Small Business Trends

In additional to cartooning, I’m also a stay-at-home dad to my two young children. This means I read a lot of children’s books. In fact, I read so many that I can rattle off rather lengthy impromptu Seuss-like verse on almost any subject. (Fun at parties!)

Mother Goose is especially great for cartoon inspiration because it’s something that everyone gets right away. You just have to say “Hey diddle diddle,” and not only does everyone fill in the rest, but you get great images of superpowered bovine and anthropomorphic flatware to play with.

So often when I’m reading to the kids, I’m on the lookout for cartoon ideas. The above cartoon came from one Mother Goose marathon where, for whatever reason, “great fall” suggested the season instead of an action to me, and the above cartoon was born.

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About the Author: Mark Anderson’s cartoons appear in publications including The Wall Street Journal and Harvard Business Review. Anderson is the creator of the popular cartoon website, Andertoons.com, where he licenses his cartoons for presentations, newsletters and other projects. He blogs at Andertoons blog.

Some businesses try to encourage early payments from customers by offering what are known as trade terms.  Typical trade terms might be 1/10/30.  Those terms mean that the buyer gets a 1% discount if paying within 10 days, and the balance is due in 30 days from the date of the invoice.

Sounds simple enough, right?

But I wanted to know if trade terms work in the real world, especially from the point of view of the company extending the trade terms.  So I asked John Mariotti, President and CEO of the Enterprise Group and formerly the CEO of Huffy Bicycles.  He’s had a lot of commerce experience, both as buyer and vendor.  Here’s what he had to say:

Question:  Why do vendors offer early payment discounts?

Mariotti: There are five reasons the vendor would be willing to offer a discount to encourage early payment:

• Companies want their money.  It sounds simplistic — but isn’t.  Getting paid early is important in business.
• They want their money ahead of other people.  The buyer may not have enough money to go around.
• The longer it takes, the greater the risk that something happens and you don’t ever get your money.  The earlier you get paid, the less risk.
• It helps you from the perspective of working capital.  The more money you have in hand, the less need to find working capital from other sources.
• It lowers your costs of borrowing and can even substitute for loans.  The more money you get in hand, the less you have to borrow. This is important in times when it’s hard to borrow money or interest rates are high.

Question:  Is there ever a downside to offering discounts for early payment?

Mariotti: Yes.  Consider:

(1) Discounts cost you money.  Again, it sounds obvious — but discounts add up. A 1% discount for monthly invoices amounts to 12% interest a year.  A 2% discount, as some companies offer, would amount to 24% interest.

(2) Look out for the “double whammy.”  If you are having trouble getting a buyer to agree to a price increase, you might attempt to negotiate by offsetting the increase with an early payment discount. But the customer may squeeze you over price AND expect the discount — and still pay you later.

Question:  Are there any other advantages to offering early payment discounts?

Mariotti: Sometimes those who plan to sell their companies will offer early payment discounts to help reduce their DSO (days sales outstanding) number.  This could make the company appear more attractive to acquirors.

Question:  Now for the big question:  do early payment discounts actually work?

Mariotti: In my experience, many customers take the discount and still pay later.

If that happens, you may not be able to do much about it.  You can call them and try to jog the payment.  Penalties usually don’t work. You can try to charge the customer back to recover the discount, but then it becomes a confrontational negotiation and usually the penalty gets negotiated away in the end.

I’ve had the best response by going back to the buyer and saying “That wasn’t the deal we made. We’d like you to honor the deal you made.”  Sometimes that has an impact.

If you must go back to enforce the terms, the way to do it is to call and talk to a human being.  The second best approach is an email to someone you’ve previously spoken with, requesting them to intercede on your behalf.

Question:  What would you advise a small business?  Should they ask for early payment trade terms?

Mariotti: First I’d assess the situation. What is the prevailing practice in your industry?  Are competitors offering discounts?  Do customers expect a discount or not?

If you discover that a discount is expected, then a modest discount of 1% makes sense in most industries.

Some customers normally pay late –- so by offering an early payment discount you also are raising the issue of the time value of money up front.   And that’s a valid issue.

If the prevailing terms in your industry are to pay in 30 to 45 days, be sure to build that into your plans. Sometimes you build it into a price negotiation. You say, “Instead of charging an 8% increase, I’ll knock that down to a 6% increase and also offer you a 1% discount if you pay early.”

And always document the terms, even if just in an email exchange. If there’s a change in personnel at the other company, that documentation will be needed.

Question:  Is a discount of 10 days realistic?

Mariotti: 10-day discounts are usually not going to happen, unless the buyer has electronic funds transfer capabilities. The practical aspects of cutting checks and mailing them makes a payment in 10 days unrealistic.  Consider 15 days instead.

Question:  What about the situation where a small business is selling to a large corporation? Would you offer a discount?

Mariotti: No.  If I were selling to WalMart, my pitch would be, “WalMart, you can borrow money cheaper than my company — why don’t we just agree on 15-day terms and I’ll reflect that in my pricing?  Otherwise, I have to borrow at a higher rate than you – and also reflect that in my pricing.”

Most large corporations are good for payment.  Don’t waste your cash discounts on the highly solvent companies, but rather on the companies you’re nervous about.

Question:  You’ve given a lot of advice.  What points would you like to close with?

Mariotti: I’d like to emphasize 3 points above all:

• It is always good to get your money sooner.
• In case of noncompliance, fall back on the ethics:  “That’s the deal we made.”
• Beware of the double whammy, which is where the customer takes the discount and you still don’t get paid any sooner.

Thank you, John Mariotti.

Editor’s note:  this article was originally published at the OPEN Forum.

Facebook has come a long way since its inception. No longer just a site for college kids, Facebook has created some amazing advertising opportunities for SMB owners to take advantage of. And those opportunities have become even more powerful with the creation of Facebook Fan pages.

Facebook Fan pages allow you to officially represent your business on Facebook. You get to give your “fans” and customers a unified place to hold conversations about you, to get updates on what you’re doing, interact with you, and connect with other people who are “just like them” and love your products.

Here are some quick steps for how to create your Facebook Fan page to get the most out of it.

1. Set it up: First head to the Pages screen to get started creating yours.
2. Select your category/title: For most, you’ll want to click the Local option and select the appropriate category from the drop down menu. On the same screen, you’ll be prompted to give your page a title. This should be the name of your business, with keywords included when possible. For example, if the name of your wedding boutique is Stella’s, you can get away with titling your page [ Stella’s Wedding Boutique]. These pages will rank in the search engines, so keywords are your friends.
3. Add a profile picture: These photos are quite larger than the profile pictures for personal pages, so pick something that will translate well. It can be a logo, a personal photo, a photo of your storefront, etc.
4. Add company information: In this step you’re going to add all your basic store information, the same you would if you were filling out a Google Local profile or business listing.  Include your name, URLs, date the company was founded, an overview of what you do and your mission statement.
5. Build it out: Make your page stand out and unique by adding engaging content via your Tabs that that will attract users and keep them coming back to your page. That means adding videos, photo galleries, importing your blog, useful Facebook applications, incorporate coupons, etc.
6. Publish your page: Find the publish button. Hit it.
7. Find Fans: Once you’re all set up, become a fan of the page yourself. Then, send it to your colleagues and friends and invite them to Fan the page, as well. Do a search on Facebook for what you do and look for people in your area or networks who list it as an interest.
8. Advertise the page (!): Once the page has been built and Fans have been found, get the page (and your company) more exposure by using Facebook’s ad program to drive more people to the page. Facebook has an incredibly powerful ad program that I would recommend all SMB owners look into. Because of the personal nature of Facebook, users enter in all sorts of important buying information. They tell you how old they are, where they live, what they’re interested in, favorite bands, likes, dislikes, etc. The Facebook ad program allows you to target your ads based on ALL of this information. That means if you sell wedding gowns, you can set it so that your ads only appear for people between a certain age, who live within 20 miles of your store and who are currently listed on Facebook as being engaged. You can’t beat that kind of targeting.

Twitter isn’t the only social media powerhouse that small business owners should be aware of. By using Facebook’s Fan pages and combining it with their ad program, the social site gives business owners a HUGE opportunity to drive people to their pages, build brand recognition, keep customers updated on the latest happenings, and get them inside your stores.

Welcome to July, folks. We’re now officially knee deep in summer. That means along with the BBQs and sunburns, you’re probably also facing sluggish sales and a loss of in store face time with customers. As happens every year, warmer weather means people are spending more time at the beach and less time making heavy buying decisions. It’s the summer lull and there’s nothing you can do to combat it.

Or is there?

As an employee, I always loved summers in business because it meant the store grew quieter and the workload all but stopped. But as an employer, that same situation can be a little terrifying. However, it’s important not to panic. Instead, use this natural lull to revitalize, revisit and plan for the future.

Here are some ways to combat and tackle the quiet summer months:

Go to camp: Last week Seth Godin offered some great advice for business owners, telling them how summer camp could change their life. The same way it inspired and changed you as a child, summer can change you as an adult. If the summer months are typically slower, invest some of that time elsewhere and in other actions that will help you to grow your business. Learn a new skill, take a class, find a barcamp to help immerse yourself in your industry, form a Tweetup to make new friends and strengthen industry ties, etc. The knowledge and connections you gain during these months will make you stronger and more powerful once the cooler weather hits and things pick up again.

Create cross promotion incentives: Unless your business is summer-oriented, things typically slow down for everyone during the warmer months. That makes it the perfect time to band together with complementary local businesses and find ways to cross promote. Create new partnerships that will allow you to trade services and share referrals to create new incentives for customers. If you’re a bakery, find a local sporting arena or community theater and ask them to sell your cupcakes at their concession and offer to give coupons or notices about their events in return. If you’re a landscaper and your business is booming, hand out flyers for winter service companies to get people thinking early. If the recession has taught us anything it’s that people band together in hard times.

Do something crazy: You know that marketing strategy you wanted to try in December but you didn’t have time? Or that product you’ve been waiting to test? The local seminar you wanted to try and organize for your community? Now is the time to do that. When things get you slow, you have the best reason to experiment and try things you normally wouldn’t have had time to risk. The smaller group of folks now in your store make up the perfect focus group. Release that product and see what the reaction is. Hold a big in store event to get people interacting with you again. Try your hands at creating a viral sensation. Right now you have the time to brainstorm and implement things you won’t necessarily be able to fit in a few months from now. Use it.

Get more social with your brand: Similar to doing some crazy, now’s the perfect time to start experimenting with social media and to create your social media business strategy. Set up that Twitter account, create the Facebook Fan pages, and film those customer retention YouTube videos, etc. If things are getting slow, occupy that time with new activities that could strengthen your company in the long haul. We all have whiteboards of things we can’t wait to do if only we had time…now you have that time.

Research new forms of marketing: Break out of your current promotional bubble and look for new opportunities. Keep an eye out for new speaking opportunities, write articles to appear in industry publications, start making new connections with local media, and get a little bit aggressive with your promotional tactics. The media has a tendency to get a little “soft” in the summer months, help give them content to stand out among all the fluff pieces about summer festivals and events. They’re hungry for it and if you can pitch them a great story about your company, they’ll very likely take it. These types of activities will also help build your place as an expert long after the leaves begin to change colors again.

I’ve seen many small businesses let their spirits die due to the summer slump. Don’t take that mind set. Instead, use this time to try out new strategies, create new relationships and build momentum that will take you clear into the Fall. What are some of your avoiding the summer slump suggestions?

Not so long ago, Yelp received quite a bit of attention when they began allowing business owners to respond to reviews left on the site. It was something SMB owners and others had been salivating for. And for good reason. Review sites and local search have changed the way your customers are discovering you and helping them make important purchasing decisions. If your company is who your customers say it is, then these online reviews play a pretty crucial part in giving them that voice.  And you need to be listening.

Let me share a quick story.

A good friend of mine was recently researching movers as she’ll be moving into a new home this weekend. Just like your own customers are prone to do, she started off by performing a local search in Google. That search presented her with a Google 10-pack, listing the names of ten moving companies, their phone numbers, URLs and links to existing customer reviews. She started from the top, clicking on the review for the moving company listed first in the search. The listing had one review — it was negative, citing several customer service complaints. It was the only review on the page and the company in question never bothered to respond. That company immediately lost the sale.

Online reviews often act as immediate, in-the-moment customer testimonials for your company when someone is trying to make a decision. They can help with search engine rankings and work to establish trust and brand recognition. You need to be monitoring your online reviews so that you can be proactive about managing them.

Know where your customers are leaving reviews

Your first step to managing online reviews is to know where people are leaving them. For most small businesses, this simply means covering the basics. You want to focus the bulk of your attention on the bigger name sites, as this is where most of your customers will naturally be hanging out and it will help you avoid spending too many hours trolling around the Internet.

I’d recommend monitoring these sites for online reviews:

• Google Local
• Yahoo Local
• CitySearch
• InsiderPages
• Yelp
• BOTW Local

Reviews on these sites are also the ones most often aggregated by other search engines. By addressing them head on, you’ll get double the benefit and visibility.

You should also check for any large niche review sites by doing a search for [industry name + review]. You may find that your industry has its own, very active niche sites. [For example, if you’re in the travel industry, you’ll want to check sites like Trip Advisor.] It’s very important that you monitor the sites most important to your industry as these sites will often have the most credibility for your niche.

Once you know where people are leaving reviews, make it easy to continually track new brand mentions by automating the process as much as possible. If you’re on Yelp, use the option to subscribe to the page via RSS so that you’re alerted each time it’s updated. Set up Google Alerts to watch your name. Most sites make it really easy to get updates via RSS or email. You want to take advantage of this to help keep yourself in the loop.

What to do when you find a bad one

1. Breathe: Every company is going to generate a bad review from time to time. You can’t please everyone and some people simply enjoy spending their day kicking things. This is okay. Don’t freak out.
2. Familiarize yourself with the site’s TOS: Before you leave a comment, make sure the site is open to businesses responding to their own rules. Most won’t say anything that prohibits it, but it’s always in your best interest to know the guidelines. You don’t want to accidentally offend and have to apologize later. You want to make sure your response fits inside their rules.
3. Address the complaint. Calmly: Apologize for their bad experience, invite them back for another go and restate your commitment to making things right. It will very often appease the angry reviewer, but more than that, it shows anyone else who stumbles upon that review that you care. When my friend searched for that moving company, there was no response from the movers. Had they taken the time to offer some type of apology, a promise to do better, or reached out in any way, she very likely would have chosen them. It shows they’re listening.
4. Always take the high road: Never ever attack or respond defensively. You’ll do nothing but hurt your company and make the situation worse.

If you need some help, I recently detailed an extensive plan for how companies should respond to negative reviews. You may want to check that post out for a more extensive plan.

As social media continues to take off and the search engines are using reviews as a factor in their local algorithms, it’s really important that small businesses take the time to monitor what’s out there and help manage any negative reviews that may develop. As my friend helped show, it means nothing if your site shows up first for a query if a negative review is there to scare people away. And because many small businesses won’t see too many reviews, it only takes one or two bad ones to send wary customers flying in the other direction.

It’s easy to watch someone else get all the glory. All you have to do is stand and listen. But if you’re an entrepreneur who craves media attention, you may ask yourself, “Why isn’t that me in front of the camera?”

Molding your business into an industry and media darling takes time and planning. If you truly want free publicity, it’s up to you to start and maintain the process of becoming an industry leader. Here are three painless steps to begin.

1. Write a comment or rebuttal whenever you see an article regarding your industry or a situation that impacts on your business.

Articles are published in trade journals, local newspapers, state-based magazines, and on Web sites. Save each submitted comment in a Word or Notepad document, along with the publication’s name and date, to track what you’ve written and to also help you craft future responses.

I practice this consistently, which puts my name and business in front of reporters and other media groups who need expert comments in upcoming stories. The exposure has the potential to increase notoriety and revenue by a minimum of 30 percent each year.

2. Contact television and cable news producers with timely information that makes you their only choice for an interview. Also, watch local news events for opportunities to elevate your expertise.

What’s your specialty - fire safety, social media, personal security? Prepare to call morning show and segment producers, telling them about the valuable tips and new trends you want to share with viewers. Write and practice your 30-second pitch to get on the air.

Contacting show producers helped me secure appearances on CNBC, The Food Network, The Discovery Channel, New Jersey Network, and New York’s Fox Channel 5. Plan the timing and pitch for your on-air fame, which usually lasts three minutes but is worth every second.

3. Speak at trade and public events where your topic attracts many who attend and on-site sales.

Entrepreneurs who are passionate about their businesses can’t stay quiet. They yearn to share their knowledge, but they provide just enough to validate their expertise and motivate listeners to buy.

Making a commitment to follow these three actions will put you in the center of everyone’s radar when it’s time to stretch your 15 minutes of fame into a lifetime of success.

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About the Author: Shirley George Frazier is chief marketing officer at Solo Business Marketing, a professional speaker at worldwide business and marketing conferences, and author of Marketing Strategies for the Home-Based Business: Solutions You Can Use Today. Shirley twitters at @ShirleyFrazier and blogs at the Solo Business Marketing Blog.

So you have a product or service that you think is the greatest thing yet. You believe that people should really want it. And they will as long as you do a good job of explaining why. You think that sales is persuading and convincing.

Sales is really about matching your product or service with someone else’s needs. It’s not about trying to fit your product or service into their world, or about convincing them that they should have your product or service.

I see too many salespeople and small business owners who have this backwards. They think they are supposed to ‘sell’ their product/service.

That can be a costly mistake. If you aren’t paying attention to what your target market really needs or wants, you run the risk of putting something out there that they won’t buy. Consider the example set by Earvin “Magic” Johnson. After leaving the NBA, he bought an NBA store franchise that lost $200,000 before it closed. He had picked merchandise that he preferred, not that his customers wanted. He learned a valuable lesson that you can read more about in a CNNMoney.com article from June 16, 2009.

Because of that lesson, when he decided to partner with Starbucks and offer inner-city franchises to local entrepreneurs, they sell sweet potato pie instead of scones. As Dominique Hanssen, chair of the marketing department at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, puts it in the article, selling sweet potato pie instead of scones “shows customers that you’re trying to figure out how to serve them in new ways.”

You see, it’s not about what you find interesting or valuable. It’s about what your prospect base thinks is valuable. You have to know your target market well.  They aren’t going to buy what they don’t want. As “Magic” Johnson says, ‘the key is paying attention to customers.’

So, when you decide to hang your shingle, or go to work as a salesperson for someone, consider what your target market needs and wants. This understanding will not only help you determine your marketing message, but it will help you define WHO you should be targeting. When you get that figured out you will be able to find those people who need or want what you have to sell. The process will be relatively easy because you WON’T have to convince or persuade.

Remember that no one likes to be sold, but people do like to buy. So, educate them on what you have and why it is valuable. The people who should be buying your product or service will understand what you are telling them and they will see the fit. They will want what you have. That’s a good match.

Providing a service or product that others need or want will keep them coming back time after time. No matter what the economic conditions are, you can continue to succeed in business if you remember to consider your customers - what they really need and want; not what you want to sell them.

When you only focus on what you want to sell you will discover that it is harder to find people who want to buy it. If you, on the other hand, consider what your clients and prospects want and need, you can develop a message that speaks to how your product or service meets that need. It truly is about them, not you.

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About the Author: Diane Helbig is a Professional Coach and the president of Seize This Day Coaching. Diane is a Contributing Editor on COSE Mindspring, a resource website for small business owners, as well as a member of the Sales Experts Panel at Top Sales Experts.