone, not just you.

Image by Flickr user avrene (Creative Commons)

 

 

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Posted in Entrepreneurs, Small Business, small business | 4 Comments »

Global Economic Outlook: Small Business Owners Are Optimistic

July 5th, 2011 ::

By Maria Valdez Haubrich

With the 4th of July just behind us, what are American entrepreneurs—and those around the world—thinking about their prospects for the coming months? The latest Global Entrepreneur Indicator survey has some good news.

The Global Entrepreneur Indicator is a quarterly survey of the members of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization, a nonprofit for business owners who have more than $1 million (US) in annual revenue. The June 2011 survey of more than 7,500 entrepreneurs in 38 countries found the global economic outlook is getting more positive.

In the most recent survey (June 2011), 62 percent experienced an increase in their net profits — a 25 percent increase over the previous year, when just 37 percent saw an increase.

As for job creation, as of June 2011 more than half (57 percent) had added jobs since they were last surveyed (in November 2010). That was also an increase from the 42 percent who had added jobs as of June 2010.

The news got even better when entrepreneurs surveyed were asked their predictions for the next six months. More than three-quarters (78 percent) expected their net profits to improve in that time frame; 68 percent expect to add jobs; and 61 percent expect both the global and local economy to improve.

Keep in mind, however, that this is a global survey—and the picture isn’t quite as rosy for U.S. entrepreneurs as for those in some other nations. In the U.S., 59 percent of entrepreneurs expected the local and global economy to improve in the next six months—the same percentage as in Europe and the Middle East. In Latin America/the Caribbean, however, 74 percent expected improvement, and in Canada, an astounding 91 percent did.

The least optimistic nation? Asia, where 56 percent expected to see the economy improve within six months.

Image by Flickr user Matt P. (Creative Commons)

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Posted in Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship, Small Business, small business | No Comments »

What Traits Do Successful Entrepreneurs Have in Common?

June 9th, 2011 ::

By Maria Valdez Haubrich

Are entrepreneurs made, or born? In other words, are the characteristics needed to be a successful small business owner innate or can they be learned? According to a new study by Ernst & Young, the answer to this puzzle is…well, a bit of both.

The study, Nature or Nurture: Decoding the Entrepreneur, surveyed 685 entrepreneurs worldwide as well as winners of Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year award. The results challenge the notion that entrepreneurs tend to start businesses without a formal education and without experiencing corporate life.

Nearly half (45 percent) of respondents did not start their first business until they were age 30 or over. Almost 60 percent said they had previously worked in a corporate environment before striking out on their own.

Asked what was the most important source of learning that helped them with their business, one-third of respondents said it was their experience as an employee, 30 percent said it was higher education, and 26 percent said it was a mentor or mentors.

“Entrepreneurial leaders are defined as much by their early business experience, cultural background and external environment as they are by any innate personal characteristics,” said Maria Pinelli, Global Vice Chair Strategic Growth Markets for Ernst & Young, in announcing the study results. “Nurture, not nature, does appear to be more important in shaping the entrepreneurial mindset.”

But not so fast. At the same time, the study found that successful entrepreneurs share certain behaviors and attitudes that are differentiate them from the average corporate employee or CEO. When asked to name the top three most important qualities of an entrepreneurial leader, more than three-fourths of those surveyed said ‘having a vision’, 73 percent said ‘passion’ and 64 percent said ‘drive’.

“These findings highlight that most successful entrepreneurs share a unique combination of seeing opportunity where others see only risk,” said Pinelli. “And they tend to be optimists and believe they can succeed despite the fact that everyone else is telling them they cannot.”

For those who’ve got the entrepreneurial combination of nature and nurture, starting just one business is not enough. Sixty percent had started three or more companies, 20 percent had launched six or more and 10 percent said they had founded more than 10 companies so far.

Image by Flickr user Horia Varlan (Creative Commons)

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Posted in Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship, Small Business | 1 Comment »

Linchpins, Part II: Don’t Wait for Permission

April 25th, 2011 ::

These inspirational tales are plucked from a Seth Godin ebook, Insubordinate: Linchpins Everywhere You Look, Vol. 1 (the book jacket for Linchpin is to the left).  In case you are unfamiliar with Seth Godin and/or his term linchpins: Linchpins are the people who make a difference, who ship, who do, who disrupt—in a good way.  As Seth likes to say, “Go!  Make something happen.”

You can read my first post on three linchpins who turned business on its head here.  This post is about three people who didn’t wait for someone to tell them to do something—they just went out and did it.

Chip Conley

Chip runs the largest chain of independent hotels in California and is a successful author.  Seth met Chip in business school a few days after classes began.  Chip left Seth a handwritten note in Seth’s mailbox that said he heard Seth was an interesting guy, and would Seth be interested in joining his brainstorming group?

They met every Tuesday that year, along with three other people, to spend five hours brainstorming new business ideas. “If you had been in that situation, first week of business school, would you have taken the time and initiative to set up a group like this? For the five of us, it transformed our entire business school curriculum and experience. It was literally life changing. And it was easy to do.”

The takeaway: Initiative is a rare skill, and thus a valuable one. No one told Chip to do this. No one gave him authority or permission. He just did it.

Jacqueline Novogratz

Jacqueline Novogratz is a true visionary, someone who saw what was needed and set out to create it.

She founded Acumen Fund, “a groundbreaking nonprofit that invests in entrepreneurs in the developing world. These companies end up employing hundreds or thousands of people and make a profit by engaging the poorest people on earth in trade. ‘Trade, not aid’ creates a positive cycle, one that promises to cure deep-seated chasms of poverty.”

The takeaway: Like Chip, Jacqueline didn’t wait for permission; she just went out and did it.  It wasn’t guaranteed to work, but she took the risk, stuck with it and made it work.

Jay Levinson

If Jay’s name rings a bell, it’s because you know him as the author of Guerrilla Marketing, one of the most influential marketing books ever published.

Jay’s background is in advertising.  He knew how to write, he liked to write, so he took a few clients to pay the bills, and worked at becoming a writer.  Like Chip and Jacqueline, he didn’t wait for permission to do something, he just set out to do it.

After Guerrilla Marketing was published, it became a minor hit, so he worked to make it a major hit, and with Steve Lewers turned it into a series.

With a successful book under his belt, Jay was asked to speak and to co-author more books.  Jay isn’t a natural public speaker, but that didn’t stop him.  He decided to learn how to speak, and he got good at it.  He also created a platform that made it easy to find talented co-writers, so he could continue to write seminal business books.

The takeaway: Jay decided what his future would be, and he made it real.

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Posted in Entrepreneurs, Small Business | 1 Comment »

Linchpins, Part I: Turn Business on Its Head

April 21st, 2011 ::

These inspirational tales are plucked from a Seth Godin ebook that I downloaded late last year, Insubordinate: Linchpins Everywhere You Look, Vol. 1 (the book cover for Linchpin is to the left–different book!).

If you’re not familiar with the term linchpins, Seth defines them as the people who make a difference, who ship, who do, who disrupt—in a good way.  Here are three of them:

David Seuss

Seth’s first boss was David Seuss at Spinnaker Software, the company that created the first generation of educational computer games.

David was a linchpin because he was driven by apparent risk, which, as Seth explains, is “when you launch stuff quickly, challenge the status quo, play with packaging or pricing or distribution, and do it with abandon.  It’s not actual risk, because in a fast-moving market, the risky thing to do is to play it safe.”

Because they didn’t play it safe, Spinnaker made a lot of mistakes, but they were also very successful and were constantly moving forward at a hundred miles an hour.  VCs and Harvard invested $10 million in Spinnaker Software.

The takeaway: As Seth asks, if you were a VC, would you have invested in David, who was always pushing to ship, or “a calm, polite, spreadsheet-following, numbers-cruncher?”

Steve Dennis

Seth’s first business partner was Steve.  They were unintentional business partners, because the tiny—and failing—college student-run business that hired them couldn’t decide if they liked Steve or Seth better, so they hired both.

Steve was not a risk-taker, but he knew “how to balance the facts and figures of reality with the upsides and options of dreams.” They ended up launching a new business every 10 days; at one point, they employed about 10 percent of the student body.

The takeaway: Don’t do what most people do, which is to use facts and numbers to create and amplify fear.  Turn it around and use facts to make dreams happen.

Lisa Gansky

How’s this for an impressive resume: Along with Tim O’Reilly and Dale Dougherty, Lisa Gansky co-developed the first commercial website (GNN), acquired one of the first search engines (Webcrawler), and then helped sell both to AOL back in that company’s heyday.

There’s more, but what is really impressive about Lisa, in Seth’s view, is that she so thoroughly “understands the power of connection and leadership and humanity.” During what was supposed to be a 30-minute meeting to discuss working together on a promotion, Seth and Lisa ended up spending four hours planning the first million-dollar promotion on the internet (this was in 1996 or 1997).  It was a huge success.

The takeaway: Instead of treating the meeting like one more sales call, Lisa used the meeting to produce something remarkable.

“What happens when you do that over and over again?” Seth asks.

“What will you do during your next sales call?”

Image Courtesy: Seth Godin

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Posted in Entrepreneurs, Small Business | 1 Comment »

Despite Worries, Small Business Owners Are Optimistic, Citibank Survey Shows

April 14th, 2011 ::

By Maria Valdez Haubrich

Small business owners are facing a lot of challenges these days, but in spite of it all, they’re still optimistic, according to the results of a recent Citibank poll.

What are the biggest challenges on small business owners’ minds in 2011? Rising raw material prices (25 percent) and the increasing cost of health care (23 percent). What they’re not worried about is the impact of government policies: 40 percent expect policies to remain the same and 18 percent expect them to be more favorable in 2011.

What would be most helpful to their business this year? Respondents say reducing taxes (30 percent), lowering health-care costs (17 percent), and increasing credit availability (17 percent) would make the biggest difference.

The emphasis on finances makes sense, considering that the majority of respondents expect the costs of running their business to increase this year. According to the survey:

  • 83 percent expect utility costs to rise
  • 80 percent expect the cost of healthcare to increase
  • 80 percent expect the cost or raw materials to rise
  • 68 percent expect taxes to increase
  • 60 percent expect the cost of borrowing to increase

As a result of rising costs, 45 percent plan to raise their prices; however, 55 percent do not.

Small business owners in the survey have big plans for improving their businesses in 2011. To grow their businesses, they will work longer hours (59 percent), increase marketing (52 percent) or increase employee productivity (43 percent). More than half (52 percent) also plan to offer new products or services in the coming year, and 43 percent plan to expand into new markets.

Perhaps those energetic growth plans are the reason for the overall optimism of small business owners in the survey. The majority believe 2011 will be better than (44 percent) or the same (42 percent) as 2010; just 15 percent expect it to be worse. And the number of business owners who described current conditions as excellent or good rose to 33 percent in January, up from 24 percent in September and 23 percent in March 2010.

Image by Flickr user Mykl Roventine (Creative Commons)

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Posted in Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship, Small Business | 4 Comments »

Adding Employee Wellness Benefits Can Help Your Small Business

March 24th, 2011 ::

By Maria Valdez Haubrich

With the rising costs of employee health care always an issue for businesses, many companies both big and small are emphasizing employee wellness to help keep insurance costs down. A recent study by Principal Financial Group and Harris Interactive reveals that employees are giving wellness programs a big thumbs-up.

The Principal Financial Well-Being Index surveyed small and midsize U.S. companies and found that benefits related to wellness and weight loss were among the most coveted by workers. The percentage of employees who use weight-loss programs offered by their employers increased to 53 percent in 2010, up 25 percent from 2009.

Other benefits employees would love to receive are fitness facilities (27 percent), discounts on fitness center memberships (24 percent) and weight-loss programs in the workplace (17 percent).

Lee Dukes, president of Principal Wellness Company, a subsidiary of the Principal Financial Group, notes that “Americans in general are more aware of the impact of obesity on their health” and that employers as well as employees are increasingly seeking out this type of program.

Employees seem to be growing more aware that they need to be responsible for their own health to help keep costs down. Some 68 percent used an employer’s personalized action plan to manage high-risk health conditions (up 21 percent from last year), and 84 percent used blood-sugar screenings (an increase from 66 percent in 2009).

If you offer health insurance to employees, check with your plan administrator to see if the plan offers any type of wellness benefits. Some plans offer things like fitness center discounts, discounts on massages or acupuncture, or other assistance to maintain good health. If you don’t have health insurance for your staff or your insurer doesn’t offer wellness programs, contact local hospitals to see if they have any programs for business. You may be able to get hospital staff to hold educational sessions about weight loss, stress relief or other wellness concerns at your company. Another option: See if you can barter with local small businesses that provide wellness-related services like yoga classes or stress management to hold events at your company.

In addition to keeping your insurance costs down and lessening absenteeism, wellness benefits have some other, well, benefits. According to the survey, 43 percent of employees say wellness programs make them want to work harder; 48 percent say the benefits make them more loyal to their employer; and 38 percent say wellness benefits make them more productive on the job.

Image by Flickr user Coni Dutka (Creative Commons)

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Posted in Entrepreneurs, Health and Wellness, Small Business, Workforce | 1 Comment »

Small Biz Resource Tip: EatingWell

March 11th, 2011 ::

EatingWell

The busy life of a small-business owner doesn’t leave much time for good eating and exercising habits. But ask any successful (and happy) entrepreneur about diet and exercise and you can bet, good habits are a priority. To keep the goal of a healthy lifestyle top of mind no matter where you are, it helps to have an informative website bookmarked for quick reading. EatingWell.com is filled with interesting articles and helpful tips to help you maintain good habits. Articles and recipes such as “Breakfasts That Fight Fat” are a quick read and the site focuses on fast, not fancy, solutions that don’t require a lot of extra time to prepare. Plus, sign up for the weekly newsletters and have healthy ideas send directly to your inbox. Your body and mind will thank you.

Posted in Entrepreneurs, Health and Wellness, Resources | 1 Comment »

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