photo credit: Stabilo Boss

With online businesses growing before our eyes, I feel it is important to provide these online business owners with as many tools to help them in their venture as possible. We all know that you can never have too many resources and helpful suggestions to fall back on. Below are some great tools that I recently saw posted on CrowdSpring that will come in handy for your online business.

• Google Website Optimizer is a great free tool that is easy to use for anyone and allows you to test several different conversions on your site such as text and image conversions.
• Gmail Apps. This is a wonderful tool that supplies you with several different applications such as state of the art email, calendars, and intranet solutions for small businesses. The best part about this program is that it comes at a low cost to you.
• Campaign Monitor. This is probably one of the more important applications that you can find on the Internet at such a great price. This tool is great for online and email marketing campaigns, tracking your results and managing your subscribers. With marketing branching out in all sorts of different forms, this tool would be perfect for online small businesses.

Basecamp is a web-based project collaboration tool It allows a team to share files, assign tasks, centralize feedback and manage projects.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

Kickstarter, a Web site that helps connect aspiring artists with patrons who finance their projects and often receive some tangible memento in return.

But it’s not just artists who are using the platform. Some small businesses and entrepreneurs see it as a way to raise money to supplement and support their business in new ways.

One of Kickstarter’s earliest success stories was Polyvinyl Record, an indie record label that has released albums by of Montreal and Asobi Seksu.

Polyvinyl recently used the service to offload extra albums that were piling up, said Matt Lunsford, co-president of the company. “We had a lot of overstock from our worldwide distributors who weren’t selling as much as they once were,” he said.

Faced with either paying exorbitant storage costs to house the 10,000 albums crammed into the company’s warehouse or destroying them, Mr. Lunsford decided to try to clear the surplus inventory through Kickstarter, which he had heard about from one of its co-founders, Yancey Strickler, who was also a friend.

“We thought, why don’t we find a way to get these records out to people at a low cost instead of destroy them?” said Mr. Lunsford.

The company structured its reward packages for donors to resemble a clearance sale — for a $5 payment, patrons received a concert DVD; a payment of $15 or more would get five albums and a concert DVD. Mr. Lunsford said the company originally set a goal of raising $1,000, figuring that would sell enough of the backlogged albums to clear out the company’s stockroom.

Since then, Polyvinyl has been using Kickstarter as a way to test whether there is sizable audience interest in an album before making copies of it.

Photo by Kickstarter.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

In Detroit, a city with rampant unemployment, big crowds in the middle of the day may mean someone is giving out freebies.

But on a recent workday, over 450 people packed an auditorium downtown. They weren’t looking for a hand out, sympathy or even a job application. They were looking to start their own business.

These would-be entrepreneurs flocked to an auditorium on Wayne State University’s campus with ideas big and small.

Attendees also took part in a variety of workshops including ones on how to raise money, how to save on shipping costs and how to run a service or lifestyle businesses. Each attendee got a chance to meet one-on-one with a business counselor and the opportunity to sign up for more free classes.

Some proposals focused on technical businesses — a former Ford manufacturing expert wants to start a consulting firm advising companies on how to make their manufacturing processes more efficient, while a former software engineer had started a company that makes Web-based system that hosts emergency contact and other medical information for children.

Photo by LeoSynapse.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

photo credit: Robert S. Donovan

There are probably a million websites on the web that tout solutions for marketing and promoting your business online. When you are getting started it can be very difficult to know who the true professionals are and it can take months to figure out where the high quality information is located.

Below are five great sites I recently found on Small Biz Survival that will help you figure out the small biz social media that often leaves us frustrated.

• Copy Blogger.
• Duct Tape Marketing.
• Chris Brogan.
• Pro Blogger.
• Seth Godin.

These sites offer an understandable point of view and explanation on all types of small biz social media that you could ever need information on.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

On a warm Wednesday morning, David Dantzler pulls out a couple of pages of meticulously written charts that detail just how many eggs his 36 chickens have produced.

For about nine months now, David, 13, has commanded the clucking crowd, selling their eggs as part of his own in-home business.

Later, as he reaches in to extract one of the brown-speckled bundles from beneath one of his flock in the gloom of the family’s chicken house, where the birds are tucked in safely at night, he displays his still-warm prize proudly.

So far, he hasn’t become rich. Expenses — about $50 a month — often eat into his profits. The family also keeps about two dozen of the eggs a week for themselves.

But even if his venture hasn’t turned to pure gold (at $3 a dozen), he said he’s having fun working with, and learning about, the animals under his care.

And the 13-year-old has had to learn plenty of grown-up lessons about running a small business — supply and demand, the effects of the seasonal demand and production, and just how much a hungry brood of hens can eat.

Photo by Reporter-News.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

photo credit: =Lonely.X.Poet=

I recently came across an article located on Business Week that may give some small business owners peace of mind and a new sense of hope for their businesses future. Everything that has a beginning must have an end, this is even true for depressions and recessions, and we may be looking at a turning point in small business credit.

A recent survey showed that one bank out of the 55 that were surveyed had stated they were easing up on the standards for small business credit. Now, I know many people are going “wow, one bank out of 55″, but the thing to remember is that it’s a start! Someone has to be the first one to make the move on easing the standards and soon others will follow suite.

The studies before this one were showing no sign of banks easing up on their credit standards, so even just one bank shows signs of easing their credit standards it is considered to be a very good sign and a positive step towards the right direction for small businesses.

On the whole, the survey shows that we may be approaching a turning point where credit standards for small business borrowers level off and begin to ease. But for now, many more banks are still raising credit standards than easing them, albeit not as severely as over the last year.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

Is your business in the doldrums? Are sales slow? Reinvigorate your small business
with these tips:

1. Learn from the past experiences, including your mistakes.

2. Look at everything with a fresh new perspective.

3. Set your goals.

4. Create your calendar of activities.

5. Do the work!

6. Pump up your networking.

7. Try to learn something new.

8. Keep your momentum going.

Photo by imagebank.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

Recent efforts to help small businesses haven’t mirrored those implemented in the aftermath of 9/11, but new measures from the stimulus have been productive.

Obama’s $787 billion stimulus plan includes incentives for banks to make more loans backed by the Small Business Administration. The program temporarily reduces fees associated with those loans and ups the loan guarantees to 90%.

The plan also calls for a new initiative known as “America’s Recovery Capital,” which allows viable small businesses to receive interest-free loans of up to $35,000 to pay down existing debts.

But lending activity remains down, primarily because banks still see small business loans as a huge risk.

(According to one analyst’s report, their 2008 failure rate hit almost 12%, compared to 2.4% in 2004.) Banks also hesitate before making SBA-guaranteed loans because they cost a great deal to administer — regardless of the loan amount — and because the agency can back out of these guarantees even after banks make the loans.

Photo by edopter.com.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

photo credit: How can I recycle this

I recently came across an article posted on Small Biz Survival suggesting that the yellow pages really don’t serve as much of a purpose for small businesses as they used to. The days of people relying on the yellow pages to find a company or service are coming to an end. This I would have to agree with. While every now and then I will open up the phone book to search for something, more times than not I remember from memory, call information, or look on the Internet because it’s faster and easier.

The yellow pages are becoming more of a way for the yellow book to make money off of small businesses advertising with them rather than a way for companies to bring in more customers. It’s a small expense to advertise in the yellow book which is why most companies still do, they figure it’s no big deal to spend that little of money.

There is also the guilt of knowing that your competitors are listed in the yellow book, so you almost feel obligated to do the same in order to meet the competition. But, when you think about it, how often do you go get that yellow book yourself and look something up? Mine are crammed in a cupboard somewhere collecting dust and usually only get moved when the new one comes in and I throw out the old one.

You’ll get next to nothing for your money, if you bite. The directory may or may not even be printed! These are so common, you can read about them at the Federal Trade Commission. You have to catch and eliminate them, and be sure they don’t make it into your regular bill-paying process.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

photo credit: giuvax

Blinded by mass layoffs and the financial follies of Fortune 500 companies, we have overlooked a smaller but more important transformation: the increasing importance of small businesses in our economic recovery.

• Action is the single most important part to a small business surviving during tough economies. Those who just sit around waiting for something to turn around are the ones who will fail. Those who rise up and take matters into their own hands finding numerous creative ways to better their situation are the ones who are most likely to survive.
• Give your clients what they want and need to feel comfortable. Today more people are staying home, cutting costs, turning down their thermostats to save a little money, and more. So give them the products that entertain them while at home, make them feel comfortable and warm while being at home.
• Plans are good to have for reference, but the actual “planning” is the best way to go. Always keep planning over and over. Have a few different scenarios worked out in your mind or on paper that way your somewhat more prepared if the worst should happen.
• In the end, always test your efforts, measure their success, and then go back and do it all over again a few more times. You just may come up with better ideas along the way or maybe even better results the more you do it. As suggested on Harvard Business.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.