Small Business Trends

What is the state of small business? Unlike the State of the Union, we need a report more than once a year and here is the latest. A recovery is coming, distinguishing your business remains key and there are lots of new trends out there for you to be inspired about (or worry about, take your pick.) We’ve tried to roll some of them up in this tidy bundle. More from the Small Business Trends team below:

The road to recovery. Have you heard? Some economists say we’re on our way slowly out of the recession. Whether you believe them or not it might be time to start considering whether you’re ready for the recovery ahead. It will involve some changes and some planning but Laura Pettit Rusick has some suggestions that may help you with “getting your house in order.” Read more. Small business SEO

How to differentiate your business. You can call it branding or product differentiation. What sets you apart from the competition besides price? Do you need to spend millions in marketing and advertising to show customers you stand apart? In fact, it’s possible to distinguish yourself from most other businesses these days just by the way to conduct a sales call. Albany Insurance Professional

Small biz trends for 2010. Anita Campbell takes us on a tour of fads and trends to see what’s hot, what’s not and what may be enduring changes in the way we run small businesses now and in the future. How does your small business fit into this ever changing landscape? What changes may you have to make now or soon to keep pace? The challenges are huge, but so are the opportunities. Small Business Trends Radio

What’s the difference between self-employment and entrepreneurship? To be sure, small business owners fall into both categories but it’s important to understand the difference between these two kinds of business owners because what they get out of their businesses is very different. Are you creating a job for yourself, or are you creating a business that can someday be sold and create a life of freedom for you and your family? Where does your business fall? Youngentrepreneur

Sales

31 tips to get a retailer’s attention. Anyone who’s ever tried to penetrate the retail market knows the challenge of getting your products into small much less large retail stores. Without retail exposure you can always sell your products online of course, but winning over retailers can open up a whole new world for your business and create increased opportunities for your company to grow. Here are 31 tips to help you get started collected by entrepreneur Sarah Shaw. The Entreprenette Gazette

Policy

A national small business group joins the suit over healthcare. The National Federation of Independent Business has announced it will join 20 states in a lawsuit aimed at challenging the validity of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. In a statement, NFIB president and CEO Dan Danner said the move is aimed at protecting the rights of the small business owners and self-employed members his organization represents who believe they will be devastated by the new law. NFIB

And just in case you’re wondering. The majority of Americans believe the healthcare reform legislation should be repealed. That opposition has stayed fairly consistent in repeated surveys conducted in the weeks since passage of the legislation. The results are also consistent with opposition to the healthcare plan before it was passed, according to survey data. Rasmussen Report

Government loan program to small business panned. An official of the Congressional Oversight Panel monitoring the TARP funds doubts the new proposal to help small business will be equally ineffective. “After a thorough review, we found little evidence that these programs have had a noticeable effect on business credit availability,” said Paul Atkins. Read more. The Huffington Post

B2B

Should social media be your main lead generator? Absolutely not, argues Susan Fantle, saying that over-reliance on social media overshadows other techniques including live events, outbound e-mail, direct mail and telemarketing especially in the field of B2B business, the industry in which Susan works about which she blogs. We’ll agree with Susan that no one tool should ever be used exclusively or relied upon too heavily, but we’ll also take a bit of issue with the relatively low value put on social media here believing some businesses have seen considerable benefits. B2B Marketing Smarts

Tech

Tech roundup focuses on video, free teleconferencing. There are plenty of goodies here from products that are increasing the security of transactions to a free e-book on data security and more on small business Website solutions. All information is aimed at small business owners in ever greater need of tech tools to grow their companies. You’ll want to bookmark many of these entries for review. smallbiztechnology.com