AWC Small Business Development Center (SBDC)

Sfree-stuff-chalk-boarducceeding in small business today requires a solid grip on your finances and an arsenal of tech tools to help you collaborate with colleagues, schedule your time, manage customer relationships and leverage the Internet. And guess what? You can get all of that – and more – absolutely free from some of the nation’s top tech companies that support small business.

The free products, services and solutions from these three organizations alone have already helped millions of business owners succeed. They represent some of the “core competencies” any business needs to survive and prosper, including finance, technology, information and customer relationships. Here they are – free for the taking:

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Understanding some of the fundamentals of what makes the Internet tick won’t necessarily keep you from cursing when you can’t get online, but it will give you a new appreciation of what’s involved when you do get on.

Schematically, the Internet looks like an Amway sponsoring chart; countless servers with millions of computers hooked up to each. The result is the mother of all “networks.” In some respects, the Internet is just like the network you log onto at work, (except at many places of business, networks are more like notworks. How many times have you heard, “I’m sorry the computers are down today”?)

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Whether you already have a merchant account to process credit card transactions, are looking to switch or compare merchant account providers, or need a merchant account for the first time, there are many pitfalls to avoid. These include processing delays, changing fees and rates, rules on chargebacks — and the latest hot button on “holdbacks.”

Tight credit, rising business bankruptcies and changes in how consumers use their credit cards are contributing to an unusual amount of financial ferment involving credit cards.

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Recent studies by Nielsen Online, Harris Interactive, Yahoo Small Business and others have made this crystal clear: Most online buyers check, and are influenced by web-based customer reviews. Findings vary a bit, but some 90 percent of online buyers say they read customer reviews at least “some of the time” when they are available, and 71 percent agree that customer reviews offer comfort that they’re buying the right product or service from the right place.

Why leave this to chance or other websites? Small online retailers are beginning to take the initiative, embracing the realm of “user (customer) generated content” and driving revenue by helping customers post reviews on their sites. Discgear, a Texas-based maker of CD and DVD storage cases, began incorporating customer reviews on its website in late 2008. Within a month it had 100 reviews on the site and was able to create a user community where customers help each other find the right products. What’s more, Discgear has received valuable ideas that it’s using to make product design changes.

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Dear Dan:The current “slowdown” (ummmm, crash?) seems like a good time to focus a little more on our Internet marketing. Of course, we don’t have any cash. What are some things we can do without spending much, if any, money? – Willing but Cashless

Dear Willing: One of the best things about marketing online is easy access to business building tools that cost little or nothing to use. Even when budgets tighten, these readily-available tactics can have a real impact on your bottom line.

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One of the most annoying and challenging aspects of being a computer user is that computers are really not easy to use. Over time we adapt our natural way of movement to the computer’s limitations and learn how to do “ctrla+c” to copy or patiently wait for the computer to boot up or even worse we expect Word to crash while in the midst of revising a long contract.

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A lot of business people tend to over look blogs as a great marketing investment. Think about all the times your personally go to search for something, you type in your keyword and up pops 100’s of related topics so you scroll through until you find something that catches your eye.

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There are many entrepreneurs who have started successful, profitable online businesses.

Some online business ideas come from people who are already running a similar business offline. Many retail shops have caused their sales to go through the roof by adding an online presence.

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Most employees spend some time at work doing personal business such as paying bills or shopping online. But how much is too much, and how do you know when to draw the line?

The Internet has made handling personal tasks at work much easier than it was before.

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Small businesses have to decide whether creating a Web site for mobile devices is worth the expense

By ROGER CHENG

Small businesses are wondering if they should think smaller.

As consumers increasingly surf the Internet on mobile devices such as cellphones and BlackBerrys, small firms have to decide whether to build or remake Web sites to accommodate them. The investment may be hefty, but so is the risk of ignoring an expanding market.

Traditional Internet sites are sometimes difficult, if not impossible, to view in their entirety on a cellphone screen, especially if they have large graphics, video and interactive features that aren’t compatible with mobile browsers. As a result, more businesses are designing and formatting their content especially for smaller screens.

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