Small Business Tips and Ideas - BizSieve.com

The Challenges of Starting a Consulting Business

As in any case, starting a consulting business isn’t easy. It takes a certain character, drive and passion to be able to stick through the roughest of times. Starting a consulting business, however, is very different from simply being a consultant at a firm. At that point, you are no longer an employee – you are a business owner in charge of clients, business operations, finances, and much more. Consider these 3 obstacles before getting started.

“Strong expertise and solid reputation do not guarantee success in the consulting business. Never make the mistake in believing that your reputation can sell itself on auto-pilot mode and that you can simply sit and wait for work. As a consultant, you need to aggressively sell your product – you!” – PowerHomebiz.com

Getting Clients

The first hurdle you’re likely to encounter is getting clients. This is a difficult task, as it could take years to build a strong, profitable client base. However, coming into this business, you have likely had experience with clients via your old or current job. This will be a great starting point in tackling this first step of the process.

Old clients: Clients that are no longer with your current or old firm are your best starting place. Because they no longer have an attachment, it should be a non-issue to contact them in regards to your own business.
Partnering: You can consider partnering with your current or old company. If you’ve had great recommendations from clients and an excellent track record, you can make a case for why the two companies should come together, in a long distance working relationship. This will help with name recognition, as well as client attraction.

Being Unique

In any business, it’s a struggle to be unique. It seems as though everything has already been done, so it can be hard distinguishing yourself in a sea of other consultants. Regardless, there are a number of ways you can be sure to stand alone that is both effective and beneficial.

Be diverse: Don’t just do business consulting, change up your range of services so you will appeal to a larger audience. Some companies may need help with more than one issue, and you’ll be the person that can fix that.
Be open: While you may not advertise certain services, it’s critical that you are open to various needs. If a client is looking for you to aid in something different, consider it before saying no. This makes for a happy client, and great referral.

Marketing Yourself

One of the toughest transitions may be adding marketing to your list of duties. If you’ve worked in a well known firm, they have marketing and years of experience in place to attract new clients. You, on the other hand, have minimal experience as a business owner and perhaps very little experience in the field of marketing. Luckily, the online world makes it a cinch for newbie marketers to get their business out there.

Social media: You are already on Facebook and Twitter, so just cater them to your business or start new accounts. Be active, engage with potential customers or old clients, and build your reputation.
Email marketing: If you have been able to compile a list of emails from current or old clients, begin your email marketing campaign. This is a very effective way to reach potential clients and get some word of mouth marketing.

There are many challenges you’ll face when starting your own consulting business. However, there are always techniques and tactics you can use to side step them. Becoming successful as a business owner is all about remembering, “When there’s a will, there’s a way.” So take advantage of networking opportunities and old relationships to start off on the right foot.

About the Author: Sara Fletcher is interested in emotional intelligence in leadership and understanding her DISC assessment. She loves to explore psychology, business, and sports in relation to eq tests.

Using Promotional Gifts in Your Marketing – Five of the Best

One of the best ways to create a positive brand impression is to hand out custom promotional items to your long term customers, or to people that visit your booth at trade shows. You don’t have to spend a fortune on promotional items. In most cases, your clients will appreciate even a small gift as a token of appreciation for their long term custom. If you’re not sure what sort of gift is appropriate, check out the following ideas:

1. Memory Sticks

This is probably one of the most useful promotional presents. You can never have too many memory sticks. A small memory stick with your logo on it won’t cost you a lot of money, but the recipient will appreciate it. It will end up in their jacket pocket or laptop bag, and will probably get passed around the office as a handy way to transfer files.

2. Branded Mugs

People love branded mugs. They’re another one of those promotional presents that falls into the “you can never have too many” category. No matter how many branded mugs are already floating around the office, if you send a couple out to your best clients, they will end up getting used for many years to come. The general rule for most offices I’ve ever worked in is: the more mugs there are in the office, the less often the washing up will get done.

3. Mouse Pads

Mouse pads are always handy. They may not get used in the office, but people will take them home to use in the study. Or, they might store them and pull them out when someone spills coffee on one of the old ones. People will appreciate a mouse pad as a promotional present, and they’re a nice one to consider because they’re flat, not particularly fragile, and easy to send in the post.

4. Branded Keychains

Branded keychains are small, inexpensive, and useful. Especially if you can make them dual purpose – for example, a keychain flashlight or bottle opener. There’s a good chance that the recipient will clip it on to their keys right away, so your brand will always be in their pocket.

5. T-Shirts

For some companies, t-shirts make brilliant promotional gifts, but for others they’re not such a great idea. If you work in an entertainment related industry, people will love getting promotional t-shirts, especially for a product that is either new, or not yet released. That sort of promotional present is one that people will wear with pride. The same is true for the sports industry – having a team t-shirt, or one with a supplement maker’s logo on it, is something that impresses a lot of people.

If you’re in a less glamorous industry, people might not think like that. Before you order 500 t-shirts with your company logo on them, stop and think for a moment. Would you wear one of those on a night out? If not, would you even wear one to the gym?

Image: ingermaaike2 / Flickr

The Beginner’s Guide to e-Commerce

In the current economic climate where employment opportunities can be scarce at best establishing a small business can seem like a tempting proposition. Being self-employed can free an individual from the endless process of job hunting and provide much desired independence.

However, establishing a business is not as straightforward as some may presume. There is a lot more involved in creating and managing a business than may at first be imagined. The owner of the company is not only responsible for day to day operations but also for managing the business itself.

A working business idea

In many respects coming up with a working business idea can be the most difficult part of establishing a new business. The majority of entrepreneurs approach this problem from one of two very different directions: having a business idea and creating a business based upon it or simply having the desire to create a business with a working business idea yet to be created.

Either way, caution should be exercised. In the first instance the prospective entrepreneur must ensure that there is a market for the business and that they do not simply press ahead with the idea based upon passion and emotion. This would be a sure route to failure.

In the second instance the prospective entrepreneur should ensure that the business idea that is adopted is of course viable but they should also ensure that they have sufficient knowledge and enthusiasm for the product. This is essential to succeed.

The basics of e-commerce

Once the newly established business has a product with which it can proceed, the next challenge is to create the infrastructure necessary to sell the product. This generally starts with a website. For more sound business cases this may involve designing and building a professional website or having one created on the business’ behalf.

If the desire is to simply test the water before committing significant resources many companies have found eBay to be a good starting point. Products can be advertised and sold on eBay for minimum investment and maximum return.

Of course the business should ensure that it has sufficient stock to be able to sell to clients, whether using eBay or a professional website. Moreover, the business should consider supplies of consumables including cardboard boxes, jiffy bags and other packaging. The business should also consider the creation of address labels, packing slips and invoices.

Business development

It is always a fine balance between failing to take advantage of a market and overreaching too soon. The business should be ready to take full advantage of the market if it is available and the sale of the product is successful.

However, the business should also ensure that the infrastructure is in place to support this expansion to prevent overreaching. The company should aim to expand progressively in a controlled and calculated manner. By doing so, the owner of the company can ensure continued success and this will allow the business to grow naturally.

Improve Your Business with an Online Survey

Information is one of the most powerful assets that a business owner has. The more you know about your customers and their needs and wants, the better equipped you are to serve them, and keep them loyal to your company. One of the best ways to gather information is by running regular online surveys.

Persuading your customers to fill out surveys can be difficult. Taking a business survey isn’t exactly the way that most people dream of spending their time, but if you provide a good enough incentive, most people would be willing to spend a couple of minutes providing you with the feedback you need.

To set up a good survey, you will need to work with your web systems development team. Ask them to create a short, easy to use survey, and some form of advertisement that is noticeable, but not intrusive. You want to entice your customers to click on the survey, not drive them away.

Designing Quality Surveys

There’s not much point in making your web systems development team invest time and effort into putting together a survey if the survey does not give you the information that you need. Before you put together a business survey, consider the following points:

What do you want to learn through conducting this survey?
Why are you running this survey?
How will the information you gather be used?

A good survey is one that produces information that can be easily analyzed. Asking people to write paragraphs of information about what they think of your company might make for interesting reading, but it is hard to summarize all of the feedback you get into easily understandable data.

Instead of asking your customers “What do you dislike about our product?”, offer questions that have simple yes or no answers, or answers that fit into simple bullet points – for example, ask your users to rate a list of attributes (price, size, performance, extra features) from most important to least important. This way, you’ll be able to tell at-a-glance what your users think is important.

Keeping People Interested

If your business survey is too long, difficult to read, or slow to load, then you may lose people before they complete the entire survey. Get your web systems development team to test the survey to make sure that it works in all of the main browsers, and that it’s easy to answer questions, move to the next page, and generally interact with the survey. Try to keep the survey short and simple. If you have dozens of questions per page, people may lose interest.

Picking the Right Audience

There are several ways to attract people to take part in your survey. The most valuable feedback will come from your existing customers. Invite them to take part in the survey by including a link in your regular email newsletter, or by promoting the survey on order pages on your website. If you need even more participants, you could promote the survey on your home page, but try to make sure that you don’t annoy people by pushing the survey with pop-ups every time they load a new page. Discrete advertisements are best.

About the Author: This post was written by James Harper on behalf of business survey and web systems development experts Xibis.

Interviewing 101: The Importance of Writing Thank You Notes

Chances are you were taught in college to send thank you notes after an interview. Many people brush off this tip, especially during their first jobs in fast food and other smaller jobs. However, thank you notes are not something to be taken lightly when it comes to landing a career. But, why? Why is a thank you note for an interview so important? Whether it’s to remind the company of your skills or to show professionalism, you need to remember this step. Let’s take a closer look at the importance of writing thank you notes.

Thank You Notes Serve as a Gentle Reminder

In this day and time, companies see hundreds of applicants for one job. Due to the poor economy, there is much more competition than there once was. One way you can stand out is by writing thank you notes. The note should thank the interviewer for his time and and briefly mention why you’re the best option for the job, without being too obvious. For example, you might say, “Thank you for taking the time to interview me last Thursday. I look forward to hearing from you and more thoroughly discussing the career. As a freelance writer with over six years of experience, I’m deeply intrigued by your company and the experiences the career has to offer.”

Thank You Notes Show Professionalism

Companies want employees who are professional in everything they do. Writing thank you notes shows interviewers that you are truly interested in the job and professional. It also gives you a chance to prove your communication skills, which are essential to most companies. It also allows you to stand out from your peers. Many people feel that this practice is outdated, but they’re wrong. Sending thank you notes to interviewers is one of the best things you can do after an interview to help improve your chances of getting hired.

Jobs, especially careers, aren’t as plentiful as they were 10 years ago or even 5 years ago. As someone looking for a career, you need to do what it takes to make yourself stand out from the crowd and get your name in front of the interviewer. One of the easiest ways you can do that is to send thank you notes. Whether you send an actual letter or email will depend on the type of company you’re interviewing for and how quickly the job will be filled. Regardless, this is something you need to do. It is even recommended that those offered the job before having a chance to send a thank you note, still send one that thanks the company for their time and offer.

About the Author: Armand Quintyne is a career counselor who makes sure all of his students know how to write resumes and thank you notes. He loves helping people find the resources to get a better education and often recommends sites like grantsforsinglemother.com and others to those looking to get ahead.

Image: betsyweber / Flickr