Small Business Success Index

Index Score^*		Grade
SBSI INDEX	75	C
Capital Access	67	D+
Marketing & Innovation	70	C-
Workforce	79	C+
Customer Service	91	A-
Computer Technology	74	C
Compliance	90	A-
*Index score is calculated on a 1-100 scale.

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GrowSmartBiz 2010 Conference is on Nov 5 so Save the Date!

August 11th, 2010 :: Steven Fisher

Coming this fall is the second annual GrowSmartBiz Conference being held on November 5, 2010 at the Renaissance Hotel in Washington, DC. Last year Network Solutions launched this conference and it was MC’d by Alex Orfinger of the Washington Business Journal. This year the Washington Business Journal is partnering with Network Solutions to make this a bigger and even better event than last year.

We listened to your feedback and this year we also plan to have multiple content tracks to really take this event up a notch. If you are interested in reserving your booth space before August 27, call 703-258-0800.

Register Now!

Our GrowSmartBiz registration site is up and running! Tickets are $79 per person and if you want to bring a group of 10 the cost $69 per person or $690 for the group. You can register at http://washington.bizjournals.com/washington/event/27781

If you are curious as to the quality of content, here are some videos from the 2009 GrowSmartBiz Conference.

This is an event not to be missed. We will be announcing more in the weeks ahead so fill out the form below and we will let you know the details as they are announced.

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If you are curious as to the quality of content, here are some videos from the 2009 GrowSmartBiz Conference:

Tags: Alex Orfinger, GrowSmartBiz, Network Solutions, small business
Posted in Grow Smart Business Conference, Videos, small business | View Comments

Founders At Work: Max Levchin, PayPal

August 9th, 2010 :: Monika Jansen

The book Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston provides an educational, behind-the-scenes look at companies that began life as start-ups and exploded into huge companies. She interviews the founders of Hotmail, Apple, Yahoo, Trip Advisor, Firefox, and Adobe Systems, among many others, and lets them tell their stories: how they got started, the mistakes and smart decisions they made, what they wished they’d known, etc.

In her introduction to the book, Jessica says all of the founders she interviewed shared one quality: perseverance. That’s a trait most small business owners share, too. And because I like to learn from others (even while making plenty of mistakes on my own), I thought sharing insights from select founders each month on this blog might be fun. So here goes:

What you can learn from Max Levchin, Cofounder and former CTO, PayPal, launch date December 1998:

Throw out business ideas that aren’t working. Before PayPal became a web-based payment system, it offered a service for transmitting money via PDAs. When Max and his co-founder, Peter Thiel, realized everyone was trying to use the website, which was just a demo, for transactions, a light went off. Max and Peter made the decision to shut down the PDA service and focus on the web-based service.

If someone warns you about potential risks, listen to them. Max was warned about fraud from people in the banking and credit card processing systems. They did what they could to prevent fraud, but after 6 months, chargebacks started popping up. (I had no idea what a chargeback was, so I looked it up on PayPal’s website: Chargebacks occur when buyers ask their credit card company to reverse a transaction that has already been approved. Fraudsters game the system by requesting a refund on goods they purchased and received.) In no time at all, PayPal got swamped with chargebacks—to the tune of $10m in losses per month. Because the problem was so severe, Max ended up refocusing his time and energy on the fraud issue. PayPal had to hire investigators to help track down the sources of fraud, and he and an intern built an internal system called IGOR to finally bring chargebacks down to almost nothing.

What Max wishes they’d known. They had no idea that fraud would become such a huge issue and require so many resources—both time, money, and people—to combat it. As Max says in the book, they are basically a security company pretending to be a financial services company.

Free is a powerful tool to fuel growth. Because PayPal allowed non-members to receive money without being charged a transaction fee, growth went viral. The catch: once the money was sent to you, you got an email saying you had to become a member to actually retrieve it. Max said, “That’s the most powerful viral driver there is. Free money available to you.”

Endnote: Max has left PayPal and, like many serial entrepreneurs, he has moved on to found a new venture, Slide, which sells apps for Facebook. He is also the Chairman of Yelp.

Tags: Interview, PayPal, small business, Start-ups, viral marketing
Posted in Entrepreneurs, small business | View Comments

Preparing for the New 1099 Requirements for B2B Transactions

July 30th, 2010 :: Steven Fisher

If you are in business for yourself it is safe to say that you probably utilize sub-contractors for your own business or for a client project. In the past it was pretty straightforward – if the person was not a corporation, they were a 1099 contractor. Company to company or B2B transactions were filed with the IRS through an I-9 form but that was pretty much it.

New regulations (don’t you just love them?) have mandated that all B2B transaction must be filed with a 1099 form. Section 9006 of the massive Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act will mean yet another huge paperwork burden for your small business. I wanted to thank Bobbie Lee who wrote this great article on Entrepreneur.com on the details buried in the new Healthcare legislation.

Here are some excerpts:

“Beginning in 2012, all businesses will be required to prepare 1099s for all services and goods purchased from all vendors in excess of $600. Current law dictates that only services provided in excess of $600 must be reported via form 1099 and that corporations (with the exception of attorneys) are exempt from receiving 1099s.”

“Beginning in 2012, corporations will no longer be exempt, and purchases of goods must also be included. The passing of this legislation is an attempt by the government to close the $300 billion tax gap, which will help pay for health-care reform. So I guess it indirectly relates to the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act in which it was included.”

Depending on the industry, many businesses must collect, report and pay over a variety of excise taxes, as well. How much does all that cost your business in bookkeeping and payroll preparation fees? Now business owners must report all business-to-business transactions. So purchases your business makes from Staples, Office Depot and other vendors are included as reportable transactions.”

To read the full article with more details on the impact on small business, check out http://www.entrepreneur.com/money/taxcenter/taxpertisecolumnistbonnielee/article207404.html

Tags: Business, Health care, Internal Revenue Service, IRS tax forms, small business, Tax
Posted in Accounting and Taxes, Compliance | View Comments

How to Win Friends and Influence People

July 30th, 2010 :: Monika Jansen

The lessons and advice imparted in Dale Carnegie’s ground breaking 1936 book How to Win Friends and Influence People are as useful today as they were then. Think about the reasons we small business owners spend time and money on marketing, especially social media: We want to connect with current and prospective clients and convince them that they need our product or service. To do that, we need to know exactly how to connect with them, and this is where the book comes in.

The only way on earth to influence the other fellow is to talk about what he wants and show him how to get it. Dale Carnegie

Dale’s book is centered on one simple fact. People want to feel important. It’s just human nature. We like praise and hate criticism. Praise makes us feel important, while criticism makes us feel like losers. And, as Dale also points out in the book, we spend around 95% of our time thinking about ourselves. So, when you want to make someone do something, stop and think how you can make that person want to do it.

If there is any one secret of success, it lays in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from his angle as well as from your own. Henry Ford

My absolute favorite piece of sales advice, which speaks to Mr. Ford’s quote above, is that you need to show people how you can solve their problem, and they will buy from you. We all strive to do this, but do we always do it? Probably not.

The book is broken down into six sections, but I’m only covering the second and third, because I think are the most important. All of the following advice is common sense and highly applicable to most any situation (the final section, in fact, is titled Seven Rules for Making Your Home Life Happier).

Here are Dale Carnegie’s Six Ways To Make People Like You:

Show a genuine interest in people.
Smile! You’ll feel better and so will the person you are talking to.
Remember names. “A person’s name is to him (or her) the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”
Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves. After all, we are our own favorite subjects!
Discuss with the person whatever his or her interests are. Teddy Roosevelt use to study his guests’ favorite subjects before they’d visit him at his Oyster Bay estate on Long Island so he could talk knowledgeably about it with them.
Always make the other person feel important. Remember the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”? Make others feel important, appreciated, valued and be sincere when you do!

And here are 12 Ways To Win People To Your Way Of Thinking:

The only way to win an argument is to avoid one. Unless it’s a matter of life or death, let the person think they’re right, even if they’re not.
Show respect for someone else’s opinion. Don’t tell that person they’re wrong for having that opinion, even if you think it’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard.
If you’re wrong, admit it immediately.
Begin your persuasive argument in a friendly, not hostile or defensive, way.
Get the other person saying “yes” rather than “no” by emphasizing the things on which you agree. If you can, emphasize that you and this other person want exactly the same thing and that your only difference is method, not purpose.
Let the other person do most of the talking. (See #4 in the above section!) Don’t pretend you have all the answers. Let the person describe their business and problems to you, because they know these things better than you do.
Let the other person think that the idea is his or hers. Ask for his or her advice or help in solving a matter. Then you can gently steer that person in the direction you want them to go.
Play the devil’s advocate, and try to see things from the other person’s point of view, not just your own. Show that you understand that person, what they need, and what they want.
Be sympathetic to the other person’s ideas and desires. If you want to stop an argument, create goodwill, and make the other person listen attentively, say “I don’t blame you for feeling the way you do. If I were you, I’d feel the same way, too.”
Appeal to noble motives, such as honesty, fairness, and honor. Think about celebrities asking the paparazzi not to take photos of their young children. “Photos of me are fine, but please respect my baby’s privacy—there are too many creeps out there.”
Dramatize your ideas. The best Super Bowl ads do this. You might not like beer, let alone Bud Light, but after watching one of their funny commercials, you’ll certainly remember it.
Throw down a challenge. Everyone wants to show off the fact that they’re better than someone else.

Tags: Business Development, Marketing, sales, small business, social media
Posted in Business Development, Marketing, small business, social media | View Comments

New Kinds of Shared Office Space

July 28th, 2010 :: Steven Fisher

As someone who has had office space in all shapes and sizes there are a few things I have learned over the years:

Stay flexible because you can grow out the space (that is a good thing)
Don’t get space based on filling it at some point in the future (not a good thing)
Having a fussball tables does not mean your company is hip and cool (you decide)

In the past I have been in five year leases which are great if you are an established company that understands its needs. But if you are a new company or a rapidly growing company, staying nimble is essential to growing your business. For years the concept of the “Executive Suite” was a shared office space that you paid for to get a receptionist, a conference room and a professional presence to meet with clients. It is expensive and for many small businesses that are virtual, mobile and cost conscious, not an option. Those who know me know that I am a big fan of coworking. Coworking is were people pay a membership based on usage from walk-ins to full time tenants. It creates a very flexible and collaborative space but can be noisy or problematic if you have security needs (document storage, locking an office).

One other concept in between has been the office incubator that is for new companies to grow and hopefully graduate a program to go into a regular office space. While that may work for tech companies, many other business models, like retail have been at a disadvantage.

Recently, I came across this article in Entrepreneur magazine on this company called POOL Together that is a combination of a marketplace and business incubator. Here is an excerpt on the concept:

Brad Weinstock got the inspiration for POOL Together–a combination marketplace/small-business incubator–from other popular public markets and shared workspaces such as the Embarcadero in San Francisco, the Brewery in Los Angeles, and Pike Place Market in Seattle.

At its core, POOL Together is a business incubator. It offers local entrepreneurs affordable leases in a shared commercial space, and its owners provide assistance with business planning, marketing, space customization and cross-pollination as part of a comprehensive lease agreement.

You should start to see similar things like this in a city near you and if you haven’t this might be a whole new way to expanding your business. By owning the space and creating a community of small businesses around you.

Tags: Business, Business incubator, entrepreneur, Los Angeles, Pike Place Market, small business
Posted in Resources, Workforce, small business | View Comments

Women in Business: Marketing Strategy For Everyone! Part 2

July 26th, 2010 :: Monika Jansen

Because my friend Emily Richards of Drew Consulting, a full-service marketing consulting firm based in Falls Church, VA, had so much to say about marketing strategy and small businesses, I divided my interview with her into two parts. You can read Part 1 here.

Care to share a couple of success stories?

My client’s success is my success. I was brought in last summer to make recommendation on a project in Boston, MA for a residential construction client. The investors were ready to finalize the deal (and it goes without saying my client was as well). After we conducted our market research, the deal didn’t pencil. Our recommendation, while not popular, was to not pursue the deal. They reviewed our research and recommendation and killed the deal. It was a success for us in that while we didn’t provide our client with the information they were hoping to obtain, we contributed to ensuring they maintained a solid portfolio and didn’t compromise on a bad development decision.

Another was a strategy session for a start up client. They brought us in to conduct a session with their employees to ensure that everyone understood the purpose and direction of the company. At the time, the team was only about 10 people. As the session was conducted, you could see individuals making the connection of the business’s passion, their own individual purpose and how the two ‘fit together’. While this certainly didn’t have quantifiable results, the company has continued to grow successfully and is an incredibly close knit organization.

I’m always curious as to how other small business owners market their business. So, how do you market your’s?

Often, I find myself so entrenched in marketing other companies that I neglect the marketing of my own company. Most clients come by way of referral and word of mouth. We have begun branching out in traditional methods of marketing including, eblasts, social media campaigns and direct mail to companies in the area that are identified as growing/expanding companies that could potentially be in need of our services.

If you could give 3 pieces of advice to a small business owner putting together a marketing plan, what would they be?

1) Don’t neglect the exercise

I’ve seen start up businesses and established businesses, alike, fail to place importance on creating a formal business plan and strategy. It is difficult to express your vision and purpose if you haven’t taken the time to sit down and think through high level goals and objectives for your business. In my opinion, it could make or break your entire vision. These goals and objectives are the premise upon which we build strategies.

2) Be flexible (to the change and evolution of your original plan)

I had a client come to me last week and apologize. He wanted to make significant changes to a strategy he previously approved. While I certainly don’t encourage serial modifiers, you must be realistic that the strategy may (and will) change dependent on a myriad of factors within and out your of your control.

3) Be thoughtful (both in current objectives and long term goals)

Don’t haphazardly select strategy initiatives. Just because your largest competitor launched a twitter contest, it doesn’t mean you should (necessarily) go out and implement the same. If you were to replicate their campaign, what outcome would you wish to achieve? If you say ‘just because my competitor has a twitter campaign’ is rarely sufficient to jump in head first without thoughtfully contemplating your desired outcome and overall results.

Tags: Marketing, marketing plan, marketing strategy, small business, social media
Posted in Marketing, small business, social media | View Comments

How to Strengthen Your Brand

July 16th, 2010 :: Monika Jansen

Every year, Interbrand publishes a list of the best global brands (read more about their methodology here.) 2009’s best global brand was Coca Cola. If you have ever doubted the importance of branding, consider this: Coca Cola’s market value is $52.19 billion. Their market + brand value is $121.51 billion.

I’ll let you think about that for a bit.

So now that we’ve established how crucial strong and favorable brand recognition is, let’s step back and define “brand”. It’s how your audience feels about you, your company, your products, and your services, and it includes both tangible and intangible factors.

The best brands share the same attributes.

Distinct
Bold
Address clear needs
Evolve
Connect with the audience and inspire emotion
Indicate the company is the best at something
Eye-catching but simple logos

Think about your company’s brand for a minute. Does it do any of the above? If not, it might be time to focus some attention on strengthening your brand. Here are some new trends to keep in mind while you rework things.

Customer-driven. Make sure your customers are the focus of everything you do and that all decisions are based on their wants and needs.

Sustainability/social responsibility. If you incorporate green practices in your business, include it in your marketing. No green washing, though!

Multi-modal engagement. This just means you need to reach your customers in as many ways as possible, especially via social media, which, of course, you already know.

Private labels. Creating a private label for your products, just as grocery stores and clothing retailers have done, is a great move. The higher the quality, the more sought-out they will be.

Simplification. Focus on your core business and forget about any product or service lines that do not support it.

Emotional connection. This is one of those intangible factors that are so important to have but hard to get. You’ll gain connections via excellent customer service, memorable marketing campaigns, and high quality products and service that deliver above and beyond expectations.

Breaking against “type”. Go against the grain in your industry and do things differently. You’ll definitely stand out.

Concise and plain language. My favorite trend! Forget the industry jargon, the SAT words, and the complicated sentences that leave readers scratching their heads. Your customers speak plain English, just like you do. Write that way.

Tags: brand recognition, Branding, logos, Marketing, small business, social media
Posted in Branding, Marketing, small business | View Comments

The 4 Different Types of Press Releases And Where to Distribute Them

July 7th, 2010 :: Monika Jansen

Thanks to the popularity of social media and blogging, I think public relations often gets overlooked by small business people. It’s too bad, because well-written press releases that contain valuable information and are distributed via the appropriate channel can go a long way in spreading the word about your business. The argument that you don’t have time to write and distribute one more thing is a cop-out, because you don’t. Just re-publish stuff you’ve already written about on your blog, in your newsletter, and on the polls/surveys/research you’ve conducted.

The best part of public relations these days is the proliferation of online distribution services happy to do the work for you so your press release doesn’t get lost in the shuffle. Just match your press release to the appropriate outlet listed below, and you’re good to go.

Significant Findings

You’ll want to distribute any huge news via Newswise. They specialize in knowledge-based news content and are the go-to news source for journalists and media professionals. The press releases they distribute include research results, feature pitches, and breaking news. If your biotech company discovered the cure for cancer, this is where you’d announce it. And you will want to limit what you submit to this site anyway; at $500 a pop, it isn’t cheap.

General

Press releases that are of a more general nature—a new product release or service offering, a change in leadership, significant new clients, success stories—would be distributed through PR Newswire. They have a really broad reach and deliver press releases to the print and broadcast newsrooms, journalists, bloggers, financial portals, social media networks, Web sites, content syndicators and search engines. They charge $100-300 per press release.

Viral

If you’d like your press release to go viral—and really, who wouldn’t?—send your valuable, content-packed release to WiredPRNews. Even though a lot of companies like to say their service is unique, theirs really is. They use SEO to make press releases more visible to search engines, making it more likely that your press release is read and shared by a lot of people. And they only charge around $25/press release.

Social Media

Press releases that include a multi-media component—photos, videos, MP3 audio—are more likely to make it onto the social media circuit. Distribute those via Marketwire, which specializes in multi-media press releases and even offers a monitoring service so you can track the effectiveness of your release. Pricing varies depending on the services you choose to use.

Photo courtesy of Crittz/Flickr.

Tags: Marketwire, multi-media press releases, Newswise, online distribution, PR Newswire, public relations, seo, small business, Wired PR News
Posted in Marketing, small business | View Comments

Women in Business: Video Marketing Can Really Deliver Results

July 2nd, 2010 :: Monika Jansen

Way back in January, I published a blog post on video marketing based on a conversation I had with Jessica Piscitelli, videographer extraordinaire and owner of www.capture-video.com. She’s a film school grad and worked in the movie industry in NYC until she realized that the exhausting, chaotic movie business was not for her. Jessica now produces videos for promotion, training, and SEO and lives a slightly more sane life. She and I have become friends, and she even roped me into joining the board of a local non-profit.

Because social media and video marketing are very important for SEO, I thought another blog post that focused more on her business would be useful and interesting.

Why did you decide to go into business for yourself? How long have you been in business?

When I started working in corporate video [for another company], I was basically their do-it-all solution. In other words, I ran the camera, edited the video, and made the, ahem – dating myself – master VHS tapes. I frankly just thought that since I was doing everything, I should be my own boss. I didn’t realize there was a lot more involved. That was 1999. I have since learned a lot about managing and growing a business that I wish I had known then!

Why do your clients decide to use video marketing as part of their marketing mix?

Because it is useful. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. A moving picture is priceless. What does your product do? How do your services work? Who is being helped by your non-profit? All of these kinds of questions can be answered very clearly and concisely with a video.

Tracking ROI from marketing in general and social media specifically can be a challenge. There is no perfect answer for tracking ROI, but clients have come to me with specific goals in mind that were trackable. I had a client who wanted to get a certain number of clicks on a video we posted to YouTube. That was easy to monitor because YouTube tracks video “plays.” I had another client who wanted a certain number of people to click through to their website after watching or finding their videos. With Google Analytics or similar tools, it is possible to see where a viewer landing on your page came from and how many of them got there from various video posts.

Care to share the results of some of your most successful videos?

Wetlands Studies and Solutions:

The problem WSS was having involved explaining to a neighborhood association what their area would look like after stream restoration. Restoration is a long and ugly process, and people in areas where it is being done are often unhappy about it. Over a period of months, we captured the changing landscape – before, during, and after, as well as a full growing season later – and put together a video demonstrating exactly what you could expect from the stream restoration in your area over time. Of course, the improvements really are worth the process.

Georgetown University:

GU wanted to educate students on campus about the recycling program and facilities available on campus. They decided to put together a video using students to explain the benefits of recycling. Though not technically a viral video, as it was disbursed internally, the video was made like a student production – and it had the same kind of peer-to-peer energy.

GreatVenisonCooking.com:

A new website was launching to help hunters prepare their meat. The problem with venison is that the quality of the meat is determined during the process of field dressing. There is not much out there to teach people how to field dress a deer, and so a video showing those steps was not only a great educational tool, but also a great draw for the website.

“I do think having the video adds credibility to our site; more than words, it positions us as experts on our subject matter. Having a short video is a great way to share some expertise and connect with the target audience…people automatically trust you more if they’ve seen your face and heard you speak. It’s a great and easy tool to use.” – Susan Rose, GreatVenisonCooking.com

Tags: Marketing, search anaylitics, seo, small business, social media, video marketing
Posted in Marketing, Search Marketing, small business | View Comments

Startup Fever with Six Million New Startups in the US in 2009

June 22nd, 2010 :: Steven Fisher

Six million. Wow. I heard this on a Marketplace podcast (you should subscribe to it if you don’t) that talked about this report out today from the Kauffman Foundation. It it they stated that start-ups hit a 14-year high in the middle of last year.

That is a big number and they got their core data from self-employment stats the Census Bureau and the Labor Department publishes, and sure enough, 2009 was a stellar year. It revealed that more than half-a-million people started their own businesses each month. And that is up nearly 5 percent from the previous year.

This is one of those numbers that confirms two things – people start businesses in recessions and that the United States is a startup nation. Granted, this number was up due to higher unemployment but it shows us that when we are faced with a new challenging situation we won’t sit still. In fact, many new entrepreneurs I have talked to looked at their layoff with a severance package as the final kick in the pants they needed to start their business and achieve a life long dream.

One of the big trends in this report is that many of these people are part of the emerging Homepreneur trend which Emergent Research covered in a recent report. Even though they might be small, these small business are the engine of job growth in the United States.

Here are some highlights from the findings:

Groups ramping up startups include African Americans and folks 55-64.
Advantages include: cheap talent, cheap rent, reduced competition.
Failure rate stable as in other years: 50% in the first 5 years.
Small business credit cards cost more than before – a 14% increase vs. the consumer increase of 2.5%
Small business credit cards not protected by new consumer protection laws passed by Congress

I am excited to see more startups that have launched with no equity out the door, or by early revenue from solid deal flow that helps them grow organically. Since they have built their business in a tight credit market not getting capital has forced them to work with what they have instilling a discipline that will serve them well.

Thinking About Becoming an Entrepreneur or Taking Your Business to the Next Level?

We have two great resources you should check out – the Small Business Success Index and “The Rise of the Homepreneur“.

“The Rise of the Homepreneur” which discusses the findings of the report “Homepreneurs: A Vital Economic Force” which is a new report published by Emergent Research, a small research and consulting shop in Lafayette, Calif. “We’re seeing more and more home-based businesses that are real businesses,” says Steve King, who coauthored the new report with Carolyn Ockels. To prepare the report, they analyzed U.S. Census data and Small Business Administration research, along with data from our very own Small Business Success Index, a survey of 1,500 companies sponsored by Network Solutions and the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.

The Small Business Success Index™ (SBSI) is in its third wave of the report, sponsored by Network Solutions® and the Center for Excellence in Service at the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business. To download a copy of the Small Business Success Index and also find out how your business scores on the six key dimensions of small business success, visit www.growsmartbusiness.com.

Tags: African American, Business, Kauffman Foundation, small business, small business administration, United States, United States Census Bureau, University of Maryland College Park
Posted in Business Development, Capital Access, Entrepreneurs, Raising Capital, Resources, Workforce, small business | View Comments