New post on: Scranton SBDC
Jim Sullivan wrote an excellent article in Nation’s Restaurant News on the steps restaurants need to take to improve their operations, especially in today’s economy. We’d like to feature a few of them here.
1. Today, commit to hiring noticeably better people. Don’t just hire–assemble a cast.
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New post on: More Business
The turbulent economy has caused small business owners to think more creatively about ideas to raise money. Whether cash is needed to cover overhead, fund an expansion project or renovate a building, small businesses need to seek out creative opportunities to bring in money. Here are four great ways that your small business can use to bring in money:
Special Event Opportunities
One way to bring in money quickly for your small business is to participate in a special event. This might include setting up a booth or concession stand at a county fair, music festival or other such special occasion.
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For a small business, especially in the current weak economy, a contract to supply goods or services to a large corporation can be a welcome lifeline. Some big companies, meanwhile, are seeking to expand their network of small suppliers.
To serve both their interests, some major corporations, including I.B.M., Wal-Mart, Procter & Gamble and Home Depot, offer programs to mentor small companies, particularly businesses owned by women, blacks, Hispanics and other groups.
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With the good inevitably comes the bad. Sometimes I feel like a one-woman social-media-promoting band, telling friends, family and colleagues about the joys and benefits of using Twitter. I still feel that way — using Twitter has been beneficial for my business, and the only investment has been my time.
That said, Twitter now seems to be attracting an increasing number of scammers, charlatans, and get-rich-quickers. This week the Better Business Bureau (BBB) warned “job hunters” and budding entrepreneurs looking to start home-based businesses to be wary of the promises on Twitter touting how you can “make lots of money from the comfort of home.” The BBB said, “The large print for such offers may promise big returns but the fine print can cost [you] every month.”
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1. Save up as much money as possible before starting. All too often, people go into business without any savings, exclusively using loan money from friends, banks, or the SBA. They except to be able to start paying the loans back right away with their profits. What these business owners don’t realize is that it can take months or years to make a profit. And once a lender discovers a business isn’t as profitable as expected, the lender is likely to call in the loan or refuse to renew it for another year. Often new business owners then have to take out home equity loans or use credit cards to pay off their loans (which puts their home and credit rating at risk). For more information, see Nolo’s Business Financing FAQ.
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If your small business has a website (and it should), you need to stay on top of four main needs:
– Providing fresh content
– Staying connected to customers
– Being visible on search engines
– Adding new functions to meet the changes in technology
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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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Who am I kidding? A small business is, by definition, imbalanced. Because 80% of all small businesses (i.e. defined as businesses with under 100 employees) have fewer than 10 employees and as many as 50% have fewer than 4 employees.
But what do I mean by imbalanced? A business needs the following to run:
– Sales and marketing – fetches business
– Operations – services the client
– Support – accounting, human resources, etc.
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One of the realities of running a small company is that there are just so many places one can cut costs during times like these. For many, salaries and rent are the two big categories.
Many entrepreneurs I work with are already taking steps to cut payroll costs through cutting back on the number of employees, using more independent contractors, skipping their own paychecks when cash is tight, and asking everyone to take a pay cut.
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When your customer comes to you with an issue, time is of the essence. That is why your front line customer service reps need to be empowered, encouraged and rewarded. When, as a customer, I feel that solving my problem is as or more important to the employee than it is to me. I begin to relax. But, when I have to fight to get heard, or when I have to ask/demand to speak to the manager/owner. it is already too late.
Peggy had had her cable service for nearly a decade. She was happy with how the company treated her. Well that was true before, in a casual conversation with her friend Kate, she found that the company was charging her twice what Kate was charged for the exact same service. Peggy called the company and was told “Sorry, there is nothing I can do.” She pleaded with the service rep asking “How would YOU feel if you were charged DOUBLE for the same service?” “My feelings are not relevant” was the response. Peggy started to really get angry. Clearly this service rep was not going to try to resolve the issue or even empathize.
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Yuma Sun Comings/Goings
